simbolik.ai. Built by an AI agent, inside the rules.

I needed a website, and proof that AI can make work worth shipping. So I wrote the rules down where a machine can read them, and a checker that refuses anything outside them. Then I handed the build to the agent.

Pages, built by an AI agent: 18

Design system components to build from: 48

Design tokens, and no value written outside them: 546

Checker rules switched off: 0

Rules first, then the agent.

The problem

Left alone, an agent builds the same polished page everyone else's agent builds
It gets the work to about 70%, and someone senior fixes the rest by hand
At volume, the fixing costs the time the agent saved

The fix

A design system written for machines and people alike: 546 design tokens and 48 components, each with its rules
A checker that fails any hand-typed color, size or font, and any class the system doesn't know, before a person sees the page

How the agent works.

Read the workspace first
The workspace says what exists, what's allowed and what was already decided, with the reason written next to each decision. The agent starts there, not from the brief.
Build from real parts
Pages are made of the design system's own components. A part the system doesn't have is built from its design tokens, named, and added to the project's list of parts.
Let the checker say no
The checker reads every page and stylesheet. A raw color, a stray pixel value or an unknown class fails it, and each failure gets fixed or explained in writing. No rule is switched off.
Look at the result
Nothing is done until it has been rendered and looked at on a phone and a wide screen, in light and in dark.
Write down the gaps
When the right design token doesn't exist, the agent uses the nearest one and adds the gap to a list. I decide which gaps become new design tokens.