Ant Design (React) — Practical Front-end Design Skill

Use this skill when you are building a React UI with Ant Design (antd) and want consistent, non-ugly screens fast.

When to use

• The project uses React + Ant Design
• You need to design/implement pages with: Layout, Menu, Form, Table, Modal, Drawer, Steps, Tabs, Pagination
• You need to implement theme tokens (colors, radius, typography, spacing)
• You want predictable UI patterns (CRUD screens, dashboards, settings pages)

Default workflow (do this order)

1) Confirm stack: React + antd version (v5+ assumed).

2) Choose page pattern:

• CRUD list (Table) + filters (Form) + actions (Modal/Drawer)
• Wizard (Steps)
• Settings (Form + Cards)
• Dashboard (Grid + Cards + Charts)

3) Build layout skeleton first:

• Layout + Sider + Header + Content
• Navigation with Menu

4) Build the main interaction component:

• Forms: Form, Form.Item, Input, Select, DatePicker, Switch
• Tables: Table + column definitions + row actions

5) Add feedback loop:

• message, notification, Modal.confirm

6) Apply theming/tokens via ConfigProvider (global) and component-level overrides.

7) Verify:

• Empty states
• Loading states
• Error states
• Mobile responsiveness (at least: 360px layout sanity)

Component patterns (copy/paste mental models)

Layout

• Use Layout with Sider (collapsible), Header for top actions, Content scroll.
• Put page title + primary CTA in a Flex (or Space) row.

Forms

• Keep forms vertical; align labels consistently.
• Use Form + Form.Item rules for validation; avoid custom validation unless necessary.
• Use Form.useForm() and form.setFieldsValue() for edit flows.

Tables (CRUD)

• Columns:
• left: identifier/name
• middle: important attributes
• right: actions (Edit/Delete)
• Use rowKey always.
• Use server-side pagination for real apps.

Modals/Drawers

• Modal for short forms.
• Drawer for longer forms or when you want context kept.

Theming / Tokens (AntD v5)

Ant Design v5 uses Design Tokens and CSS-in-JS.

Global theme

Wrap your app in ConfigProvider:

import { ConfigProvider, theme } from 'antd';

export function AppProviders({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  return (
    <ConfigProvider
      theme={{
        algorithm: theme.defaultAlgorithm,
        token: {
          colorPrimary: '#1677ff',
          borderRadius: 10,
          fontSize: 14,
        },
        components: {
          Button: { controlHeight: 40 },
          Layout: { headerBg: '#ffffff' },
        },
      }}
    >
      {children}
    </ConfigProvider>
  );
}

Dark mode

Use theme.darkAlgorithm and keep tokens consistent:

const isDark = true;

<ConfigProvider
  theme={{
    algorithm: isDark ? theme.darkAlgorithm : theme.defaultAlgorithm,
    token: { colorPrimary: '#7c3aed' },
  }}
/>

Component-level overrides

Use components. for specific tweaks (Button, Input, Table, etc.).

References

• Read README.md for the full “how-to” (setup + patterns + examples).
• Use protocols/ when you want LLM-first contracts (describe UIs as data, then generate code deterministically).
• Read references/tokens.md for a tokens cookbook.
• Read references/components.md for practical page recipes (CRUD, Settings, Wizard).
• Use examples/ when you want ready-to-copy AntD screens.
• Use starter/ when you need a runnable Vite + React + AntD skeleton.

Guardrails

• Assume Ant Design v5+ (tokens). If project is v4 (Less variables), stop and ask.
• Prefer built-in components and patterns over custom CSS.
• Avoid over-theming: set a small set of tokens and only override components when needed.