Codex doesn’t really have the best reputation when it comes to design.
When people compare AI tools today, Claude is usually the one that gets modern UI—nicer spacing, better hierarchy, calmer vibe. Codex is more like: Here’s something that technically works… good luck.
This personal site project changed that story.
Using Codex CLI, I ended up with a design I’m actually proud to ship. The trick wasn’t asking Codex to become a designer overnight. It was giving it the right design context first. It’s a bit hacky, but it worked way better than I expected.
Great Artists Steal
I knew I wanted the site to feel clean and opinionated: simple typography, enough breathing room, and a structure that doesn’t fight the content. Instead of reinventing a prompt from scratch, I decided to borrow one.
Claude already ships a really good frontend design skill as part of its plugin. So I did what any pragmatic founder would do:
- I opened the frontend-design plugin folder from Anthropics’ repo.
- I copied the long-form design prompt they use to guide Claude’s frontend decisions.
- I pasted it into a local markdown file in my project.
After that, it was time for the fun part: sitting down with Codex CLI for a proper coding session.
The Coding Session
Before asking Codex to generate a single line of UI, I asked it to read that markdown file and internalize it as the design spec for my personal site.
Here is how the session looked like.
I was amazed because I almost got it right in one-shot. There were a few iterations afterwards, but Codex treated them like a familiar subject—it was fast and correct for every details.
Before and After
Before this experiment, my personal site looked like what happens when you’re tired but just want something up: very basic. After working with the tweaked Codex, I could say that I’m happy with what I shipped. It’s also aligned with what I wanted—calm, thoughtful, but has power.
See? Now I know that Codex doesn’t need to be the designer. It just needs the right design brain plugged in, along with a human who cares about the taste.
Closing Thoughts
This small project changed how I think about AI tools in general:
- Codex is not bad at design. It’s just usually running without a design spec. Give it a good one—even stolen from Claude—and suddenly it stops spitting out generic styles and starts making reasonable, thoughtful choices.
- Design taste can be documented. That markdown file became a reusable asset. I can reuse it across projects, tweak it over time, and even swap in different design brains depending on the vibe I want.
- Human role doesn’t disappear. Codex didn’t replace my taste, it amplified it. I still had a few iterations before the finish line, but I spent less time wrestling with basic design decisions from scratch and more time shaping the direction.
If you’ve written off Codex as the serious coder with no design taste, it might be worth giving it another shot. But this time, with a design brain plugged in first. That’s how I ended up with a personal site that feels like me.
And honestly, that’s the fun part of all this: taking tools slightly outside their stereotype and seeing what happens when you let them surprise you.