Free tool · Apache-2.078K+ starsLocal-firstAny model

Claude Design, minus the bill. Running on your machine.

Someone open-sourced Claude Design. It's called Open Design, it has 78,000+ stars, and it runs locally on your computer with 150 design systems and 100+ skills built in. The sites it makes look better than the thing it's cloning — and you're not locked into one model or one usage limit.

Get the setup free Why it hits

You commented DESIGN — here's the repo, the setup, and five prompts to try. Free and open-source; you just bring the coding agent you already pay for.

Why it hits

It's Claude Design without the leash.

78K+GitHub stars, Apache-2.0

150design systems built in

100+skills, ready to run

22coding CLIs supported (or BYOK)

Local-first and private. A native app for macOS and Windows (Linux AppImage too). Your prompts and files never leave your machine. Zero telemetry, no cloud round-trip.
150 design systems, 100+ skills. Point it at a system like Linear and it generates on-brand from the first prompt. No blank-canvas fiddling.
Any model, no lock-in. Runs on Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kimi — 22 CLIs total — plus any OpenAI-compatible endpoint via BYOK. Draft on a cheap model, switch to Claude to polish. You never hit someone else's usage limit.
Real files out. Prototypes, live dashboards, decks, images, video and motion graphics — exported as actual HTML, PDF, PPTX and MP4, not screenshots of a canvas.

Setup · a few minutes

Download, point it at your agent, go.

The easy path is the desktop app — no Node, no cloning, no config. If you'd rather live inside your agent, there's a one-liner for that too.

The easy way

Download the desktop app

Grab it from open-design.ai (or the GitHub releases) — macOS on Apple Silicon or Intel, Windows on x64. Zero config. On first launch it auto-detects every coding-agent CLI on your PATH and loads all 150 design systems and 100+ skills. Then you just type a brief.

Optional · no GUI

Install it into your coding agent

Prefer to stay in your agent? One command wires Open Design in as an MCP server — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini, Kimi, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Antigravity, Hermes, Cline, Trae and more:

od mcp install claude    # or: codex | cursor | gemini | kimi | opencode …

# hosted equivalent:
curl -fsSL https://open-design.ai/install.sh | sh -s claude

!macOS gotcha: /usr/bin/od is Apple's octal-dump utility and can shadow Open Design's od command. If that bites you, copy the snippet from Settings → MCP server in the app instead — it uses absolute paths.

First run

Ask for something and watch it build

In the app (or straight inside your agent) just describe what you want. It picks the right skill, binds the design system you named, and renders the artifact in a sandboxed preview at localhost:7456 — downloadable as real source.

Use open-design to generate a landing page with the Linear design system

Download Open Design The repo on GitHub ↗Releases ↗

Try these first

Five prompts to see what it does.

Swap the brackets for your own thing. Start with the first one — naming a design system is what makes the output look designed instead of generated.

Prototype · start here

A landing page, on-brand from prompt one

“Use open-design to generate a SaaS landing page with the Linear design system: hero, three feature cards, pricing table, footer. Export as HTML.”

Live artifact

A dashboard you can actually click

“Build a live analytics dashboard with revenue, churn and MRR charts. Dark theme, responsive grid. Preview it at localhost.”

Deck · real PPTX

A pitch deck that exports properly

“Create a 10-slide pitch deck for an AI agency: problem, solution, market, traction, team, ask. Export as PPTX.”

Images

A brand image set in one go

“Generate a set of 5 brand images for a productivity app launch: consistent palette, one hero visual, four social crops.”

The money move

Cheap draft, premium polish

“Draft this portfolio site on Gemini CLI first. Then switch to Claude Code and refine the typography, spacing and motion to production quality.”

This is the one that saves you real money. Burn the cheap model on the first ugly version, then bring in the expensive one only for the pass that actually needs taste.

Straight answers

The honest FAQ.

Is it really free?

Yes. Apache-2.0 licensed, fully open-source at github.com/nexu-io/open-design. No paid tier, no trial clock.

Do I need an API key or a subscription?

Only what you already have. It rides on the coding agents installed on your machine (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor — 22 CLIs), or you bring your own key for any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. The tool itself charges nothing.

Is my stuff private?

Everything runs locally — your project files, skills and templates stay on your computer. No telemetry, no cloud round-trip, and previews render in a sandboxed iframe on your own machine.

Credit where it's due

I didn't build this one — it's by the team at nexu-io, open-source under Apache-2.0. Go star it. Build something with it and tag me on Instagram — I repost the good ones — or bring it to the weekly call on Skool.

Get the repo + setup guide

Drop your email and I'll send the repo link plus the full setup guide, including the model-switching workflow I use. Plus every other resource in the library.

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