unhappy

SkillMedia

State-first design pass — inventories and implements all non-happy states (loading, empty, error, partial, conflict, offline) before the happy path, and refactors impossible boolean state to proper state machines. Use when starting a new screen, reviewing an existing one for edge-case gaps, or when the user says \"handle the error state\" / \"add loading states\" / \"what happens when data is missing\". Invoke when the user asks for unhappy on their UI, or mentions 'unhappy' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the unhappy skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by educlopez/ui-craft in .codex/skills/unhappy/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Context: this sub-skill is one lens of the broader ui-craft skill. If the ui-craft skill is also installed, read its SKILL.md first for Discovery + Anti-Slop + Craft Test, then apply the specific lens below.

Design every non-happy state for the UI at $ARGUMENTS. Load the ui-craft skill and read references/state-design.md.

Step 1 — Inventory. List every data source and interactive surface in the target. For each, enumerate its states:

Surfaceidleloadingemptyerrorpartialconflictoffline

Mark each cell as designed (exists in code), missing (must add), or N/A (not applicable — e.g., a read-only view has no conflict state).

Step 2 — Fill the missing states. For each missing state, either stub it inline or add a follow-up task comment. Use references/state-design.md for:

  • Skeleton sizing (match final layout, 200ms delay, 5s upper bound)
  • Empty-state copy (why empty + next action + visual)
  • Error-state contract (specific cause + one-click recovery + support ID)
  • Offline handling (queue writes + reconcile on reconnect)

Step 3 — Audit the happy path. Flag every spot where the happy path assumes resource presence without checking. Fix with early-returns, state guards, or discriminated-union state handling. Booleans like isLoading && !error && data that allow impossible states are findings — refactor to a proper state machine or reducer.

Step 4 — Optimistic UI + reconciliation. For offline-likely actions (saves, sends, edits, toggles), implement optimistic UI with reconciliation on reconnect. Queue writes locally. Surface any rejected writes — never swallow them.

Knob gating (CRAFT_LEVEL):

CRAFT_LEVELRequired states to stub
≤ 4idle, loading, error
5-7idle, loading, empty, error, success
8+all six — add partial, conflict, offline

If CRAFT_LEVEL is unknown, default to 7.

Convergence note: To iterate until all required states are present, load skills/ui-craft/references/loops.md and run preset state-coverage (budget = the default loop budget defined in loops.md): after stubbing the highest-priority missing required state, re-inventory until all knob-required states are present or budget exhausted. Emit the pre-flight cost notice before iteration 1.

Output: edit the code directly. After each file, print the Review Format table from SKILL.md:

BeforeAfterWhy
no loading state on <ProjectList>skeleton rows matching final layout, 200ms delayprevents "is it broken?" perception; avoids CLS
generic "Error" toastinline error with specific cause + retry + support IDrecoverability (heuristic 9)

One row per state added. No full diffs.

Next step: /harden — implement the states you just designed (rung 1).

Signals

GitHub stars
326
Forks
17
Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
unhappy
Source
github.com/educlopez/ui-craft