When to Use

Use when the user says "lookdev", or asks to tune / dial in / iterate on the look of something, compare variations by feel, or review / edit / annotate a blog post, doc, copy, or media set. Use whenever "show me, I'll pick" beats asking the user to specify a number, and whenever you'd otherwise hand back a static grid or a wall of prose for review.

Source: connerkward/lookdev-studio-skill (MIT).

Lookdev

When the user says "lookdev" — or any of: tune, dial in, iterate on the look of, compare variations of, let me adjust, let me edit/annotate/mark up, review this post/doc/copy — they mean build an interactive in-browser tool the user directly manipulates. Not a static grid of N variations. Not a Q&A where they specify numbers. Not a wall of prose they're asked to read and reply to in chat. A real-time studio where they act on the artifact and the change is captured.

Two studio shapes — pick by what's being tuned:

• Visual-parameter lookdev — the artifact's look is set by numbers/choices (color, type, layout, image treatment, animation, 3D). Controls = sliders, pickers, drag handles. This is the bulk of this skill (below).
• Text & media lookdev — the artifact is a document, blog post, copy, or media set and the user is editing/curating it: rewriting sentences, cutting boring paragraphs, highlighting, leaving margin comments, flagging "diagram goes here" / "wrong image, replace." Controls = direct inline editing + selection highlight + anchored comments + media annotation. See the dedicated section below. A blog post / doc / script review IS this mode — never hand back a long markdown file and ask the user to react in chat. Stand up the annotation studio.

What it covers

Any visual decision the user picks by feel, not by spec. Expand this list as needed:

• Image processing — dither, halftone, posterize, ASCII, blur, edge, quantize, mosaic, color-grade
• Color — palette extraction (show coverage %), per-band pickers, saturation / contrast / gamma curves, harmony presets, theme tokens
• Typography — font selector, size / weight / leading / tracking / measure, live sample text, fallback stack
• Layout, positioning, framing, spacing — draggable & selectable elements; resize handles; margin / padding rulers; alignment guides; snap-to-grid; aspect-lock toggles
• Crop & framing — draggable crop rectangle with aspect lock; live cropped preview at production size
• Animation / transitions — easing curve editor, duration sliders, scrubber, replay
• Component variants — render hover / focus / disabled / loading / dark side by side on one page
• Iconography — stroke weight, corner radius, glyph on canvas
• AI-generated content — prompt input + param sliders + side-by-side regeneration grid
• Anything else where "show me, I'll pick" beats "ask me to specify a number"

Controls must stay reachable while inspecting

If the studio shows a list, grid, or scroll-long set of variations, controls must be visible from every scroll position. The user has to be able to drag a slider while looking at row 14, not scroll back to the top each time.

Two approaches, pick by layout:

• Sticky bar (position: sticky; top: 0) at the top of the scroll container. Keep the bar visually distinct — paper background + blur backdrop + bottom border — so it doesn't muddy the specimens scrolling behind it. Sticky pins relative to the nearest scrolling ancestor with a defined boundary; if you nest it inside a sized parent (a <header> with margin-bottom, a <div> with a fixed height), it stops sticking at that parent's bottom edge. Lift it to be a direct child of <body> (or the page-wrap) so stickiness spans the whole page.
• Floating overlay (position: fixed) for hotkey-toggled controls — e.g. press d to reveal. The portfolio's .debug-ctl pattern is this: pinned top-left, transparent until summoned. Use when the controls shouldn't occupy permanent screen real estate (final viewers shouldn't see them; the author can summon on demand).

Anti-pattern: a top-of-page control panel that the user scrolls past and never sees again. They will tune blindly, give up, or guess. Either keep the controls in view or duplicate a compact control bar next to each variation row.

Text & media lookdev — direct edit, highlight, comment, annotate

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