4 Crazy Ways Claude Fable 5 Builds Stunning Websites

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Transcript

00:00:00Everyone has access to the same AI models, but nobody has built the processes around them.
00:00:05You might have heard the phrase that the model doesn't matter anymore, the harness does.
00:00:09Harnesses are basically the processes that you build for your AI model to follow.
00:00:13But here's the thing you need to understand.
00:00:14Models keep evolving, so the harness you built three months ago is already obsolete.
00:00:19At the time of recording, the best model out there is Fable 5 Anthropics flagship model,
00:00:24but don't worry, we'll guide you through different ways that make sure that your harness
00:00:27keeps evolving for any model out there.
00:00:30So Anthropic actually has an official skill for front-end design,
00:00:34and the reason it exists is a problem that they named themselves.
00:00:37What happens is that the model drifts toward the safest and most average version of the design
00:00:42that you asked for.
00:00:43They call it converging on the distribution, which basically means that it builds the thing
00:00:47it's seen a thousand times before.
00:00:49Now with how powerful these latest models have been advertised, you might think this isn't
00:00:53a problem anymore, but that's not what I've found.
00:00:56For example, in this prompt, we simply asked it to build a landing page for a plantation website.
00:01:01To nudge it in the right direction, we told it to be as creative as possible and not focus
00:01:06too much on the content itself.
00:01:07We also explicitly told it not to load any skills because we have multiple skills available
00:01:13in our system and we wanted to make sure it wasn't taking advantage of them.
00:01:16This is what it ended up creating.
00:01:18Now it's not a bad design by any means, but it's certainly not the best either.
00:01:22For example, there are some contrast issues and a few of the images don't load properly.
00:01:26But when we use the skill here, things changed quite a bit.
00:01:29Now there's nothing special in the skill.
00:01:31There aren't any references or any external resources.
00:01:34It's literally just a prompt.
00:01:35Using that alone, it produced a much better design.
00:01:37The design was significantly more polished and aesthetically pleasing.
00:01:41It included subtle animations and a lot more attention to detail.
00:01:45Overall, the result was noticeably better than what the model would normally generate on its own.
00:01:49With every new model, these AI companies release new prompting guides for people using the model APIs.
00:01:55And using Fable 5's guide, we modified the design skill.
00:01:58You can just copy the general purpose design prompt and the prompting guide.
00:02:02Paste them both into Claude, tell it that you've got the prompting guide for the model
00:02:06and ask it to create an updated version based on that.
00:02:09It analyzes the prompt and gives you a rewritten version for the new model.
00:02:12And you can actually see the new site looks way better.
00:02:15It's structured much better and it turned all the different elements into cards.
00:02:19We think it looks so much more creative than what Claude normally puts out because of tiny details
00:02:24like how the CTA section got turned into a postcard letter with a stamp on top of it.
00:02:29It's these tiny details that make it look so much more creative.
00:02:32Now, there's another reason these companies put out prompting guides.
00:02:35A lot of the time, the models have behavioral issues and the guides tell you how to fix them.
00:02:39When Opus 4.8 shipped, Anthropic pointed out that the model tended to default to a particular design style.
00:02:45Their fix was to ask the model for multiple design alternatives first, then let you pick which direction to go with.
00:02:51But when Fable 5 came out, this issue wasn't mentioned in its prompting guides anymore.
00:02:56And from what we saw, the model still falls back to that same style.
00:02:59It doesn't happen every single time.
00:03:01But from our testing, roughly two out of three generated sites still end up with very similar styling.
00:03:07So it was never really fixed.
00:03:08That's why it's worth looking at the docs for previous models, too.
00:03:11You'll often find useful things that just didn't make it into the latest guide.
00:03:15So using the prompt guide for Opus 4.8, we switched to a different design skill
00:03:20that actually asked us what kind of design direction we wanted.
00:03:23Based on that, it generated this design.
00:03:25This looks good, too.
00:03:26But honestly, a better approach is to use design.md files here.
00:03:30These files contain brand language that you just drop onto your page.
00:03:33Get design.md is a really good source where you can get files of many brands.
00:03:38But even then, use them after the model has already generated the landing page.
00:03:42And this is specifically for landing pages because if you actually look inside design.md files,
00:03:47they lock everything down, right down to the font.
00:03:50And as you saw in the examples, the font is a big part of what made those sites look so much more creative.
00:03:55There are two levels when it comes to adding in animations.
00:03:58The marketing UI and the functional UI.
00:04:00Using the design skill on functional UI like dashboards will make it look beautiful,
00:04:05but people won't actually be able to use it.
00:04:07So for adding animations, we use two things.
00:04:10For marketing pages, this skill already tells the model to add CSS-based animations,
00:04:15but GSAP animations are way better.
00:04:17This is where another step from the prompting guide comes in.
00:04:20Effort is the main lever that controls the model now.
00:04:22For simple tasks, you can keep it from low to medium,
00:04:25but for tasks like adding in animations, using X-High is a much better option,
00:04:30and will give you fewer retries.
00:04:32In our marketing UI skill, there's a rule that specifies when GSAP should be used.
00:04:36Whenever that condition is triggered, it automatically loads the GSAP skill as well.
00:04:41We actually used that setup on the same landing page shown here.
00:04:44Even with that limited planning on our part, it did a surprisingly good job.
00:04:48It nailed the placement where the screen animation plays inside the postcard,
00:04:52and the seasons transition one after another.
00:04:55It's a good example of how these specialized skills can handle a lot of the implementation details
00:04:59automatically.
00:05:00We've achieved this skill system through a lot of trial and error.
00:05:03And by that, I mean repeatedly hitting the 5-hour usage limits.
00:05:07If you want to skip all of that, you can get it from our Community AI Labs Pro.
00:05:11The link's going to be in the description.
00:05:12So, as we've already mentioned, there are two kinds of UIs.
00:05:15The entire workflow behind functional UI is completely different from marketing UI.
00:05:20For example, planning is the first step, and it matters a lot.
00:05:23We're not going to dive deep into that in this video, but once you have your plan ready,
00:05:27you can give it to Claude.
00:05:27After that, instead of having it build the app, you should ask it to build the mockups using HTML.
00:05:33Our process starts with the design.md.
00:05:36If you've already decided what design.md you want to use, that's great.
00:05:40If you don't have one, that's okay too.
00:05:42You can move on without it.
00:05:43For example, if you look at our custom-built community,
00:05:45you'll immediately notice that the design on the outside and the design on the inside are completely
00:05:50different.
00:05:51In our case, everything was planned using HTML mockups first.
00:05:54We started by creating a design.md, which was partially inspired by Notion.
00:05:58Using that design system, we built all of the screens as mockups before writing the actual application.
00:06:04Once we finalized and validated those mockups, we converted them into this fully functional application.
00:06:09Now, before we move on the most important part in designing functional UIs, let's have a
00:06:13word from our sponsor.
00:06:14A lot of people using Claude Code recently noticed their costs going through the roof.
00:06:18Honestly, that's why Kimi caught my attention.
00:06:20They built an open-source model that's really good at coding at around 1/8th the price of Opus.
00:06:26Their latest model, Kimi K2.6, just hit number one on Sweebench Pro,
00:06:30basically the hardest real-world coding benchmark right now.
00:06:33They didn't just release the model, they built products on top of K2.6 that are genuinely useful.
00:06:38You can generate production-ready websites with good front-end design,
00:06:41create full slide decks from a single prompt, and even handle databases and authentication out of the box.
00:06:47But the craziest feature is probably Agent Swarm.
00:06:49You can spin up 300 AI agents in parallel on a single task.
00:06:53Instead of one agent slowly handling everything, you get an entire AI team working simultaneously.
00:06:58And all of this runs on an open-source model that costs far less than the closed-source
00:07:03alternatives people have been paying for.
00:07:05So, if you're using Claude Code or Cursor every day and your API bill has been getting painful
00:07:09lately, Kimi is worth trying.
00:07:11If you sign up through our link, you'll also get an extra 10% quota bonus on your first purchase
00:07:16before June 30th. Click the link in the description and start building.
00:07:19Now, there's another really important part of designing functional UIs, which is experimentation.
00:07:24Over time, we've tried a lot of different approaches to solve this problem.
00:07:28Initially, we used task lists with multiple agents working in parallel,
00:07:32where each agent would generate a different variation of the UI.
00:07:35The goal was to experiment with multiple designs and figure out which approach actually worked best.
00:07:40Later, we started using sub-agents for this workflow, but it doesn't matter anymore.
00:07:45With a million tokens of context, you can do it with the primary agent as well.
00:07:48We also built something internally called the Gallery Viewer.
00:07:51The purpose of the Gallery Viewer is simple.
00:07:53When you generate multiple HTML mockups, they shouldn't get lost among dozens of files.
00:07:58Instead, they're automatically opened together in a single view, making them easy to compare
00:08:03side-by-side. For example, when we were building the community platform, we didn't initially know
00:08:08what a community interaction space should look like. We knew we wanted a community experience,
00:08:12but there were many different ways users could interact with one another. So rather than committing
00:08:17to a single design, we experimented using HTML mockups. We tasked the agent to create multiple
00:08:22community channel UIs as HTML mockups, so we could compare them. The agent would then create multiple
00:08:28versions automatically and open them inside the Gallery Viewer. From there, we could compare each
00:08:33variation and decide which direction was the strongest. One thing you'll notice in this example
00:08:37is that the designs don't all look visually consistent. Ideally, they should share the same design
00:08:42language while exploring different interaction patterns. The reason that didn't happen here is
00:08:46because there was no design.md provided. When a design.md exists, the model uses it as a source of truth for
00:08:53colors, spacing, typography, components, and overall styling. So all of the generated mockups stay
00:08:59visually consistent while still exploring different UX approaches. There are also a few smaller details that
00:09:04can make a big difference, such as adding animations to functional UIs. We've documented a set of animation
00:09:10guidelines in our own skill and you're welcome to copy them if you'd like. They've worked quite well for us so
00:09:15far and we're continuously refining them. One thing I'd strongly recommend, however, is not overdoing
00:09:20animations in the functional part of your application. Excessive animations might look impressive at
00:09:25first, but they often make productivity-focused interfaces feel more distracting. Once you've
00:09:29finalized the design, the next step is to use the ShadCN skill. I've already connected the functional UI
00:09:35skill to the ShadCN skill, so it handles most of the workflow automatically. Previously, we had much more
00:09:40elaborate workflows. We would generate a detailed implementation plan specifically for the ShadCN
00:09:45MCP and we'd use that plan to build the entire interface. While that approach worked, it also
00:09:50added a lot of complexity. Today, the workflow is significantly simpler. All you need is the final
00:09:55HTML mockup and the ShadCN skill. The reason this works so well is that the ShadCN skill already contains
00:10:01a huge amount of context and implementation knowledge packaged by the creators of ShadCN themselves.
00:10:06Because of that, it can take a finalized HTML mockup and reproduce it almost one-to-one using
00:10:11actual ShadCN components. So at this stage, you don't need to worry about creating complicated
00:10:16implementation plans or conversion workflows. If you like these design processes, subscribe to the
00:10:21channel and click the hype button as well. We post content that helps you learn new ways to optimize
00:10:26different processes in different businesses with AI. Your support here would mean a lot to us.
00:10:31The guide also asks you to make self-verification explicit for these models. You can put a prompt in
00:10:36the Claude.md that asks the agent to verify its output. Now, instead of using the main agent,
00:10:41you should use a sub-agent that can verify the output. And to verify it, you need something
00:10:46that you can compare against. For that, always point the sub-agent to your design.md.
00:10:50Another thing that's mentioned in the guide is that models perform better when they have context about
00:10:55your task. For design, this means having knowledge about what the product actually is.
00:10:59Now, a lot of frameworks have set up a separate product.md, but in our opinion,
00:11:03when you set up a Claude.md, it has sufficient context for the model to understand what your
00:11:09project is about. So what the functional UI skill does is whenever it gets a new task,
00:11:13it makes the model read the Claude.md as well. In addition to that, it also contains a mox folder
00:11:18which has all the HTML files so that you can reference them whenever you're adding new elements to your
00:11:24app. On top of that, it would be great if you have the design.md as well. These are the files
00:11:28you need to have in your project. Nowadays, a lot of SaaS apps can be easily cloned.
00:11:32We ourselves use custom-built software for team management. We've built our own version because
00:11:37we don't have to host a lot of people. In that case, you don't really have to make it from scratch.
00:11:42You just need to make sure you're cloning their UI as perfectly as you can. With newer models,
00:11:46their ability to understand images has gotten so much better, so the workflow here becomes really easy.
00:11:51In cloning, there are two different modes. Mode B is for marketing UI. For this,
00:11:56there's a really useful CLI tool called single-file CLI. Using it, you can capture everything on a page,
00:12:01including the HTML, CSS, and even the images used on that website. If the site contains multiple pages,
00:12:07you can also fetch its sitemap.xml file, which is essentially a map of the website. Using that sitemap,
00:12:13the model can discover and fetch the other pages as well. The problem starts when you run into pages that are
00:12:19behind authentication. For example, if you wanted to clone Notion's UI, you couldn't simply point the
00:12:23tool at Notion's website. When you provide Notion's URL, you're only going to get the landing page.
00:12:28What you actually want is the application interface behind the login screen. Fortunately, models have
00:12:34become very good at understanding interfaces from images, so in those situations, screenshots are the
00:12:40best option. You have to capture the different states of the interface very carefully. Let's say you have a
00:12:45page open, you'll want screenshots showing what happens on hover and how different interactions affect the layout.
00:12:50Let's take another example. Suppose you open a page where two pages are in one column. If you only provide this,
00:12:56the model is not going to know that you can make two columns. You need to be extremely thorough and provide all the
00:13:01context the model needs. Once you've captured the screenshots, don't paste the images directly into the prompt. Instead,
00:13:07drag them into Claude. This gives the system access to the image paths that Mode A can use. Mode A will
00:13:13then gather all of those screenshots, place them inside the clone folder and use them as reference material.
00:13:19Those screenshots effectively become the foundation for the cloning process. From there, you can generate an
00:13:25initial HTML version of the interface and then move on to building the final application.
00:13:29That brings us to the end of this video. If you'd like to support the channel and help us keep making videos
00:13:35like this, you can do so by using the super thanks button below. As always, thank you for
00:13:39watching and I'll see you in the next one.

Key Takeaway

Building superior websites with AI requires moving beyond basic prompts to implement a robust, multi-layered 'harness' consisting of design.md documentation, specialized skills for animation and consistency, and iterative HTML mockup testing.

Highlights

  • AI models tend to converge on average designs unless guided by specific, system-level process harnesses.

  • Updating custom design prompts by integrating official prompting guides for new models like Claude Fable 5 results in more polished and structured UI outputs.

  • Using 'design.md' files to enforce brand language, fonts, and styling prevents models from drifting during landing page generation.

  • Setting the effort level to 'X-High' significantly improves the model's success rate when implementing complex GSAP-based animations.

  • HTML mockups act as the source of truth for functional UIs, allowing for iterative comparison in a Gallery Viewer before final conversion to production-ready code.

  • Cloning interfaces behind authentication screens requires thorough, state-specific screenshots rather than relying solely on URL scraping.

Timeline

Optimizing AI for Design consistency

  • AI models naturally gravitate toward average design patterns unless forced away through explicit process harnesses.
  • Applying specific design-focused prompts results in more polished aesthetics, subtle animations, and higher attention to detail.
  • New model releases require updating custom prompts using the AI vendor's official prompting guides to unlock advanced structural capabilities.

Models often 'converge on the distribution,' producing redundant designs they have seen frequently. Integrating a specialized design skill, even as a simple prompt, prevents this average output. Using the latest model-specific prompting guides allows the AI to re-interpret older tasks with improved structural awareness, such as converting sections into distinct cards.

Managing Brand and Animation

  • Referencing documentation from previous models often provides behavioral fixes missing from the latest guides.
  • Design.md files act as a hard constraint for brand language, typography, and spacing during landing page generation.
  • Setting model effort to 'X-High' and using specialized GSAP skills reduces retries for complex animations.

Behavioral drift often persists across model versions, necessitating the use of older, reliable prompt instructions. By offloading brand guidelines to design.md files, developers ensure consistency in fonts and colors. Furthermore, GSAP animations for marketing pages require high effort settings to trigger correctly, offloading complex implementation details to the system.

Functional UI Workflows

  • Functional UI development prioritizes planning via HTML mockups before writing the actual application code.
  • Internal 'Gallery Viewer' tools allow for side-by-side comparison of multiple UI variations to determine the most effective interaction pattern.
  • Design.md files remain essential for maintaining visual consistency across different interaction mockups.

Unlike marketing pages, functional UI requires a rigorous planning phase. Creating HTML mockups in parallel allows developers to test different interaction patterns without committing to a single design. Without a centralized design language, generated mockups risk visual inconsistency, hence the requirement for a design.md file as a source of truth.

Implementation and Advanced Cloning

  • The ShadCN skill handles the conversion from finalized HTML mockups to production-ready code with minimal additional planning.
  • Explicit self-verification prompts using sub-agents referencing design.md improve code quality.
  • Cloning complex, authenticated UIs is best achieved through state-specific screenshots rather than URL scraping.

Once an HTML mockup is finalized, the ShadCN skill reproduces it using component-based architecture. For cloning existing SaaS platforms, using URL-based scraping is insufficient for protected pages; providing detailed screenshots of various interface states allows the model to accurately reconstruct layouts and interactions that are otherwise invisible.

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