Open Design FAQ.

Common questions about Open Design — what it is, how it works, and how to get started.

What is Open Design?

Open Design is the official open-source AI design workspace from the nexu-io/open-design project. It turns a local coding agent — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, or Qwen — into a design engine driven by composable skills and portable DESIGN.md systems.

Is Open Design official?

Yes. The canonical project lives at open-design.ai and the source is on GitHub at github.com/nexu-io/open-design. "Open Design", "OpenDesign", "open-design", and "Open Design AI" all refer to this same project.

How is Open Design different from Claude Design?

Claude Design is a hosted product tied to a single vendor. Open Design is local-first, open source under Apache-2.0, and BYOK: you bring your own agent, credentials, and DESIGN.md system.

Does Open Design run locally?

Yes. The desktop app, daemon, and skill runtime run on your machine. Generated artifacts land in your project directory instead of being forced through a vendor cloud.

Which coding agents does Open Design support?

Open Design ships 17 first-party BYOK adapters out of the box: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Grok, Hermes, Kimi, Devin for Terminal, OpenCode, Qwen, DeepSeek, Pi, Mistral Vibe, Kiro, Kilo, and Qoder. Any adapter that speaks the same skill protocol works — switching agents is a config change, not a redesign.

Can I self-host or fork it?

Yes. The code is Apache-2.0. You can fork the repo, edit skills, add your own DESIGN.md systems, or run the daemon on your own machines.

Is my data sent to Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google?

Only your prompt and skill context goes to whichever provider you bring keys for (BYOK). Open Design has no server of its own — the daemon talks to your provider directly. Generated artifacts land as files in your project directory, not in any vendor cloud.

Can I run Open Design without installing the CLI or desktop app?

Not today. Open Design is local-first by design — the minimum is a local daemon plus an agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, or one of the 17 supported adapters). A hosted sandbox is on the roadmap but not the priority: artifacts in your repo beat documents in someone else's database.

How much does Open Design cost?

The product is free and Apache-2.0 — there is no Open Design subscription. You pay the API costs of whichever provider you use (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, xAI, Moonshot, etc.), billed directly to your account. BYOK keeps both the credentials and the spend on your side of the line.

Can I self-host Open Design on Vercel, Cloudflare, or my own server?

Yes. The daemon runs anywhere Node 24 runs, and the landing page is a static Astro build that deploys to Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, or Netlify as-is. Teams running shared deployments typically pin the daemon to a machine inside their network and point each developer's CLI at it.

How do I move my brand into Open Design?

Drop a screenshot or a Figma export into the web UI and ask your agent to extract a brand into a DESIGN.md file. Save that file under design-systems/<your-brand>/ in your repo; every skill then renders in that brand without re-prompting. /alternatives/claude-design/ describes the same flow in step form.

Can I switch agents without redoing my work?

Yes. Skills and DESIGN.md systems are agent-agnostic — the same SKILL.md file renders against Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Grok, Hermes, Qwen, or any other supported adapter. Switching agents is a config change in the daemon, not a redesign.

What's on the Open Design roadmap?

The live roadmap is at docs/roadmap.md in the GitHub repo, and weekly release notes ship through GitHub Releases. Major themes for the next quarter: more agent adapters, richer template families (3D, video, audio), and an optional shared-daemon mode for design teams.