Huashu Design: The Open-Source Claude Design Alternative

By Synthex

Claude Design is useful because it gives AI design work a visual interface. You can ask for a landing page, generate directions, make tweaks, and keep iterating without starting from a blank screen every time.

The uncomfortable part is the limit. If you are using it heavily, the design-specific quota can disappear faster than expected.

This guide is based on Chase AI's comparison video about Huashu Design, an open-source design skill that brings a similar design workflow into Claude Code and other agent environments. The goal here is not to pretend both tools are identical. The goal is to explain what Huashu Design is, where it helps, and where it still feels different from a dedicated visual product.

What you'll learn

• What Huashu Design is in plain language.
• Why people compare it with Claude Design.
• What kinds of design work it can generate.
• Where it is weaker than Claude Design.
• How to think about installation, safety, and current repo status.
• When to use Huashu Design first, and when Claude Design is still the better fit.

What this is really about

The main problem is not "which AI design tool is better?"

The better question is:

Which workflow lets me make useful design progress without running into limits, losing context, or waiting until the end to discover the design is wrong?

Claude Design and Huashu Design answer that question in different ways.

Claude Design gives you a polished graphical design environment. It is easier to click around, make visual comments, draw on the screen, and adjust designs through a product interface.

Huashu Design is a skill. It runs inside an AI coding agent such as Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Trae, Hermes, or OpenClaw. You talk to the agent, the skill gives it a structured design process, and the output is usually HTML, a prototype, a slide deck, an animation, or another deliverable file.

One is a design product. The other is a design workflow inside an agent.

That difference matters.

The simple version

If you are new, think of it like this:

Huashu Design does not give you the same point-and-click interface. It gives the agent a stronger design playbook.

That playbook can help with:

• Landing pages.
• Web and app prototypes.
• Slide decks.
• Motion graphics.
• Infographics.
• Design variations.
• Design critiques.

The current Huashu repository describes it as an HTML-native design skill. That wording is important. It is not trying to become Figma. It is trying to produce useful, reviewable design files through web-native output.

Why Huashu Design became interesting

The appeal is straightforward: Claude Design can be impressive, but usage limits can make it hard to use freely.

If one landing page exploration burns a noticeable amount of your design quota, you start rationing. You may stop asking for more variants. You may avoid extra slide decks. You may accept an early version because you do not want to spend more of the limit.

Huashu Design moves that work into the normal agent workflow. Instead of using a separate design product quota, the work runs through your agent's usual token usage.

This does not make the work free in a magical sense. Tokens still cost something. Large design tasks can still be expensive or slow. But it changes the bottleneck.

For a solo developer, freelancer, or small team, that can be enough to make design exploration feel usable again.

Current repo note before you install anything

The video was published on April 26, 2026. The repository has changed since then.

As of May 14, 2026, the Huashu Design repository says it is MIT-licensed and free for personal and commercial use. Earlier summaries around the project may still mention personal-use or commercial-use restrictions. Check the current repository before you rely on any licensing or installation details.

The install command currently shown in the repository is:

npx skills add alchaincyf/huashu-design

Practical note: npx can fetch and run package code. In a serious project, check the repository, package source, license, and install instructions before running the command. This is ordinary hygiene, not a reason to avoid the tool.

What Huashu Design can make

The repository presents Huashu Design as more than a landing-page helper.

It describes support for:

For beginners, the important idea is not the full list of formats. The important idea is that Huashu gives the agent a design production process.

Without a design skill, an agent may produce a generic page: centered hero, cards, gradients, icons, and a few vague feature blocks.

With a design skill, the agent has more structure. It can ask for missing inputs, generate directions, build variants, inspect the output, and revise against a clearer standard.

How the comparison in the video works

The video compares Claude Design and Huashu Design through three practical tests.

Test 1: A landing page from scratch

Both tools are asked to create a landing page for a fictional SaaS product called Lighthouse.

The useful part of this test is not the fictional product. The useful part is the workflow:

1. Start with a product idea.
2. Ask for clarifying questions before design begins.
3. Generate multiple visual directions.
4. Choose one direction.
5. Ask for aggressive tweaks.
6. Compare how much control and polish each tool gives you.

Claude Design has the advantage of a graphical interface. Tweaks feel more immediate because the product gives you visual controls.

Huashu Design works more like an agent conversation. It can still generate variants and tweakable output, but you are steering it through prompts rather than clicking through a visual product UI.

The practical lesson:

If you want fast visual manipulation, Claude Design feels better. If you want design generation inside your coding agent, Huashu Design is more flexible.

Test 2: A landing page from an existing design system

The second test gives both tools an existing visual system and asks them to create a new landing page in that style.

This is where many AI design workflows fail.

It is easy for an AI tool to make something that looks generally modern. It is harder to make something that belongs to an existing product.

For a real project, matching the design system means paying attention to:

• Fonts.
• Color tokens.
• Spacing habits.
• Border radii.
• Component density.
• Button styles.
• Navigation patterns.
• The overall level of restraint or expression.

Claude Design has a native advantage here because it is built as a design product. Huashu Design has to work through files, references, and agent reasoning.

The video shows Huashu taking longer, but still producing something close enough to be useful. That is the tradeoff: less direct interface polish, more workflow freedom.

Test 3: A slide deck

The third test asks both tools to create a slide deck for the same fictional SaaS product.

This is a good test because slide decks expose design consistency quickly. A single page can hide weak layout decisions. Ten slides make those decisions repeat.

The useful questions are:

• Does the deck keep a consistent visual language?
• Are the slides readable?
• Does the layout survive different kinds of content?
• Are there obvious issues like text overlap or stretched images?
• Can the result be exported or edited later?

Huashu Design can produce deck-style output, and the repository lists editable PPTX export as one of its supported deliverables. Agent-generated decks can still have visible issues, including text overlap, so plan a correction pass before using the slides seriously.

That is normal. Treat the first result as a serious draft, not a final client handoff.

Claude Design vs Huashu Design

Here is the clean comparison.

If you are deciding between them, do not make it philosophical. Make it practical.

Use the one that matches the kind of work you are doing today.

Where Huashu Design is strong

Huashu Design is strongest when you want the agent to produce a complete artifact, not just advice.

Good use cases:

• You need three directions for a landing page.
• You want an app prototype that can be clicked through.
• You need a rough slide deck from a product idea.
• You want a motion concept or short visual explainer.
• You want a structured critique of an existing design.
• You prefer staying inside Claude Code or another coding agent.

It is also useful when your brief is weak.

The repository describes a design-direction advisor that can take a vague request and generate multiple differentiated directions. That matters because many design failures begin before design starts. The input is too vague, so the output becomes generic.

Where Claude Design is still better

Claude Design is still the cleaner choice when you need a visual editing surface.

Use Claude Design when:

• You want to draw on the design.
• You want to click specific elements and ask for changes.
• You need a polished graphical interface for iteration.
• You are working with people who do not want a terminal workflow.
• You want the fastest route to visual exploration and you can live with the usage limits.

Huashu Design can get close on output. It does not replace the feeling of working inside a dedicated design interface.

That is not a failure. It is a different tool shape.

Common misunderstandings

"Open source means I can skip review"

No.

Open source helps you inspect the project, understand how it works, and track changes. It does not guarantee the output is correct, safe, on-brand, or client-ready.

You still need to review:

• The generated HTML.
• Any copied assets.
• Brand usage.
• Mobile behavior.
• Text overlap.
• Exports.
• Accessibility basics.

"It cloned Claude Design, so it must be identical"

Not exactly.

The comparison is about workflow and output, not a perfect product duplicate. Claude Design is a visual product. Huashu Design is a skill that gives an agent a design process.

Those are not the same thing.

"The first output is the final design"

Usually not.

Think of Huashu Design as a way to get to a better first draft. Then ask for focused revisions:

• Tighten spacing.
• Make the mobile layout denser.
• Remove generic cards.
• Use the existing button style.
• Fix text overlap.
• Re-check the page in Playwright.
• Export again.

The tool helps you move faster, but the final eye still matters.

"I should install it into every project"

Only install it when the project actually needs design generation.

If you are fixing an API route, adding a database migration, or writing a small utility, a large design skill may add noise. Use it when the task is visual.

A safer prompt to start with

If you want to try Huashu Design, start with a prompt that asks for questions first.

Use Huashu Design to create a landing page concept for my product.

Before designing, ask me the minimum questions you need about the product, audience, visual style, and required sections.

After I answer, create three clearly different visual directions. Do not treat the first version as final. Include notes about what each direction is good for and what may need review.

This works better than:

Make me a beautiful landing page.

The second prompt gives the agent too much room to guess. The first prompt creates a small design process.

A prompt for using an existing design system

If you already have a product style, be explicit.

Use Huashu Design to create a new landing page using the design language in this project.

First inspect the existing pages and components. Identify the typography, spacing, colors, button styles, card styles, navigation patterns, and density.

Then create three landing page directions that feel like they belong to this same product. Do not copy unrelated screens directly. Use the existing system as guidance for structure, rhythm, and component behavior.

After generating the page, check it at desktop and mobile widths and report any layout issues.

Notice the boundary: use the design system, do not blindly copy a screen.

That keeps the work useful without turning reference material into a pasted imitation.

What to do first

If you are curious but not sure where to start, use this order:

1. Open the current Huashu Design repository and read the install and license notes.
2. Decide whether this is the right project to test it in.
3. Use a small non-critical design task first.
4. Ask for three directions, not one final page.
5. Review the output in a browser.
6. Check mobile.
7. Ask for specific revisions.
8. Only then use it for client-facing or production-facing work.

This keeps the experiment contained.

The practical takeaway

Huashu Design is useful because it brings serious design structure into the agent workflow.

It is not as smooth as Claude Design when you need graphical editing. It can be slower. It can produce small layout issues. It still needs review.

But if Claude Design's limits make you hesitant to explore, Huashu Design gives you another path: stay inside your coding agent, generate useful design artifacts, and iterate through files instead of a separate visual product.

For many builders, that is enough.