Design Factory · Work in progress
A design pipeline that runs my AI workflows, and stops for me to choose
Built on Harper Reed’s dark factory idea and his smasher engine, with a design side I’m adding on top.
Before & After
Problem
- I was prompting the same design workflow by hand, one step at a time.
- Software teams are running AI workflows as plain-text graphs. Design has no equivalent, and a model scoring its own taste converges on safe choices.
The Redesign
Solution
A pipeline that does the legwork unattended, which is generating options, building them and checking them, then pauses at a gallery gate so I can react to real options and choose.
Dashboard
What needs me, first
Runs that are paused for a decision sit at the top of the page.
Workflow editor
A workflow is a graph of steps
I redesigned smasher’s interface so the steps, the loops and the settings are visible at once.
Gallery gate
Semi-dark, not dark
Design has no checkable notion of correct, so the factory stops and a human chooses a direction.
Candidates
Real screens, not mockups
Drawer, modal or inline editing is a question of behaviour. Candidates are small, clickable screens built from a shared kit of components.
Decisions
Along the way
Tokens in code, not Figma, so the system check is a fast local script. Two critics, not one score: one tests the design system, the other tries to complete a task as a persona. Candidate counts narrow as the pipeline goes, and I can override them on any run.
Where it is
The pipeline runs, the interface needs polish
I haven’t yet run it on a real product problem. I wrote the vision down before building more of it.