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Changelog

What changed in UX Atlas. Newest first.

18 October 2026

Added

  • Project scan, a skill that checks what your project already has before a design decision: screens, components and their variants, tokens, and patterns already solved elsewhere. Ask “what can we reuse for this?” or “what already exists?” and it reports what to reuse, what is missing, and what it did not check.
  • Project scan checks whether a handoff was built. Ask “is the handoff built?” and each part of the spec comes back Built, Drifted, Missing, or Not checked, with the file and line. It never edits the handoff.
  • Project scan keeps short notes in .atlas/scan/, one per area, stamped with file hashes. A later run or a new conversation reuses a note while its files are unchanged, and rereads only the files that changed. Set "scan": "off" in .atlas/config.json to stop it writing them.
  • npx ux-atlas scan writes a structural index of your components, props, variants, token names, and routes to .atlas/scan/index.md, so scans search it instead of the whole codebase.

Changed

  • In a guided design pipeline, Scope starts by checking what already exists for the job. Something already built is listed as Reuse or Out, not designed again.
  • With no DESIGN.md, Screen composition uses the tokens and components that Project scan finds in the codebase.
  • When Screen composition needs what the code has for a component or token, such as its variants, states, or size, it looks it up through Project scan, so the next run finds it in the area note instead of reading the code again. This holds with or without a DESIGN.md.

15 October 2026

Changed

  • In a guided design pipeline, Check and Review run before you see Structure and Surface. Each one arrives with what passed and what Atlas repaired. It stops for a finding only when you need to settle it. Check and Review no longer ask you to accept work you then read again.
  • When you correct or reopen a stage, Atlas shows what changed, what else it touches, and what still stands, not the whole stage again. Reopening an earlier stage opens later stages only where the change reaches them.
  • Each assumption is stated once, with an id, and cited by that id afterwards.
  • Surface leads with what leads the screen, the strings, the judgment calls, and the open questions. Components, tokens, states, and reflow follow.
  • When the record setting is ask, the record choice lists the files and how many entries of each kind they hold. The full contents appear only if you keep them in the reply.
  • The design record logs each finding Atlas repaired during Check or Review, so it still says why the design changed.
  • When you reopen a stage, the design record logs it, with the stage and what reopened it.

Fixed

  • Asking Atlas to design a feature or flow to build, such as “design how a customer cancels a subscription”, starts the design pipeline. It used to go to Structure alone and return only the path.

9 October 2026

Added

  • Review, a seventh stage in the design pipeline. After you accept a Surface, Interface review inspects it and reports what breaks before anything is recorded or built. Findings name the stage they return to.
  • Interface review can inspect a written Surface, not only a built screen. It says which stated values it could not verify, and it treats a state or path the Surface leaves out as a finding when a step depends on it.
  • Inside a design pipeline, a finding can cite a decision you accepted, such as Scope, as the rule it breaks.

Changed

  • The design pipeline’s Check judges the flow against Frame, Define, Scope, and the constitution, as it did before 8 October. It no longer uses Interface review, which could not report a flow that broke an accepted decision as a failure.
  • When Check fails or Review has findings, the first choice is Reopen, with the name of the stage, in place of Accept.
  • A request to review something and then fix it starts with Interface review. When every finding is a fault in the code, Atlas asks before changing the product and skips the design stages. Otherwise the findings become the Scope and the pipeline continues at Structure or Surface.

Fixed

  • Continuing a pipeline in the same conversation no longer reads the design record first. That happens only when a run resumes from an earlier conversation.
  • Interface review judges colours and sizes that a page’s CSS declares, and says they are declared, not measured.

8 October 2026

Added

  • Interface review. Ask Atlas to review, critique, or audit an existing screen or flow. It walks one job, checks the constitution’s rules, and reports each finding with the rule it breaks, how serious it is, and which skill the fix belongs to. It says what it could not check, and it does not redesign.

Changed

  • The design pipeline’s Check uses Interface review. A request to review something and then change it starts at Check, then continues at Structure or Surface depending on what the review found, without asking you to restate the goal.

Fixed

  • The design pipeline names its two stage choices, Accept and Correct, so they read the same in every tool.

7 October 2026

Changed

  • Structure. User flow and Information architecture are now one skill. A request for a path gets the path, a request for where something lives gets the map, and the design pipeline uses both.
  • The UX Constitution is one skill again. The edge cases from the Extended constitution now sit in the sections they belong to.
  • Express is part of the Design Pipeline. Say “express”, “fast track”, or “you decide” to get the remaining stages in one response. The separate Fast pipeline and its three-stop path are gone.
  • The project instructions list every skill on one line, so an agent picks a skill without opening skill files first.
  • The confirmation rule and the Choice block are in the project instructions. A small copy or flow change no longer loads the constitution to ask before it changes the product.
  • The site groups skills as Foundations, Process, and Disciplines. Skill page addresses changed with the groups.

Fixed

  • Install is now npm install ux-atlas, then npx ux-atlas init. npm 12 and later refuse a package installed from a GitHub link, and do not add the pointer to AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md during the install, so a fresh install failed or left the agent with nothing to follow.
  • The project instructions no longer point at a constitution file that does not exist when the UX Atlas repository is the project root.
  • The design record is written once per pipeline run, at Record, or earlier when you ask for it. The skill used to say both that and “at each accepted stage”.
  • UX Writing no longer claims a part in the pipeline’s Structure stage. Structure names the empty, error, and exit states there, and UX Writing writes the strings in Surface.

4 October 2026

Added

  • Design handoff. After a design is accepted, Atlas can write a handoff spec for engineering in .atlas/handoff/, one timestamped file per run. It covers flow, layout, components and states, copy, interaction, motion, and tokens by reference to the design system, and marks anything not decided as Open.

Changed

  • The design pipeline, guided and fast, writes the handoff spec after the design record. The same record setting controls both, with no second prompt.
  • New installs get a .atlas/README.md that says where handoff specs live.
  • When a run writes both the design record and the handoff, the record choice reads “Write the record and handoff”.

Fixed

  • The AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md in the project-folder download point at the current constitution skills and include the core thresholds.
  • Requests to hand off a design that mention implementing it now load the handoff skill.
  • Files in the project-folder download open with command-line unzip and other tools.

3 October 2026

Fixed

  • Stage proposals that need partner acceptance appear before their choice control. Atlas uses an inline Choice block for these work-dependent decisions instead of invoking a host picker.

Changed

  • The design pipeline’s stage descriptions are reorganized around routing, resuming, and running the stages, replacing a separate “visible work before choice” section with the constitution’s own choice rule.

2 October 2026

Added

  • The Design Pipeline (Fast). Experienced partners can opt into a three-stop Express path: Frame, Structure, and Surface. Guided remains the default.
  • The UX Constitution (Core) and UX Constitution (Extended). Interface work gets concise foundational rules, with advanced cases available when needed.

Changed

  • Accepting a guided design decision now starts the next open stage in the same response.
  • Skill routing now uses explicit triggers, exclusions, and token budgets so focused requests can use a narrower skill without loading unrelated guidance.
  • Project instructions include the core UX thresholds and point to the extended constitution for edge cases.
  • The optional brief skill is gone, with npx ux-atlas brief and the brief choice on the project-folder download. An install removes the old brief line from AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md.
  • The design pipeline’s Check judges against the accepted Frame and Define, not a hidden prompt.

1 October 2026

Added

  • Product direction. Open-ended product asks can compare and choose an overall direction before framing the problem.
  • Design record. Decisions, assumptions, trade-offs, and open design-system gaps can persist as a bounded living record, with ask as the default write setting.

Changed

  • The design pipeline starts with product direction when the kind of product, its audience, or the desired change is unsettled. A chosen direction is the accepted Frame.
  • Screen composition applies only after both the user flow and information architecture are settled.
  • The design pipeline hands accepted decisions and system gaps to the design record instead of maintaining a separate gap-only lifecycle.

27 September 2026

Added

  • Screen composition. A request to compose a screen can use the project’s design system, existing codebase primitives, or clearly marked industry-standard assumptions.

Changed

  • Design-system gaps can be handed off in a project-root DESIGN_GAPS.md register for technical triage, with unresolved decisions marked Pending.
  • Install and clone URLs use the ajdcabrera-design GitHub org. npm install github:ajdcabrera-design/ux-atlas is the documented install.

Fixed

  • npx ux-atlas brief now runs correctly through npm’s executable shim.

26 September 2026

Added

  • A changelog. Newest changes are listed on the Changelog page.
  • A brief skill you add after the package install, with npx ux-atlas brief. It puts the brief in the project and tells AGENTS.md to read it first. The package itself does not include the brief.
  • A choice on the project-folder download to include the brief skill, or to leave it out.
  • Information architecture. A request about where something lives uses that skill and does not start the design pipeline.
  • User flow. A request about the path, the happy path, or what happens when something fails uses that skill and does not start the design pipeline.
  • Evidence. A request to ground a decision in what you know — numbers, customer notes, or the market — uses that skill and does not start the design pipeline.

Changed

  • After a skill would execute, implement, or change the interface or the flow, the agent asks before it changes the product. The size of the change does not matter.
  • When the agent needs a yes-or-no style decision, it presents one Choice: a host picker when the host has one, or a typed Choice block when it does not — never both at once.
  • In the design pipeline, Structure runs user flow and then information architecture.
  • In the design pipeline, Learn and Benchmark are one Evidence move that calls the evidence skill.
  • In the design pipeline, Define sets a product class when it changes what Structure prioritizes. If the class is obvious, the agent records it without stopping to ask.
  • UX Writing settles voice and tone (default plain and direct when unknown), writes interface strings, and can audit copy across a project. It does not invent a brand voice or generate marketing assets.
  • Small asks stay small. The agent reads only matching skill descriptions, does not preload every skill, and does not start the design pipeline for a copy-only, flow-only, IA-only, or evidence-only request.
  • Choice and Confirmation stay in the constitution. Other skills point there instead of restating the full stop.

24 September 2026

Added

  • Install the package. The install points AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md at the skills in node_modules.
  • Design systems for Material 3, Carbon, and Spectrum. Each one downloads as DESIGN.md.
  • Download a project folder.
  • The design pipeline. When you ask the agent to decide, the pipeline keeps going.

Changed

  • The folder file downloads from /download/zip. The download page stays a page.

23 September 2026

Added

  • The UX Constitution.

Changed

  • The skills you install are separate from this site. The site is the preview.

22 September 2026

Added

  • This site, at atlas.aarondesign.rocks.