The Forge record free, local, no account
The design record for AI-built prototypes.
Files in your repository that remember why the prototype looks the way it does: the brief, every decision with its reasons, the tasks and each frozen version. The forge CLI and the coding agent you already use keep it. Delete Forge and every file survives.
npm install -g @forgedesign/cliThen, in a project, forge init starts the record, and forge skills install --home gives Claude Code and Codex the Forge skills.
- System
- Node 20 or later. macOS, Linux or Windows.
- Agents
- Claude Code, Codex or anything else. Forge never runs a model or holds a model key.
- Files
- Markdown and JSON in plain Git. Readable without Forge.
- Price
- Free. Forge Cloud is only for hosted reviews.
01 The loop
An opinionated loop, not another agent terminal.
Every step leaves a file in the repo that a teammate can read six months later and still understand why the prototype looks the way it does.
01Frame
Capture the problem, the constraints, and the supporting material as files in the repo, next to the interfaces they describe.
02Explore
Take competing directions onto their own branches and build each with your agent. They stay side by side as real, runnable interfaces, so you compare working screens, not thumbnails.
03Check
Run quality checks before anyone outside the team sees the work, so stakeholders review the design, not the typos.
04Freeze
Pin an exact, immutable version. What people see never shifts underneath their comments.
05Review
Publish a guided review. Stakeholders comment on real screens, real states and real flows, from a link, with nothing to install.
06Resolve
Triage feedback into decisions and tasks, execute the accepted ones locally with any model, and show every stakeholder what happened to their comment.
02 Spoken here
Git underneath. Design language on top.
Designers shouldn’t need Git internals to keep a defensible record. Forge runs the standard mechanics and names them after the work.
03 Downstream
Engineers receive a repository, not a redline.
Every freeze writes a handoff pack beside it, as a PDF and a Word file: the release note, the decisions with their reasons, the questions still open and the check reports for that version. Developers take the tag from Git. No Forge account, no portal.
When it needs other people
One command puts it in front of a stakeholder.
forge publish v6