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name: minimalist-ui description: "Use when creating clean editorial interfaces with warm monochrome palettes, crisp borders, restrained motion, and flat bento layouts." category: frontend risk: safe source: community source_repo: Leonxlnx/taste-skill source_type: community date_added: "2026-04-17" author: Leonxlnx tags: [frontend, design, minimalism, ui] tools: [claude, cursor, codex, antigravity]

Protocol: Premium Utilitarian Minimalism UI Architect

When to Use

• Use when the user wants a refined minimalist UI inspired by tools like Notion, Linear, or editorial workspace products.
• Use when designing warm monochrome interfaces with crisp borders, generous whitespace, muted pastel accents, and quiet motion.
• Use when the task should avoid gradients, heavy shadows, saturated colors, pill-heavy components, and generic SaaS visuals.

Limitations

• Minimalism can hide hierarchy when content is dense; validate scannability, contrast, and navigation clarity with real content.
• This skill assumes the product can support restrained palettes and typography-led layouts; do not override an established brand system without cause.
• Subtle motion and flat surfaces still need responsive, keyboard, and screen-reader verification in the target project.

1. Protocol Overview

Name: Premium Utilitarian Minimalism & Editorial UI Description: An advanced frontend engineering directive for generating highly refined, ultra-minimalist, "document-style" web interfaces analogous to top-tier workspace platforms. This protocol strictly enforces a high-contrast warm monochrome palette, bespoke typographic hierarchies, meticulous structural macro-whitespace, bento-grid layouts, and an ultra-flat component architecture with deliberate muted pastel accents. It actively rejects standard generic SaaS design trends.

2. Absolute Negative Constraints (Banned Elements)

The AI must strictly avoid the following generic web development defaults:

• DO NOT use the "Inter", "Roboto", or "Open Sans" typefaces.
• DO NOT use generic, thin-line icon libraries like "Lucide", "Feather", or standard "Heroicons".
• DO NOT use Tailwind's default heavy drop shadows (e.g., shadow-md, shadow-lg, shadow-xl). Shadows must be practically non-existent or heavily customized to be ultra-diffuse and low opacity (< 0.05).
• DO NOT use primary colored backgrounds for large elements or sections (e.g., no bright blue, green, or red hero sections).
• DO NOT use gradients, neon colors, or 3D glassmorphism (beyond subtle navbar blurs).
• DO NOT use rounded-full (pill shapes) for large containers, cards, or primary buttons.
• DO NOT use emojis anywhere in code, markup, text content, headings, or alt text. Replace with proper icons or clean SVG primitives.
• DO NOT use generic placeholder names like "John Doe", "Acme Corp", or "Lorem Ipsum". Use realistic, contextual content.
• DO NOT use AI copywriting clichés: "Elevate", "Seamless", "Unleash", "Next-Gen", "Game-changer", "Delve". Write plain, specific language.

3. Typographic Architecture

The interface must rely on extreme typographic contrast and premium font selection to establish an editorial feel.

• Primary Sans-Serif (Body, UI, Buttons): Use clean, geometric, or system-native fonts with character. Target: font-family: 'SF Pro Display', 'Geist Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', 'Switzer', sans-serif.
• Editorial Serif (Hero Headings & Quotes): Target: font-family: 'Lyon Text', 'Newsreader', 'Playfair Display', 'Instrument Serif', serif. Apply tight tracking (letter-spacing: -0.02em to -0.04em) and tight line-height (1.1).
• Monospace (Code, Keystrokes, Meta-data): Target: font-family: 'Geist Mono', 'SF Mono', 'JetBrains Mono', monospace.
• Text Colors: Body text must never be absolute black (#000000). Use off-black/charcoal (#111111 or #2F3437) with a generous line-height of 1.6 for legibility. Secondary text should be muted gray (#787774).

4. Color Palette (Warm Monochrome + Spot Pastels)

Color is a scarce resource, utilized only for semantic meaning or subtle accents.

• Canvas / Background: Pure White #FFFFFF or Warm Bone/Off-White #F7F6F3 / #FBFBFA.
• Primary Surface (Cards): #FFFFFF or #F9F9F8.
• Structural Borders / Dividers: Ultra-light gray #EAEAEA or rgba(0,0,0,0.06).
• Accent Colors: Exclusively use highly desaturated, washed-out pastels for tags, inline code backgrounds, or subtle icon backgrounds.
  • Pale Red: #FDEBEC (Text: #9F2F2D)
  • Pale Blue: #E1F3FE (Text: #1F6C9F)
  • Pale Green: #EDF3EC (Text: #346538)
  • Pale Yellow: #FBF3DB (Text: #956400)

5. Component Specifications

• Bento Box Feature Grids:
  • Utilize asymmetrical CSS Grid layouts.
  • Cards must have exactly border: 1px solid #EAEAEA.
  • Border-radius must be crisp: 8px or 12px maximum.
  • Internal padding must be generous (e.g., 24px to 40px).
• Primary Call-To-Action (Buttons):
  • Solid background #111111, text #FFFFFF.
  • Slight b