design-shotgun

An agent skill by garrytan, from garrytan/gstack. Tags: brainstorming, design, evaluation, ui-ux.

What it does

Design shotgun: generate multiple AI design variants, open a comparison board, collect structured feedback, and iterate. (gstack)

Install

With the skills CLI, which installs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents:

npx skills add garrytan/gstack --skill design-shotgun

Or copy the skill folder into Claude Code's skills directory by hand (~/.claude/skills for every project, or .claude/skills inside one):

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack
cp -r gstack/design-shotgun ~/.claude/skills/design-shotgun

Safety box score

Grade C, moderate risk: 30 of 100 risk points, rated 2026-10-20. The grade rates what the skill and its scripts can reach on the machine of whoever installs it, across eight categories from shell execution to secrets access. How the score works.

This skill runs local shell commands and a local design binary to generate, compare, and iterate mockups, then stores artifacts under the gstack state root and a few home-dot directories. The main risks are local code execution, filesystem writes outside the repo, and a localhost feedback loop; I did not see secret access or privilege escalation.

Category levels, from 0 (none) to 3 (high)
Category	Level	Why
Code & shell execution	2 (moderate)	It invokes real commands and helpers such as `~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-skill-start`, `aside repl`, and `$D variants/compare/iterate`, so it can execute local processes beyond simple file reads.
Network access	1 (low)	The only documented network use is localhost, e.g. `curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" http://localhost:3000` and POSTing to `${BOARD_URL}api/reload`; no external egress is shown in these files.
Filesystem reach	2 (moderate)	It writes design artifacts under `$GSTACK_STATE_ROOT/projects/$SLUG/designs/` and temp feedback files under `~/.gstack/tmp/`, so it edits home-state locations outside the repo.
Secrets & credentials	0 (none)	There is no operative code that reads tokens, keychains, `.env` files, browser sessions, or passwords; the only session-token language is administrative bookkeeping for telemetry.
Privilege & persistence	0 (none)	No `sudo`, global installs, service registration, shell startup edits, or OS setting changes are present; the only permission tweak shown is `chmod 700` on a temp directory.
Instruction hijack surface	1 (low)	The preamble tells the agent to honor `GSTACK_INSTRUCTION_BEGIN` blocks and to auto-choose recommendations when `SESSION_KIND: spawned` or `unattended`, which reduces human confirmation in some modes.
Irreversible actions	1 (low)	It can independently generate multiple variants, open a board, iterate on feedback, and save `approved.json`, but it stays within a user-approved design workflow and does not deploy or message anyone.
Transparency	1 (low)	The workflow depends on an external binary at `~/.claude/skills/gstack/design/dist/design`, but that executable is not included in the reviewed files, so its internals are opaque here.

Before installing

Inspect `SKILL.md` for the local commands it runs, then inspect the external `~/.claude/skills/gstack/design/dist/design` binary if you care about its side effects.
Confirm you're okay with persistent writes under `~/.gstack/` and `$GSTACK_STATE_ROOT/projects/<slug>/designs/` before using it on a sensitive machine.
Check whether probing `http://localhost:3000` and serving a local board is acceptable in your environment.
If you want a fully auditable install, verify the helper scripts in `~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/` before letting the agent run the workflow.

Rated 2026-10-20 by an automated review of 3 files from the skill's repository.

Source

Repository: garrytan/gstack (all skills from this repository)
Path: design-shotgun/SKILL.md
Branch: main
Updated: 2026-10-05

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