03 · Templates and the plugin library

A blank canvas is the most expensive place to start. The library exists so you don't have to.

Three kinds of thing

The library currently holds 479+ entries in three categories:

Kind	Count	What it is	When
Templates	292	Runnable starting points, each with an example.html	You know roughly the shape you want
Skills	23	Pure SKILL.md instruction	You need judgement, not a shape
Systems	152	Brand-grade design systems	You're setting the visual direction

They stack: a template to start, a system to set the register, a skill or two for judgement.

The numbers move

The library keeps growing, and the site's homepage counter and the plugin page don't always agree (458+ on one, 479+ on the other while this was written). For what exists right now, look at open-design.ai/plugins.

What a template actually is

Not an empty frame. Most entries carry real context. Real examples of the types:

• prototype — self-contained WebGL heroes, dashboards, blog article pages, clinical case reports.
• deck — decks built around a specific situation: "write a demo-day pitch like a top accelerator partner", "write a board pre-read like a Fortune-500 board chair", "build an editorial design system like a magazine art director".
• video — motion frames: European poster style, luxury minimal, data rollups.

The deck family rewards a second look. These aren't "business template A/B/C". They encode a role's judgement — who the audience is, what decision it has to produce, what belongs on which slide. Using one, you inherit a narrative structure, not just a layout.

Finding things

You can filter by type (web / deck / marketing / prototype / desktop / brand / editorial / motion) and by agent. Every entry has a "Read full prompt".

That link is underrated. Reading those prompts is the fastest way to learn prompt-writing — you get to see how a "board deck" was decomposed into concrete constraints.

Installing and using

Click install. It joins your list, indistinguishable from what shipped.

You can also borrow without installing: read the prompt and lift the useful parts into your own. The library is part of an Apache-2.0 project; that's entirely legitimate.

Writing one and contributing it back

Every template, skill, and system is community-extensible, through the ordinary open-source route:

1. Build the plugin locally (a folder with a SKILL.md or DESIGN.md; templates also carry an example.html).
2. Open a PR against nexu-io/open-design, or an issue to propose it first.
3. Once merged, it appears in the web catalogue and in the product automatically.

Two kinds are usually worth contributing:

• Structures specific to your industry — medicine, law, education, anywhere with fixed document conventions.
• Design systems you extracted — if the brand is public (a well-known open-source project's visual identity, say), everyone benefits.

What a real stack looks like

Building a client proposal, you'd layer:

Template: Build a Buyer-Committee Leave-Behind
System:   client-a/DESIGN.md
Skills:   colour theory + copywriting

The template supplies narrative structure and slide skeleton, the system makes it look like the client's own material, the skills add judgement. Each layer is replaceable without touching the others.

Where it goes wrong

Trap	How it shows	Fix
Installing everything	An unusable list	Install what you'll use this quarter
Treating a template as a finished thing	Output looks like a template	It's a starting point; the refinement steps still apply
Never reading the prompts	Missing the best study material	Open "Read full prompt"
Rebuilding what's already there	Wasted work	Search first

Related

• 01 · Skills — writing your own
• 02 · Systems — extracting your brand