AddThisFeature

Baseline Grid Overlay

Check vertical rhythm against a real baseline grid instead of judging it by eye.

moderate Developer Experience

What it adds

A configurable baseline and column grid drawn over the interface for typography and vertical-rhythm review.

What your agent is told to do

5
  1. 1

    Derive the default baseline interval from the app's existing type scale and line heights rather than picking a round number, so the grid describes the system the app already claims to follow.

  2. 2

    Let the reviewer change the interval, offset, colour, and opacity from the tool itself, and remember the last settings, because a grid that has to be reconfigured on every reload does not get used twice.

  3. 3

    Anchor the grid to the document origin and keep it registered to the content as the page scrolls, so a heading four screens down can be checked against the same rhythm as the first one.

  4. 4

    Offer a column grid alongside the baseline, matched to the app's real container widths and gutters, and let each be toggled independently.

  5. 5

    Do not treat this as a linter. This feature owns drawing the reference; deciding that an element is off-grid and reporting it as a defect belongs to UI Lint Rules, and measuring the actual gap between two boxes belongs to Spacing Overlay.

Edge cases it handles

7
  • Browser zoom and fractional device pixel ratios make hairlines drift or disappear; recompute line positions from the real rendered scale rather than assuming one CSS pixel equals one device pixel.
  • If the app supports more than one density or compact mode, the baseline interval changes with it — the overlay must follow the active mode rather than always drawing the comfortable-mode grid.
  • The grid must stay fixed to the content, not to the viewport, or every scroll appears to shift the rhythm and the review is worthless.
  • Some elements are deliberately off-grid for optical reasons — icon alignment, cap-height corrections, badges. Provide a way to mark and remember those exceptions so they stop being re-reported at every review.
  • Baselines sit at the text baseline, not the top of the line box; aligning the grid to line-box tops will make correctly set type look wrong.
  • The overlay must sit above the interface but below modals and toasts, or it becomes impossible to review a dialog against the grid.
  • The grid must be absent from production builds, and its toggle must not be reachable by a signed-in customer who guesses a URL parameter.

Definition of done

9
  • A baseline grid can be toggled on any screen, with configurable interval, offset, and opacity.
  • Grid settings persist between reloads.
  • Lines remain crisp and correctly spaced at every zoom level and device pixel ratio.
  • The grid follows the active density mode's baseline interval.
  • The grid stays registered to the content while scrolling rather than to the viewport.
  • Deliberate optical exceptions can be marked and are not re-flagged.
  • The overlay is unavailable in production builds.
  • The feature matches the existing design system.
  • No existing functionality is broken.

Related features

How it works

  1. 1

    Copy the link

    Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.

  2. 2

    Give it to your AI

    Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.

  3. 3

    It inspects, then implements

    Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.

Works with your stack

These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.

Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.