Silver

Silver is a product-design framework built for working with AI agents. It gives a product team one local home for design work: the decisions behind it, the evidence that informed it, the design system it uses, the code and tools it connects to, and a clear record of what happened along the way.

Start a chat with an agent that can access your project files. Ask it to install Silver, then work as you normally would: define a product, explore a flow, make a prototype, check a design, prepare a presentation, or connect a design system and Figma. Silver gives the agent a shared project vocabulary and clear places to save the work. When work draws on a source, Silver records it so you can see where it came from later.

Silver does not replace Figma, your codebase, research tools, or the way your team works. It connects them deliberately. If a tool offers an agent connection (MCP), a command-line tool, or an API, an agent can use it when you give it the tool’s setup instructions. Silver records what is connected, what was used, and what still needs a human decision. It does not silently overwrite work in another tool or repository.

Whenever you are unsure where to begin or what to do next, just ask your agent: “What now?” Silver will look at the workspace’s current evidence, decisions, and open work, then suggest a small set of grounded next steps. It does not start any of them until you choose.

Install Silver

Silver 0.10 is distributed first as signed and Apple-verified macOS installer packages. This is the recommended option for most designers: install it once and the silver command is ready in any local project folder. Choose the package for your Mac from the Silver 0.10 release:

| Your Mac | Download | | --- | --- | | Apple Silicon (M-series) | Silver-0.10.0-macos-arm64.pkg | | Intel | Silver-0.10.0-macos-x64.pkg |

For you

1. Download the package matching your Mac and follow macOS’s installer steps.
2. Open the product folder you want to work in with Codex, Claude Code, or another local agent that can read project files and run shell commands.
3. Copy the following prompt into that agent. The prompt is for the agent; you do not need to run the command yourself.

Copy this prompt into your agent

Install Silver in this folder. First run `silver setup inspect . --json`.
Explain the recommended repository setup, anything you still need me to decide, and the
files that would be created or changed. Do not apply anything until I approve
the plan.

The agent will ask about the team and whether this should live alongside one codebase or in its own design repository. Answer those questions in chat. When you are satisfied with the plan, tell the agent to apply only that plan and then run a health check.

After setup, “What now?” is always a good next prompt. Your agent can use Silver’s project-local what-now skill to orient itself before proposing work.

If you do not have the macOS package

Silver also ships as a Node.js package. This is the route for developers, and the only route on Windows and Linux. All of these need Node.js 22 or later.

| Method | Command | When to use it | | --- | --- | --- | | Into one project | npm install [email protected] | The project already has a package.json. The version is pinned in the repository, so everyone on the team gets the same one, and the workspace launcher finds this copy first. | | On your machine | npm install -g [email protected] | You want the silver command in any folder without using the macOS package. | | Without installing anything | npx --yes --package [email protected] silver setup inspect . --json | Trying Silver once. Nothing is added to the project. |

After a project or global install, npx silver setup inspect . --json runs the installed copy.

Copy this prompt into your agent

Use the Silver 0.10 release to inspect setup in this folder. Run:
`npx --yes --package [email protected] silver setup inspect . --json`

Show me the plan and questions before making any changes. Do not run
`npx silver`; that is a different package.

If npm's registry is unreachable, the GitHub release archive needs no npm account or token. Give the agent this exact command instead:

npx --yes \
  https://github.com/thejparsenault/silver-design-framework/releases/download/v0.10.0/silver-design-framework-0.10.0.tgz \
  setup inspect . --json

If someone shares a Silver project with you

A Silver workspace is a Git repository, and node_modules/ is not committed. If you clone one onto a machine that has never had Silver, its commands will tell you so and point you back here — install by any method above and they start working. Nothing in the cloned workspace needs to change.

Which agents work?

Silver is designed for Codex, Claude Code, and similar local agents that can read files in your project, follow project instructions, and run commands on your Mac. Its core instructions and skills live inside the project, rather than in one agent provider’s account.

Claude Code is supported directly. Silver adds the small files Claude Code needs to find the project instructions and skills. Other local agents can use the same project files, even where Silver does not yet make a custom adapter for that agent.

Claude Cowork is not supported yet, even if the silver command is installed on your Mac. Cowork cannot find Silver’s project skills or read its project instructions, and it cannot reliably run the local steps Silver uses to save work and record its checks. It can read and edit ordinary workspace files, but it cannot reliably run a complete Silver skill.

What a Silver workspace gives you

Setup can create a complete design home in a single existing product folder, or a separate design repository linked to one or more code repositories. The single-folder option is a good starting point for a solo designer or a small team working on one product.

your-product/
├── AGENTS.md                 Shared instructions for the agent
├── .skills/                  25 project-specific design skills
├── .silver/                  Silver’s setup record, results, and recovery files
├── .claude/                  Extra files Claude Code needs (when applicable)
├── design/
│   ├── product.md            Product, audience, outcomes, and positioning
│   ├── brand.md              Brand foundation
│   ├── voice.md              Voice, terminology, and content guidance
│   ├── system/               Tokens, components, and design-system records
│   ├── work/                 Specifications, concepts, findings, and evaluations
│   ├── evidence/             Research evidence and observations
│   ├── flows/                User and system flows
│   ├── decisions/            Durable decisions and their reasons
│   ├── contexts/             The current design-system and code context
│   └── integrations/         Connections to shared repositories and tools
├── prototypes/               Testable prototypes
├── presentations/            Presentation material
└── production/               Handoffs for implementation

| Place | What it is for | | --- | --- | | design/ | The main design record: foundations, working files, evidence, decisions, and design-system files. | | design/system/ | The project’s main design system. It can be written here or imported from a shared system. | | .skills/ | Instructions the agent follows for each kind of design work. They belong to this project, not to anyone’s personal prompt library. | | .silver/ | Silver’s private working area: its setup record, check results, change proposals, and recovery information. | | prototypes/, presentations/, production/ | Prototypes, presentation material, and implementation handoffs that draw on the design record. |

Silver also offers My Practice, a separate personal workspace for your own methods, rubrics, and playbooks. It is visible and editable, but never silently overrides project facts, required checks, or team guidance.

Included skills

Skills are independent. Ask an agent to use one skill for one clear piece of work, review what it produces, and then decide what happens next. Each skill records what it used, what it made, any checks it ran, and sensible next steps.

| Area | Skills | Use them to | | --- | --- | --- | | Foundation | product, brand, voice, principles | Define the product, audience, brand, language, and decision tests. | | Understand | research, collect, synthesize, map | Plan research, gather source-linked evidence, turn it into findings, and map the wider experience. | | Frame and explore | ideate, specify, structure, flow, visualize | Form problems and hypotheses; make specifications, information architecture, flows, and visual representations. | | Make | system, theme, component, prototype | Maintain tokens and components; make themes, component proposals, and testable prototypes. | | Learn and improve | evaluate, measure, design-check, practice-review | Evaluate work, measure outcomes, run independent checks, and improve your reusable practice. | | Share and deliver | pitch, implement | Make an evidence-backed change case and prepare implementation-ready work. | | Keep work moving | reconcile, what-now | Review differences with linked sources or external tools, and choose a grounded next action. |

For a first session, ask the agent to use product, then brand, voice, and principles. If you already have a design system, ask it to look at that first instead of creating a second one.

Integrating your tools

Every general skill can do useful work with the files in the project. Connecting another tool adds options; it does not make that tool a hidden requirement for ordinary design work.

Silver ships with these adapters:

| Adapter | What it is useful for | What you need | | --- | --- | --- | | Silver portable | Project files, simple web views, flow diagrams, prototypes, presentations, and a record of sources. | Nothing beyond Silver. | | Local Chrome / Chromium | Repeatable checks of a prototype’s layout, accessibility, and interactions. | Chrome or Chromium installed locally. | | Figma official MCP | Reading Figma structure, variables, styles, and components; creating or editing Figma content. | Authorize Figma’s hosted connection when your agent asks. | | Figma Console MCP | Working in the Figma document currently open in the desktop app. | The Console plugin and its MCP server configured in your agent host. | | Linked repository adapter | Importing, comparing, and explicitly exporting selected files from a design-system, component-catalog, or code repository. | A local path to that repository and a reviewed link plan. |

To use another tool, tell the agent where its setup instructions live. Those instructions might describe an MCP connection, a command-line tool, or an API. Silver can record the connection and explain whether it is ready, but it does not guess package names, install software, start background services, or store passwords and API keys.

Ask your agent

What would Silver use to make a wireframe in this project? Show the tool it would use, why it is available, and any setup I still need to do.

If you or an agent need the underlying commands, they are:

silver tools . --for "make a wireframe"
silver tools . --list
silver tools . --diagnose figma-official-mcp

Connect a design system, codebase, or Figma

A shared design system or production codebase does not need its own Silver installation. Connect it as an external source, bring chosen files into your workspace, and review changes before moving them in either direction.

Ask your agent

I have a shared design system at ../shared-design-system. Inspect it as a linked design-system source for this project. Show me the selected files, any files you cannot connect clearly, and the import plan. Do not link, import, or change either repository until I approve it.

For reference, the agent will use commands like these:

# Ask Silver to make a reviewed plan for a shared design system.
silver link inspect ../shared-design-system . \
  --kind design-system --as shared-system --json

# See whether any linked representations have drifted.
silver sync status --all . --json

The reconcile skill helps an agent explain what changed—both design-token changes and ordinary text-file changes—and identifies the right part of the design process to review it. Nothing changes automatically. An approved export changes only the files you selected, runs the agreed checks, and never pushes a Git branch or opens a pull request.

Figma uses the same review model. An agent can read a saved Figma state, prepare a proposal, make the approved Figma change, then read the result again before Silver records the new shared state.

Safety, checks, and recovery

Silver is designed to make an agent’s work understandable and recoverable without asking you to become a software release engineer.

• You see a plan before setup, linking, updates, migrations, or synchronization changes your files.
• Silver refuses to follow file shortcuts that lead outside the project while it changes its own files.
• Updates, migrations, and synchronization are prepared before they are applied. If a process stops partway through, Silver leaves enough information to safely continue or undo the work.
• Checks make an important distinction between a real design problem, a check that could not run, and a problem with the browser or checking tool itself.
• Silver records sources, design-system versions, and check results so an agent can show you where a result came from.

Useful maintenance commands:

silver doctor .                         # diagnose; makes no changes
silver check .                          # run applicable local checks
silver update .                         # preview framework updates; makes no changes
silver migrate .                        # preview a migration; makes no changes
silver migrate . --apply                # apply a migration you have reviewed
silver recover .                        # list interrupted changes that can be resumed or undone
silver recover resume <transaction-id> .
silver repair .                         # rebuild disposable indexes/adapters

Current support boundary

Silver 0.10 has signed macOS packages for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Windows and Linux can use the Node.js distribution, but native signed installers for those platforms are not part of this release.

Silver works best with local file-capable agents. It does not install or manage credentials for third-party tools, auto-publish work, or replace a team’s review and version-control practices. External changes are proposals until a person explicitly accepts them.

Learn more

• Silver 0.9 acceptance and support boundary
• Agent-host compatibility
• Tool representations and reconciliation
• Installer and distribution model
• Architecture of agentic design workflows
• Project status and roadmap

Contributing

Silver is developed in the open. The source distribution requires Node.js 22 or later:

git clone https://github.com/thejparsenault/silver-design-framework.git
cd silver-design-framework
npm install
npm test

See the project documentation and the acceptance material above for release evidence and the current roadmap.