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designesy-mcp

PyPI version Python 3.10+ License: MIT MCP

One-click install:

Install in VS Code Install in VS Code Insiders Install in Cursor Install Remote (HTTP)

A stdio MCP server exposing designesy.org's design-intelligence infrastructure as native agent tools. Every tool is read-only except designesy_monitor_score, which can send a drift-alert email (see Safety).

Zero external dependencies. Pure Python stdlib. Implements the Model Context Protocol JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio.


Quick start (one command)

uvx designesy-mcp

That's it. uvx fetches the package from PyPI, creates an ephemeral environment, and launches the stdio MCP server. No virtualenv, no pip install, no git clone. The server is ready to speak JSON-RPC 2.0 on stdin/stdout immediately.

Don't have uv? Install it once: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh (macOS/Linux) or powershell -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex" (Windows). Or use pipx run designesy-mcp as an equivalent one-liner.

MCP client config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "designesy": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["designesy-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

pip install (traditional)

pip install designesy-mcp
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "designesy": {
      "command": "designesy-mcp"
    }
  }
}

python -m (module form)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "designesy": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "designesy_mcp_server"]
    }
  }
}

No arguments needed. The server speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdin/stdout.

Tools (17)

The server exposes 17 tools, all fetched live from https://www.designesy.org/:

Read-only discovery

Tool What it does
designesy_catalog Get the package catalog (versions, URLs, statuses) from /open.json
designesy_contract Get the full design-system contract (tokens, motion, acoustic, takt, cadence, typography, components, verification, open tensions), or pass sections (a list of top-level keys) to get only those parts plus id and version. The full contract is on the order of 100 KB. An unknown key returns the list of valid keys. The version travels in the response, so none is pinned here
designesy_design_review Get the Design Review rubric (8 dimensions, output format, verification checklist) as reference data. The kit's copy-ready prompt stays on the kit page, linked from the result
designesy_skill_md Get the agent-skill-format export (SKILL.md) with behavioral rules, tokens, anti-patterns, as reference data with the markdown in content
designesy_agent_json Get the agent discovery document (.well-known/agent.json) as reference data: identity, authority, discovery endpoints, packages. Its ingest steps stay in the published file
designesy_llms_txt Get the short brief (/llms.txt) as reference data. Its ingest steps stay in the published file
designesy_llms_full_txt Get the full brief (/llms-full.txt) as reference data: authority, all packages, standing rules. Its ingest protocol and paste-ready agent prompt stay in the published file

Executable verification

Tool What it does
designesy_score Run the 44-check contract verification against a live URL through the engine at https://www.designesy.org/api/score. Returns an overall score, a letter grade, and the check results (PASS/FAIL/WARN/SKIP/MANUAL). format selects the output: designesy (default) returns this tool's JSON (url, contract_version, summary, tokens_extracted, checks, note); canonical (review-findings.json schema) and google (@google/design.md JSON) return the engine's JSON unchanged; review returns the engine's markdown report unchanged (coverage by category, a findings table of the FAIL and WARN checks, and a verdict). scope (contract or universal) sets the scoring scope; omit it and the engine picks contract for designesy.org and universal for every other site. If the engine is unreachable, designesy falls back to the offline engine: 27 of the 44 checks run locally, each mirroring the live engine's verdict on the same page and scope, and the result adds engine (kind offline, the engine version it mirrors, the checks it did not run) and scope. The other three formats return an error.
designesy_tokens_score Validate a design token file against the W3C Design Tokens Community Group (DTCG) 2025.10 format. 10 checks (t01–t10).
designesy_a11y_score Get the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility verification framework (11 checks, a01–a11) + a Playwright/axe-core script template for local execution.
designesy_motion_score Validate a Lottie animation file against the motion contract's 10 checks (m01–m10), drawn from Lottie spec v1.0.1 and the Designesy 10 Non-Negotiable Motion Standards, each verdict under its own check's name. Checks a file cannot settle (full schema validation, layout-property and keyboard-initiated motion) return SKIP with the reason.

Executable engines (new in v1.10.0)

Tool What it does
designesy_drift_score 12-check AI-drift radar — detects token fabrication, within-session drift, between-session amnesia, and silent breaking changes.
designesy_readiness_score 10-check AI readiness probe — tests for DTCG tokens, llms.txt, agent.json, MCP endpoint, DESIGN.md, sitemap, robots, OG meta.
designesy_guardrails Generate a frozen build-contract bundle: DTCG tokens, Stylelint config, AGENTS.md rules, component contract, anti-patterns, DESIGN.md. The full bundle runs from about 7 KB to about 530 KB of JSON; parts (for example ["designMd"]) returns only the files named.
designesy_monitor_score Continuous drift governance — 10 monitor checks with history deltas, trend slope, and email alerts via Resend.
designesy_compare Diff two design systems from live URLs — 8-dimension structured diff (added, removed, renamed, value-changed, scale, contrast, structure, score).
designesy_report Composite synthesis — fires score + drift + readiness in parallel, computes weighted composite grade. The most shareable surface. The full result runs to about 75 to 100 KB of JSON; detail: "summary" keeps the composite, each engine's score and grade, the totals and only the checks that did not PASS.

Resources (7)

The server also exposes 7 MCP resources (read-only URIs):

URI Content
designesy://open Package catalog (JSON)
designesy://contract Full design-system contract (JSON)
designesy://kit/design-review Design Review kit (JSON)
designesy://skill SKILL.md agent-skill export (Markdown)
designesy://agent Agent discovery document (JSON)
designesy://llms Short agent brief (text)
designesy://llms-full Full agent brief (text)

The 44-check verification engine

designesy_score runs 44 deterministic checks across 14 weighted categories:

Category Weight What it measures
cadence 18 Typography rhythm — line-height, font-synthesis, text-underline-position, skip-ink
accessibility 15 WCAG 2.2 primitives — reduced-motion, forced-colors, AI disclosure, focus-visible, status colors used as text in every theme
semantic 12 Token architecture — :root custom properties, no raw hex, semantic naming
motion 10 Motion hygiene — duration tokens, easing tokens, reduced-motion blocks, content that stays visible when motion is paused
tokens 9 DTCG 2025.10 conformance — $type, $value, $description, colorSpace
takt 8 Timing discipline — transition bands, animation hierarchy
copywriting 8 UX copy — button verb phrases, no trailing periods, descriptive link text, no ALL CAPS
poise 7 Composure — viewport overflow, scroll behavior, print styles
identity 6 Brand coherence — title, meta description, favicon, og tags
interaction 6 Interaction primitives — hover states, press feedback, disabled states
performance 6 Core Web Vitals readiness — preload, font-display, render-blocking
responsive 3 Responsive primitives — viewport meta, container queries
security 5 Security headers — CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, referrer policy
spec 4 Spec conformance — lang attr, charset, doctype

No LLM. No roast. The same engine scores designesy.org itself, in public: its current score is on the leaderboard.

Standards positioning

DTCG 2025.10 — the spec went stable

The W3C Design Tokens Community Group published the spec's first stable version on Oct 28, 2025 — the Final Community Group Report, classified as a Candidate Recommendation and considered stable. 24+ organizations back it (Adobe, Google, Meta, Figma, Amazon, Microsoft, Shopify, Sketch, Framer). 84% of teams now use design tokens (zeroheight Design Systems Report 2025, up from 56% in 2024).

designesy_tokens_score validates against this stable spec. Every team adopting DTCG 2025.10 needs a validator — designesy is it.

Motion tokens — the spec's blind spot

The DTCG 2025.10 spec leaves motion tokens as a second-class citizen — there is no standard for motion token structure, reduced-motion markers, or animation accessibility. The 2026 State of Design Systems field report confirms this is the remaining friction point.

designesy_motion_score fills this gap. It validates Lottie files against the Lottie spec v1.0.1 AND the Designesy §16 Ten Non-Negotiable Motion Standards — the only validator that checks both structural well-formedness and accessibility (reduced-motion markers, no deprecated versions). It is the verification layer for the spec's known blind spot.

Contract vs. opinion

No competitor does contract-based deterministic scoring. Lighthouse is weighted heuristics. axe-core is rule violations. securityheaders.com is a single dimension. Designesy's 44-check contract-bound 0-100 score across 7 dimensions (tokens, motion, accessibility, cadence, takt, typography, copywriting) has no direct analog.

Caching

All responses are cached with a 5-minute TTL. The server only fetches public, machine-readable exports from designesy.org via HTTPS. It does not read local files, credentials, or source roots.

Safety

Read-only, with one exception. designesy_monitor_score can send email: when you pass an email address and a drift alert fires, designesy.org sends an HTML drift-alert email to that address through Resend, if the server has a Resend key configured. A repeated call can send another email. The other 16 tools only read. The server writes no local files and reads no credentials.

Every tool declares a title and the MCP annotation hints (readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint, openWorldHint), matching the hosted endpoint at https://www.designesy.org/api/mcp. designesy_monitor_score is the one tool marked readOnlyHint: false.

Provenance

All data is fetched live from:

  • https://www.designesy.org/open.json
  • https://www.designesy.org/contracts/design-system.json
  • https://www.designesy.org/kits/design-review.json
  • https://www.designesy.org/contracts/skill
  • https://www.designesy.org/.well-known/agent.json
  • https://www.designesy.org/llms.txt
  • https://www.designesy.org/llms-full.txt

License

MIT

Metadata

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