Icon System
Draw every icon from one set, at one set of sizes, with one rule for accessible naming.
What it adds
A single icon interface with a fixed size ladder, stable names, predictable alignment, and defined accessible behaviour.
What your agent is told to do
5
What your agent is told to do
5-
1
Inventory every icon currently rendered in the app — inline vector markup, sprites, image files, icon fonts, glyphs pasted into labels — and route all of them through one interface so a size or colour change is made in one place.
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2
Fix a small size ladder, three or four steps, tied to the type scale, and make every icon align to the text it sits beside rather than to the box that contains it.
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3
Decide per usage whether an icon is decorative or meaningful. Decorative icons must be hidden from assistive technology; meaningful ones need an accessible name that says what the control does, not what the picture is.
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4
Make icons inherit colour from their context so a single icon works in a button, a menu, a warning, and a disabled control without a per-instance override.
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5
Do not leave a second icon library in place while migrating. Two sets of the same concept drift apart, and the day someone reaches for the wrong chevron is the day the app has two visual languages. Icon Stroke Normalization owns the drawing weight of the icons themselves; this entry owns the interface, sizing, naming, and accessibility around them.
Edge cases it handles
7
Edge cases it handles
7- More than one icon library in the same codebase produces two versions of the same concept at different weights and different optical sizes. Pick one source, migrate the rest, and remove the abandoned dependency rather than leaving it available.
- An icon that carries meaning on its own — a status dot, an error mark, a delete control with no text — needs a name announced to assistive technology. An icon beside a visible label is decoration and must be hidden, or screen reader users hear the same word twice.
- Icons drawn on different canvases occupy different proportions of their box, so a set nominally at one size will look mismatched. Normalize the optical size so a square and a circle read as equally weighted at the same step.
- Fill and stroke behaviour has to survive a theme change. An icon that relies on a light background will disappear or invert badly in dark mode unless its colour comes from the theme rather than being baked in.
- Directional icons — arrows, chevrons, undo, next and previous — must mirror in right-to-left locales, while icons for time, media playback, and brand marks must not.
- A name that does not exist in the set must fail visibly during development rather than rendering an empty box in production.
- Icons used as the only content of a control still need a minimum touch target, which is larger than the icon itself.
Definition of done
9
Definition of done
9- Every icon in the app is rendered through one interface, and no second icon library remains installed.
- Icon sizes come from a fixed ladder and align optically with adjacent text.
- Decorative icons are hidden from assistive technology and meaningful ones carry an accessible name describing the action.
- Icons inherit colour from their surroundings and remain legible in every theme.
- Directional icons mirror in right-to-left locales and non-directional ones do not.
- An unknown icon name produces a clear failure during development.
- Icon-only controls meet the minimum touch target regardless of the icon's size.
- The feature matches the existing design system.
- No existing functionality is broken.
Related features
Z-Index Registry
Z-Index Registry
Keep every stacking value in one file so nobody has to guess a bigger number.
What it does
A single source of named z-index tokens, with reserved ranges per layer and a check that blocks raw values.
How it works
- 1 Find every z-index in the codebase, including inline styles and values buried in third-party overrides, and list them with the component that owns each. The count is usually higher than anyone expects and several will be arbitrary large numbers.
- 2 Reserve a range for each layer rather than assigning single values, so a new dropdown can slot between existing ones without renumbering everything above it. Leave real gaps between ranges.
- 3 Name each token after the layer it belongs to and derive the ordering from Elevation Layer Map. That feature decides what covers what; this one holds the numbers and stops them being invented locally.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/z-index-registry
Spacing Scale
Spacing Scale
Reduce the app's spacing to a small set of steps that repeat across every surface.
What it does
A named spacing scale covering gaps, padding, and section rhythm, with every existing value in the app mapped onto it.
How it works
- 1 Collect every spacing value currently in the codebase and count how often each appears. The result is usually a handful of genuine intentions surrounded by dozens of near-misses that were nudged once and never revisited.
- 2 Define a scale that is fine at the small end, where control padding lives, and coarse at the large end, where section separation lives. A linear scale gives too many indistinguishable large steps and too few small ones.
- 3 Separate the tokens used inside a component from the ones used between components and between page sections, and name them so the difference is obvious. The same number serving both purposes means a change to button padding also changes the gap between sections.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/spacing-scale
Shadow Scale
Shadow Scale
Replace ad hoc shadows with a small set tied to what each surface actually is.
What it does
A fixed ladder of shadow tokens, each named for an elevation role rather than a blur radius.
How it works
- 1 Collect every shadow currently declared anywhere in the app and group them by what they sit on — a resting card, a hovered card, a dropdown, a dialog, a toast. Most apps have a dozen near-identical values that collapse into four or five roles.
- 2 Name each step for its role, not its appearance. A token called menu tells the next person which surfaces may use it; a token called shadow-md-2 does not.
- 3 Use a single light source for the whole scale, so offset, blur, and spread grow together as elevation rises. Two shadows lit from different directions on the same screen read as a rendering bug.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/shadow-scale
How it works
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1
Copy the link
Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.
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2
Give it to your AI
Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.
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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.