Slop Patterns

A public library of AI design anti-patterns: what they look like, why the tools produce them, and what to do instead. Live at sloppatterns.com.

• License: MIT (LICENSE). Only the pattern library is here and MIT: patterns.json, the pattern text and sources, the site, and the MCP server in api/.
• Scanner code is not open. The Slop Score scanner at sloppatterns.com/score (browser capture, live checks and grading) is a separate project and is not included in this repo.
• The MCP server runs at https://sloppatterns.com/mcp. No account or key. See the "For agents" page on the site.
• The research note, The Same Page, is in research/.

Maintained by Pavithra Lamahewa at Precious Studio. Suggest a pattern from the site, or open an issue.

Use it in your AI tools

Your coding agent calls check_design on the UI it writes and fixes what it finds before you see it.

• Claude Code (plugin, MCP plus a skill):

  /plugin marketplace add pavithralamahewa/slop-patterns
  /plugin install slop-patterns@slop-patterns
  

• Any MCP client: npx add-mcp https://sloppatterns.com/mcp, or add an HTTP server with that URL. It is in the official MCP Registry as com.sloppatterns/slop-patterns.
• Cursor: add the server in Settings → MCP (type HTTP, URL above), then copy cursor/slop-patterns.mdc into .cursor/rules/.

Use the taxonomy

Every pattern has a stable code (for example A10) and a stable URL (https://sloppatterns.com/#gradient-text-headline). Codes never change meaning; when an entry is revised, its version and updated fields change.

• All 534 patterns as data: taxonomy.json. Each entry says whether it is checked automatically (101 are; the scanner, the MCP server and the command line share 104 code rules, and 57 of them have passed a hand audit on whole pages) or needs a person.
• Command line: npx slop-patterns check ./dist or npx slop-patterns scan example.com. See cli/.
• One rule set: the scanner, the MCP server and the command line run the same rules.js, so they never disagree.
• Cite it: see CITATION.cff. GitHub shows a "Cite this repository" button from it.