@mattfooosk/taste

Design upgrade for vibe-coded React apps. Installs 20 Claude Code subagents + a chosen theme from a 120-theme library into your repo. Refuses AI-default patterns at commit time.

Full mandate + rule catalog: github.com/frischermf/taste/blob/main/SLOP-BLOCKLIST.md.

Install + run

# one-off
npx @mattfooosk/taste init

# project-local
npm i -D @mattfooosk/taste
npx taste init

# global
npm i -g @mattfooosk/taste
taste init

You'll need Claude Code on your PATH (default) OR ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set — taste check (the pre-commit gate) uses one or the other to run the QA-conductor review.

What taste init does

1. Wizard — pick a base direction (from the 120-theme library or custom), name brand references, anti-references, a vibe sentence, optional URLs and reference images.
2. Ingest — fetches URL content and reads images to feed the Director as multimodal context.
3. Director synthesis — Anthropic call with the Director Feel-mode system prompt. Produces synthesized ethos, token plan, typography stack, full DIRECTION.md.
4. Writes — design-system/DIRECTION.md, .claude/agents/*.md (19 agents including brief-enforcer + cto + vp-architecture + vp-engineering), and appends a routing block to your CLAUDE.md (creates one if missing).

Existing files are never overwritten. --dry-run shows the plan without writing.

What taste init does NOT do (yet)

• Install + wire the runtime provider files — <ThemeAdminProvider>, <SectionRegistryProvider>, <TasteAdmin />, <TasteSection>. Those live in @mattfooosk/taste-react on npm as of 2026-08-13. init doesn't yet run npm install on your behalf or scaffold the wire-up code into your App.tsx — run npm install @mattfooosk/taste-react yourself and follow docs/TASTE_ADMIN.md. Full automation is phase 4 of the runtime extraction.
• Install a theme's runtime assets — init picks a theme and writes its DIRECTION.md, but the theme's tokens.ts / THEME.md / BUILD_BRIEF.md files aren't copied into your repo. Fetch them from the theme detail page via the "Copy for Claude Code" button.

The pre-commit gate

taste install-hooks wires:

• Pre-commit hook at .git/hooks/pre-commit → runs taste check --staged on every commit. Diff-scoped: only NEW slop hits introduced by the commit block. Pre-existing debt in hot files doesn't stop new commits; that's the nightly-sweep report's job.
• On-save hook via .claude/settings.json → runs taste hook-check on every Claude Code Write/Edit event.
• CI gate at .github/workflows/taste-review.yml → runs the pack on every PR.

Emergency bypass (logs the reason for weekly review): TASTE_SKIP_QA="<reason>" git commit. Never --no-verify — that leaves no audit trail.

Commands

• taste init — install the pack + a theme
• taste check — run the review loop against the current diff (called by pre-commit)
• taste apply — run the Director synthesis to generate / regenerate a DIRECTION.md
• taste review-site — walk every UI file and run the structural detectors (nightly sweep)
• taste install-hooks — install the pre-commit + on-save + CI gates
• taste audit — one-shot drift report against your existing repo (no install required)
• taste rule add / taste rule share — author + share slop rules
• taste harness * — theme-materialization + grading (advanced)
• taste status — show current install state
• taste reject "<pattern>" — append to .taste/feedback.md

The pack that ships

Orchestrator (1): qa-conductor

Craft reviewers (13): design-director, marketing-designer, motion-engineer, homogeneity-detector, audacity-director, media-curator, render-qa, art-director, brand-identity, brand-precedent, logo-designer, direction-curator, component-qa

Craft writers (1): design-systems-engineer

(upgrade-simulator is dogfood-only — powers the /try marketing surface at taste.dev; not part of the review loop customers run inside their own repo. Retired from the customer bundle 2026-08-09.)

Enforcer (1): brief-enforcer — fires per-diff on any section-source change when a matching themes/<slug>/BUILD_BRIEF.md exists

Exec auditors (3): cto (claim-vs-code), vp-architecture (install-story), vp-engineering (ship-readiness)

Full architecture: AGENTS_ARCHITECTURE.md.

License

Fair Source — free for personal use; commercial from $20/mo. See LICENSE (pending — see TODO).