The agent skill

The one prompt works because there is a guide written for the agent. This door installs that guide into your repo as a skill — so the next session, and every one after it, knows the journey without being handed the prompt again.

Install it

npx shadcn add @ambientui/start

It lands two files in .claude/skills/ambientui-start/ — the place Claude Code looks for skills: SKILL.md, the journey itself, and DESIGN.md beside it, the constitution the journey runs on. The constitution is where the logic lives — how a screenshot is read as a configuration rather than copied as styling, and the propagation rules that make every border, corner and surface follow the theme. Skill-capable agents load the skill when someone asks to set up ambientui, start a frontend with it, or pastes the start.md link.

What it teaches

The whole journey, in the order that makes it feel like one move: tools first, taste second, build third, the reveal last. Three behaviors are mandatory:

  • ·An existing product gets one question first. The ambient layer only — the assistant above screens that stay exactly as they are — or the full design architecture, where the Foundation governs tokens, spacing, radius and motion too. The agent asks, waits, and branches on the answer.
  • ·From scratch, the /ds page is mandatory. A settings page where every Foundation value is a control — the agent checks the route for conflicts first, and at handover walks the owner through what each control governs and what Save persists.
  • ·The agent proves the install before handing it over. The shipped stylesheets get imported as they are — never rebuilt by hand, which is how borders end up ignoring the theme — the installed files are checked to have actually landed where the imports expect them, and the agent presses ⌘K itself before the owner ever does.

After that: express the owner's reference as configuration rather than styling, give every page a context line through setPageChip, and end with the spotlight — press ⌘K.

The same file, two ways in

The skill and the prompt are one document. Telling an agent to read ambientui.ai/start.md runs the journey once; installing the door makes the repo carry it. Use the prompt to arrive, the skill to stay.

The rules that come with it

A second door installs the system's constitution — the hard rules an AI works under in a governed codebase, tokens-only, motion roles, the ambient contract:

npx shadcn add @ambientui/governance

Where to next

Getting started shows the journey this skill runs, and installation lists every door it draws from.