diff --git a/GSD-STYLE.md b/GSD-STYLE.md
index fba6e4ff1..e508f3eae 100644
--- a/GSD-STYLE.md
+++ b/GSD-STYLE.md
@@ -313,10 +313,14 @@ Use subagents for autonomous work. Reserve main context for user interaction.
 
 ## UX Patterns
 
+**Visual patterns:** `get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md`
+
+Orchestrators @-reference ui-brand.md for stage banners, checkpoint boxes, status symbols, and completion displays.
+
 ### "Next Up" Format
 
 ```markdown
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 ## ▶ Next Up
 
@@ -326,13 +330,13 @@ Use subagents for autonomous work. Reserve main context for user interaction.
 
 <sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 **Also available:**
 - Alternative option
 - Another option
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 ```
 
 ### Decision Gates
diff --git a/commands/gsd/execute-phase.md b/commands/gsd/execute-phase.md
index 6ceda3254..65d3b91c0 100644
--- a/commands/gsd/execute-phase.md
+++ b/commands/gsd/execute-phase.md
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ Context budget: ~15% orchestrator, 100% fresh per subagent.
 
 <execution_context>
 @~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/principles.md
+@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
 @~/.claude/get-shit-done/workflows/execute-phase.md
 </execution_context>
 
@@ -108,11 +109,16 @@ After verification completes, route based on status:
 **Route A: Phase verified, more phases remain**
 
 ```
-## ✓ Phase {Z}: {Name} Complete
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► PHASE {Z} COMPLETE ✓
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
-All {Y} plans finished. Phase goal verified.
+**Phase {Z}: {Name}**
 
----
+{Y} plans executed
+Goal verified ✓
+
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 ## ▶ Next Up
 
@@ -122,14 +128,13 @@ All {Y} plans finished. Phase goal verified.
 
 <sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 **Also available:**
 - `/gsd:verify-work {Z}` — manual acceptance testing before continuing
 - `/gsd:discuss-phase {Z+1}` — gather context first
-- `/gsd:research-phase {Z+1}` — investigate unknowns
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 ```
 
 ---
@@ -137,13 +142,16 @@ All {Y} plans finished. Phase goal verified.
 **Route B: Phase verified, milestone complete**
 
 ```
-🎉 ALL PHASES COMPLETE!
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► MILESTONE COMPLETE 🎉
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
-## ✓ Phase {Z}: {Name} Complete
+**v1.0**
 
-All {N} phases finished. Phase goals verified.
+{N} phases completed
+All phase goals verified ✓
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 ## ▶ Next Up
 
@@ -153,14 +161,13 @@ All {N} phases finished. Phase goals verified.
 
 <sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 **Also available:**
 - `/gsd:verify-work` — manual acceptance testing
 - `/gsd:complete-milestone` — skip audit, archive directly
-- `/gsd:add-phase <description>` — add another phase first
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 ```
 
 ---
@@ -168,16 +175,20 @@ All {N} phases finished. Phase goals verified.
 **Route C: Gaps found — need additional planning**
 
 ```
-## ⚠ Phase {Z}: {Name} — Gaps Found
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► PHASE {Z} GAPS FOUND ⚠
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
-**Score:** {N}/{M} must-haves verified
-**Report:** .planning/phases/{phase_dir}/{phase}-VERIFICATION.md
+**Phase {Z}: {Name}**
+
+Score: {N}/{M} must-haves verified
+Report: `.planning/phases/{phase_dir}/{phase}-VERIFICATION.md`
 
 ### What's Missing
 
 {Extract gap summaries from VERIFICATION.md}
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 ## ▶ Next Up
 
@@ -187,13 +198,13 @@ All {N} phases finished. Phase goals verified.
 
 <sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 **Also available:**
 - `cat .planning/phases/{phase_dir}/{phase}-VERIFICATION.md` — see full report
 - `/gsd:verify-work {Z}` — manual testing before planning
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 ```
 
 After user runs `/gsd:plan-phase {Z} --gaps`:
diff --git a/commands/gsd/execute-plan.md b/commands/gsd/execute-plan.md
index 91c2cf450..f1bb882cc 100644
--- a/commands/gsd/execute-plan.md
+++ b/commands/gsd/execute-plan.md
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ allowed-tools:
   - AskUserQuestion
 ---
 
+<execution_context>
+@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
+</execution_context>
+
 <objective>
 Execute a single PLAN.md file by spawning the `gsd-executor` subagent.
 
diff --git a/commands/gsd/new-project.md b/commands/gsd/new-project.md
index 1e214267e..600f18a1b 100644
--- a/commands/gsd/new-project.md
+++ b/commands/gsd/new-project.md
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ This is the most leveraged moment in any project. Deep questioning here means be
 <execution_context>
 
 @~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/questioning.md
+@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
 @~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/project.md
 @~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/requirements.md
 
@@ -93,6 +94,14 @@ Exit command.
 
 ## Phase 3: Deep Questioning
 
+**Display stage banner:**
+
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► QUESTIONING
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+```
+
 **Open the conversation:**
 
 Ask inline (freeform, NOT AskUserQuestion):
@@ -291,7 +300,14 @@ Use AskUserQuestion:
 
 **If "Research first":**
 
-Display: `Researching [domain] ecosystem...`
+Display stage banner:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► RESEARCHING
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Researching [domain] ecosystem...
+```
 
 Create research directory:
 ```bash
@@ -304,6 +320,15 @@ Check if this is greenfield or subsequent milestone:
 - If no "Validated" requirements in PROJECT.md → Greenfield (building from scratch)
 - If "Validated" requirements exist → Subsequent milestone (adding to existing app)
 
+Display spawning indicator:
+```
+◆ Spawning 4 researchers in parallel...
+  → Stack research
+  → Features research
+  → Architecture research
+  → Pitfalls research
+```
+
 Spawn 4 parallel gsd-project-researcher agents with rich context:
 
 ```
@@ -343,6 +368,7 @@ Your STACK.md feeds into roadmap creation. Be prescriptive:
 <output>
 Write to: .planning/research/STACK.md
 Use template: ~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/STACK.md
+DO NOT commit. The synthesizer agent commits all research files together.
 </output>
 ", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Stack research")
 
@@ -382,6 +408,7 @@ Your FEATURES.md feeds into requirements definition. Categorize clearly:
 <output>
 Write to: .planning/research/FEATURES.md
 Use template: ~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/FEATURES.md
+DO NOT commit. The synthesizer agent commits all research files together.
 </output>
 ", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Features research")
 
@@ -421,6 +448,7 @@ Your ARCHITECTURE.md informs phase structure in roadmap. Include:
 <output>
 Write to: .planning/research/ARCHITECTURE.md
 Use template: ~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/ARCHITECTURE.md
+DO NOT commit. The synthesizer agent commits all research files together.
 </output>
 ", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Architecture research")
 
@@ -460,6 +488,7 @@ Your PITFALLS.md prevents mistakes in roadmap/planning. For each pitfall:
 <output>
 Write to: .planning/research/PITFALLS.md
 Use template: ~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/PITFALLS.md
+DO NOT commit. The synthesizer agent commits all research files together.
 </output>
 ", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Pitfalls research")
 ```
@@ -488,12 +517,32 @@ Commit after writing.
 ", subagent_type="gsd-research-synthesizer", description="Synthesize research")
 ```
 
-Display key findings summary to user from synthesizer output.
+Display research complete banner and key findings:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► RESEARCH COMPLETE ✓
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+## Key Findings
+
+**Stack:** [from SUMMARY.md]
+**Table Stakes:** [from SUMMARY.md]
+**Watch Out For:** [from SUMMARY.md]
+
+Files: `.planning/research/`
+```
 
 **If "Skip research":** Continue to Phase 7.
 
 ## Phase 7: Define Requirements
 
+Display stage banner:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► DEFINING REQUIREMENTS
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+```
+
 **Load context:**
 
 Read PROJECT.md and extract:
@@ -630,7 +679,14 @@ EOF
 
 ## Phase 8: Create Roadmap
 
-Display: `Creating roadmap...`
+Display stage banner:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► CREATING ROADMAP
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+◆ Spawning roadmapper...
+```
 
 Spawn gsd-roadmapper agent with context:
 
@@ -768,16 +824,23 @@ EOF
 Present completion with next steps:
 
 ```
-Project initialized:
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► PROJECT INITIALIZED ✓
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
-- Project: .planning/PROJECT.md
-- Config: .planning/config.json (mode: [chosen mode])
-- Research: .planning/research/ (if created)
-- Requirements: .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md ([X] v1 requirements)
-- Roadmap: .planning/ROADMAP.md ([N] phases)
-- State: .planning/STATE.md
+**[Project Name]**
 
----
+| Artifact       | Location                    |
+|----------------|-----------------------------|
+| Project        | `.planning/PROJECT.md`      |
+| Config         | `.planning/config.json`     |
+| Research       | `.planning/research/`       |
+| Requirements   | `.planning/REQUIREMENTS.md` |
+| Roadmap        | `.planning/ROADMAP.md`      |
+
+**[N] phases** | **[X] requirements** | Ready to build ✓
+
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 ## ▶ Next Up
 
@@ -787,7 +850,7 @@ Project initialized:
 
 <sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 ```
 
 </process>
diff --git a/commands/gsd/plan-phase.md b/commands/gsd/plan-phase.md
index d61a0c048..540d308b2 100644
--- a/commands/gsd/plan-phase.md
+++ b/commands/gsd/plan-phase.md
@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ allowed-tools:
   - mcp__context7__*
 ---
 
+<execution_context>
+@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
+</execution_context>
+
 <objective>
 Create executable phase prompts (PLAN.md files) for a roadmap phase with integrated research and verification.
 
@@ -103,8 +107,17 @@ ls "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-RESEARCH.md 2>/dev/null
 - Skip to step 6
 
 **If RESEARCH.md missing OR `--research` flag set:**
-- Display: `Phase {X}: {Name} — researching domain...`
-- Proceed to spawn researcher
+
+Display stage banner:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► RESEARCHING PHASE {X}
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+◆ Spawning researcher...
+```
+
+Proceed to spawn researcher
 
 ### Spawn gsd-phase-researcher
 
@@ -198,7 +211,14 @@ UAT="${PHASE_DIR}/${PHASE}-UAT.md"
 
 ## 8. Spawn gsd-planner Agent
 
-Display: `Phase {X}: {Name} — launching planner...`
+Display stage banner:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► PLANNING PHASE {X}
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+◆ Spawning planner...
+```
 
 Fill prompt and spawn:
 
@@ -278,7 +298,14 @@ Parse planner output:
 
 ## 10. Spawn gsd-plan-checker Agent
 
-Display: `Launching plan checker...`
+Display:
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► VERIFYING PLANS
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+◆ Spawning plan checker...
+```
 
 Fill checker prompt and spawn:
 
@@ -379,30 +406,38 @@ Wait for user response.
 
 ## 13. Present Final Status
 
-```markdown
-Phase {X} planned: {N} plan(s) in {M} wave(s)
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► PHASE {X} PLANNED ✓
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
-## Research
-{Completed | Used existing | Skipped (--skip-research) | N/A (--gaps)}
+**Phase {X}: {Name}** — {N} plan(s) in {M} wave(s)
 
-## Wave Structure
-Wave 1 (parallel): {plan-01}, {plan-02}
-Wave 2: {plan-03}
+| Wave | Plans | What it builds |
+|------|-------|----------------|
+| 1    | 01, 02 | [objectives] |
+| 2    | 03     | [objective]  |
 
-## Verification
-{Passed | Passed with user override | Skipped (--skip-verify)}
+Research: {Completed | Used existing | Skipped}
+Verification: {Passed | Passed with override | Skipped}
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
-## Next Up
+## ▶ Next Up
 
-**Phase {X}: [Phase Name]** - {N} plan(s)
+**Execute Phase {X}** — run all {N} plans
 
 `/gsd:execute-phase {X}`
 
-<sub>`/clear` first - fresh context window</sub>
+<sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
 
----
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+**Also available:**
+- `cat .planning/phases/{phase-dir}/*-PLAN.md` — review plans
+- `/gsd:plan-phase {X} --research` — re-research first
+
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 ```
 
 </process>
diff --git a/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md b/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8d45554ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
@@ -0,0 +1,160 @@
+<ui_patterns>
+
+Visual patterns for user-facing GSD output. Orchestrators @-reference this file.
+
+## Stage Banners
+
+Use for major workflow transitions.
+
+```
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ GSD ► {STAGE NAME}
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+```
+
+**Stage names (uppercase):**
+- `QUESTIONING`
+- `RESEARCHING`
+- `DEFINING REQUIREMENTS`
+- `CREATING ROADMAP`
+- `PLANNING PHASE {N}`
+- `EXECUTING WAVE {N}`
+- `VERIFYING`
+- `PHASE {N} COMPLETE ✓`
+- `MILESTONE COMPLETE 🎉`
+
+---
+
+## Checkpoint Boxes
+
+User action required. 62-character width.
+
+```
+╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
+║  CHECKPOINT: {Type}                                          ║
+╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
+
+{Content}
+
+──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+→ {ACTION PROMPT}
+──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+```
+
+**Types:**
+- `CHECKPOINT: Verification Required` → `→ Type "approved" or describe issues`
+- `CHECKPOINT: Decision Required` → `→ Select: option-a / option-b`
+- `CHECKPOINT: Action Required` → `→ Type "done" when complete`
+
+---
+
+## Status Symbols
+
+```
+✓  Complete / Passed / Verified
+✗  Failed / Missing / Blocked
+◆  In Progress
+○  Pending
+⚡ Auto-approved
+⚠  Warning
+🎉 Milestone complete (only in banner)
+```
+
+---
+
+## Progress Display
+
+**Phase/milestone level:**
+```
+Progress: ████████░░ 80%
+```
+
+**Task level:**
+```
+Tasks: 2/4 complete
+```
+
+**Plan level:**
+```
+Plans: 3/5 complete
+```
+
+---
+
+## Spawning Indicators
+
+```
+◆ Spawning researcher...
+
+◆ Spawning 4 researchers in parallel...
+  → Stack research
+  → Features research
+  → Architecture research
+  → Pitfalls research
+
+✓ Researcher complete: STACK.md written
+```
+
+---
+
+## Next Up Block
+
+Always at end of major completions.
+
+```
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+## ▶ Next Up
+
+**{Identifier}: {Name}** — {one-line description}
+
+`{copy-paste command}`
+
+<sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>
+
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+**Also available:**
+- `/gsd:alternative-1` — description
+- `/gsd:alternative-2` — description
+
+───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+```
+
+---
+
+## Error Box
+
+```
+╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
+║  ERROR                                                       ║
+╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
+
+{Error description}
+
+**To fix:** {Resolution steps}
+```
+
+---
+
+## Tables
+
+```
+| Phase | Status | Plans | Progress |
+|-------|--------|-------|----------|
+| 1     | ✓      | 3/3   | 100%     |
+| 2     | ◆      | 1/4   | 25%      |
+| 3     | ○      | 0/2   | 0%       |
+```
+
+---
+
+## Anti-Patterns
+
+- Varying box/banner widths
+- Mixing banner styles (`===`, `---`, `***`)
+- Skipping `GSD ►` prefix in banners
+- Random emoji (`🚀`, `✨`, `💫`)
+- Missing Next Up block after completions
+
+</ui_patterns>