Beyond the Purple Gradient: I Gave an Open Coding Agent a Design Team

Description and use

Skulptor orchestrates open models Kimi K3 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash to design, build, and critique UI, reducing cost and enhancing design uniqueness.

Problem

AI-generated UIs often look identical, producing generic pages with repeated patterns and insufficient design differentiation.

Outcome

Skulptor reduced cost (e.g., DeepSeek with skill cost $0.05 vs $0.13 alone) and improved design distinctiveness, though desktop layouts still required refinement.

Workflow

• 1. Designer (Kimi K3) turns request and reference images into a design specification and HTML prototype.
• 2. Builder (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) implements the prototype in the target app.
• 3. Critic (Kimi K3) compares screenshots of the implementation against the prototype and identifies fixes.

Evidence

With the same bakery prompt and no skill, a cheap model (DeepSeek) and the top open design model (Kimi K3) built almost the same generic page.

Source

The skill gave DeepSeek a distinct concept: a bakery before dawn, with amber oven light and a timeline of the bakery's day.

Source

The handoff worked almost pixel for pixel, and the critic approved it after one round.

Source