msd-core/gsd-core/workflows/ui-phase.md

Generate a UI design contract (UI-SPEC.md) for frontend phases. Orchestrates gsd-ui-researcher and gsd-ui-checker with a revision loop. Inserts between discuss-phase and plan-phase in the lifecycle.

UI-SPEC.md locks spacing, typography, color, copywriting, and design system decisions before the planner creates tasks. This prevents design debt caused by ad-hoc styling decisions during execution.

<required_reading> @~/.claude/gsd-core/references/ui-brand.md </required_reading>

<available_agent_types> Valid GSD subagent types (use exact names — do not fall back to 'general-purpose'):

• gsd-ui-researcher — Researches UI/UX approaches
• gsd-ui-checker — Reviews UI implementation quality </available_agent_types>

1. Initialize

_GSD_SHIM_NAME="gsd-tools.cjs"; _GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT="${RUNTIME_DIR:-$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)}"; GSD_TOOLS="${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}"; if [ -f "$GSD_TOOLS" ]; then gsd_run() { node "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; elif [ -f "${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/.claude/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" ]; then GSD_TOOLS="${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/.claude/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}"; gsd_run() { node "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; elif command -v gsd-tools >/dev/null 2>&1; then GSD_TOOLS="$(command -v gsd-tools)"; gsd_run() { "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; elif [ -f "$HOME/.claude/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" ]; then GSD_TOOLS="$HOME/.claude/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}"; gsd_run() { node "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; else echo "ERROR: gsd-tools.cjs not found at $GSD_TOOLS and gsd-tools is not on PATH. Run: npx -y @opengsd/gsd-core@latest --claude --local" >&2; exit 1; fi
INIT=$(gsd_run query init.plan-phase "$PHASE")
if [[ "$INIT" == @file:* ]]; then INIT=$(cat "${INIT#@file:}"); fi
AGENT_SKILLS_UI=$(gsd_run query agent-skills gsd-ui-researcher)
AGENT_SKILLS_UI_CHECKER=$(gsd_run query agent-skills gsd-ui-checker)

Parse JSON for: phase_dir, phase_number, phase_name, phase_slug, padded_phase, has_context, has_research, commit_docs.

File paths: state_path, roadmap_path, requirements_path, context_path, research_path.

Detect sketch findings:

SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH=$(ls ./.claude/skills/sketch-findings-*/SKILL.md 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)

Resolve UI agent models:

UI_RESEARCHER_MODEL=$(gsd_run query resolve-model gsd-ui-researcher --raw)
UI_CHECKER_MODEL=$(gsd_run query resolve-model gsd-ui-checker --raw)

Check config:

UI_ENABLED=$(gsd_run query config-get workflow.ui_phase 2>/dev/null || echo "true")

If UI_ENABLED is false:

UI phase is disabled in config. Enable via /gsd:settings.

Exit workflow.

If planning_exists is false: Error — run /gsd:new-project first.

2. Parse and Validate Phase

Extract phase number from $ARGUMENTS. If not provided, detect next unplanned phase.

PHASE_INFO=$(gsd_run query roadmap.get-phase "${PHASE}")

If found is false: Error with available phases.

3. Check Prerequisites

If has_context is false:

No CONTEXT.md found for Phase {N}.
Recommended: run /gsd:discuss-phase {N} first to capture design preferences.
Continuing without user decisions — UI researcher will ask all questions.

Continue (non-blocking).

If has_research is false:

No RESEARCH.md found for Phase {N}.
Note: stack decisions (component library, styling approach) will be asked during UI research.

Continue (non-blocking).

If SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH is not empty:

⚡ Sketch findings detected: {SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH}
   Validated design decisions from /gsd:sketch will be loaded into the UI researcher.
   Pre-validated decisions (layout, palette, typography, spacing) should be treated as locked — not re-asked.

4. Check Existing UI-SPEC

UI_SPEC_FILE=$(ls "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-UI-SPEC.md 2>/dev/null | head -1)

Text mode (workflow.text_mode: true in config or --text flag): Set TEXT_MODE=true if --text is present in $ARGUMENTS OR text_mode from init JSON is true. When TEXT_MODE is active, replace every AskUserQuestion call with a plain-text numbered list and ask the user to type their choice number. This is required for non-Claude runtimes (OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI, etc.) where AskUserQuestion is not available. If exists: Use AskUserQuestion:

• header: "Existing UI-SPEC"
• question: "UI-SPEC.md already exists for Phase {N}. What would you like to do?"
• options:
  • "Update — re-run researcher with existing as baseline"
  • "View — display current UI-SPEC and exit"
  • "Skip — keep current UI-SPEC, proceed to verification"

If "View": display file contents, exit. If "Skip": proceed to step 7 (checker). If "Update": continue to step 5.

5. Spawn gsd-ui-researcher

Display:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► UI DESIGN CONTRACT — PHASE {N}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

◆ Spawning UI researcher... (runs in a subagent — no output until it returns, ~1–5 min; expected, not a freeze)

Build prompt:

Read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-ui-researcher.md for instructions.

<objective>
Create UI design contract for Phase {phase_number}: {phase_name}
Answer: "What visual and interaction contracts does this phase need?"
</objective>

<files_to_read>
- {state_path} (Project State)
- {roadmap_path} (Roadmap)
- {requirements_path} (Requirements)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase)
- {research_path} (Technical Research — stack decisions)
- {SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH} (Sketch Findings — validated design decisions, CSS patterns, visual direction from /gsd:sketch, if exists)
</files_to_read>

${AGENT_SKILLS_UI}

<output>
Write to: {phase_dir}/{padded_phase}-UI-SPEC.md
Template: ~/.claude/gsd-core/templates/UI-SPEC.md
</output>

<config>
commit_docs: {commit_docs}
phase_dir: {phase_dir}
padded_phase: {padded_phase}
</config>

Omit null file paths from <files_to_read>.

Agent(
  prompt=ui_research_prompt,
  subagent_type="gsd-ui-researcher",
  model="{UI_RESEARCHER_MODEL}",
  description="UI Design Contract Phase {N}"
)

ORCHESTRATOR RULE — CODEX RUNTIME: After calling Agent() above, stop working on this task immediately. Do not read more files, edit code, or run tests related to this task while the subagent is active. Wait for the subagent to return its result. This prevents duplicate work, conflicting edits, and wasted context. Only resume when the subagent result is available.

6. Handle Researcher Return

If ## UI-SPEC COMPLETE: Display confirmation. Continue to step 7.

If ## UI-SPEC BLOCKED: Display blocker details and options. Exit workflow.

7. Spawn gsd-ui-checker

Display:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► VERIFYING UI-SPEC
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

◆ Spawning UI checker... (runs in a subagent — no output until it returns, ~1–5 min; expected, not a freeze)

Build prompt:

Read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-ui-checker.md for instructions.

<objective>
Validate UI design contract for Phase {phase_number}: {phase_name}
Check all 6 dimensions. Return APPROVED or BLOCKED.
</objective>

<files_to_read>
- {phase_dir}/{padded_phase}-UI-SPEC.md (UI Design Contract — PRIMARY INPUT)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS — check compliance)
- {research_path} (Technical Research — check stack alignment)
</files_to_read>

${AGENT_SKILLS_UI_CHECKER}

<config>
ui_safety_gate: {ui_safety_gate config value}
</config>

Agent(
  prompt=ui_checker_prompt,
  subagent_type="gsd-ui-checker",
  model="{UI_CHECKER_MODEL}",
  description="Verify UI-SPEC Phase {N}"
)

ORCHESTRATOR RULE — CODEX RUNTIME: After calling Agent() above, stop working on this task immediately. Do not read more files, edit code, or run tests related to this task while the subagent is active. Wait for the subagent to return its result. This prevents duplicate work, conflicting edits, and wasted context. Only resume when the subagent result is available.

8. Handle Checker Return

If ## UI-SPEC VERIFIED: Display dimension results. Proceed to step 10.

If ## ISSUES FOUND: Display blocking issues. Proceed to step 9.

9. Revision Loop (Max 2 Iterations)

Track revision_count (starts at 0).

If revision_count < 2:

• Increment revision_count
• Re-spawn gsd-ui-researcher with revision context:

<revision>
The UI checker found issues with the current UI-SPEC.md.

### Issues to Fix
{paste blocking issues from checker return}

Read the existing UI-SPEC.md, fix ONLY the listed issues, re-write the file.
Do NOT re-ask the user questions that are already answered.
</revision>

• After researcher returns → re-spawn checker (step 7)

If revision_count >= 2:

Max revision iterations reached. Remaining issues:

{list remaining issues}

Options:
1. Force approve — proceed with current UI-SPEC (FLAGs become accepted)
2. Edit manually — open UI-SPEC.md in editor, re-run /gsd:ui-phase
3. Abandon — exit without approving

Use AskUserQuestion for the choice.

10. Present Final Status

Display:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► UI-SPEC READY ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

**Phase {N}: {Name}** — UI design contract approved

Dimensions: 6/6 passed
{If any FLAGs: "Recommendations: {N} (non-blocking)"}

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

## ▶ Next Up — [${PROJECT_CODE}] ${PROJECT_TITLE}

{If CONTEXT.md exists for this phase:}
**Plan Phase {N}** — planner will use UI-SPEC.md as design context

`/clear` then: `/gsd:plan-phase {N}`

{If CONTEXT.md does NOT exist:}
**Discuss Phase {N}** — gather implementation context before planning

`/clear` then: `/gsd:discuss-phase {N}`

(or `/gsd:plan-phase {N}` to skip discussion)

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

11. Commit (if configured)

gsd_run query commit "docs(${padded_phase}): UI design contract" --files "${PHASE_DIR}/${PADDED_PHASE}-UI-SPEC.md"

12. Update State

gsd_run query state.record-session \
  --stopped-at "Phase ${PHASE} UI-SPEC approved" \
  --resume-file "${PHASE_DIR}/${PADDED_PHASE}-UI-SPEC.md"

<success_criteria>

• Config checked (exit if ui_phase disabled)
• Phase validated against roadmap
• Prerequisites checked (CONTEXT.md, RESEARCH.md — non-blocking warnings)
• Existing UI-SPEC handled (update/view/skip)
• gsd-ui-researcher spawned with correct context and file paths
• UI-SPEC.md created in correct location
• gsd-ui-checker spawned with UI-SPEC.md
• All 6 dimensions evaluated
• Revision loop if BLOCKED (max 2 iterations)
• Final status displayed with next steps
• UI-SPEC.md committed (if commit_docs enabled)
• State updated </success_criteria>