Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/dembrandt/dembrandt

Extract any website’s design system into tokens in seconds: logo, colors, typography, borders & more. One command.
https://github.com/dembrandt/dembrandt

brand-audits css design-engineering design-md design-ops design-systems design-to-code design-tokens developer-experience dx frontend mcp nodejs open-source playwright productivity reverse-engineering tailwind-css token-drift ui-audit

Last synced: 22 days ago
JSON representation

Extract any website’s design system into tokens in seconds: logo, colors, typography, borders & more. One command.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
# Dembrandt.



[![npm version](https://img.shields.io/npm/v/dembrandt.svg)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/dembrandt)

[![npm downloads](https://img.shields.io/npm/dm/dembrandt.svg)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/dembrandt)

[![license](https://img.shields.io/npm/l/dembrandt.svg)](https://github.com/dembrandt/dembrandt/blob/main/LICENSE)

[![GitHub Sponsors](https://img.shields.io/badge/Sponsor-me-pink?style=flat&logo=github-sponsors)](https://github.com/sponsors/dembrandt)



Extract a website's design system into design tokens in a few seconds: logo, colors, typography, borders, and more. One command.



![Dembrandt: Any website to design tokens](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dembrandt/dembrandt/main/docs/images/banner.png)



## Install



Install globally: `npm install -g dembrandt`



```bash

dembrandt example.com

```



Or use npx without installing: `npx dembrandt example.com`



Requires Node.js 18+



## AI Agent Integration (MCP)



Use Dembrandt as a tool in Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, or any MCP-compatible client. Ask your agent to "extract the color palette from example.com" and it calls Dembrandt automatically.



```bash

claude mcp add --transport stdio dembrandt -- npx -y --package dembrandt dembrandt-mcp

```



Or add to your project's `.mcp.json`:



```json

{

  "mcpServers": {

    "dembrandt": {

      "command": "npx",

      "args": ["-y", "--package", "dembrandt", "dembrandt-mcp"]

    }

  }

}

```



7 tools available: `get_design_tokens`, `get_color_palette`, `get_typography`, `get_component_styles`, `get_surfaces`, `get_spacing`, `get_brand_identity`.



Pair with **[dembrandt-skills](https://github.com/dembrandt/dembrandt-skills)** to give your agent UX intelligence on top of extracted tokens — hierarchy, accessibility, interaction states, and a full 6-stage design pipeline orchestrator.



```bash

npx skills add dembrandt/dembrandt-skills

```



## Dembrandt App (Beta)



Load extractions, track token drift, and compare snapshots. **[dembrandt.com/app](https://www.dembrandt.com/app)**



* **Drift tracking.** Pin a snapshot as your baseline. Run another extraction later. Get a visual report of what changed.

* **Visual diff.** Color swatches, before/after values, delta scores per category.

* **Snapshot history.** GitHub-style calendar per domain.

* **Copy tokens.** Paste values straight into Copilot, Claude, or Cursor.

* **No login.** Your data stays in the browser. Drift is computed locally — nothing is sent to any server.



## Recipes



**[dembrandt.com/recipes](https://www.dembrandt.com/recipes)** — 38 ready-to-run workflows. Copy a command, paste a prompt, get a result. Covers competitor benchmarking, WCAG audits, CI/CD drift detection, Figma token push, and agentic design system builds. Filterable by role.



## What to expect from extraction?



- Colors (semantic, palette, CSS variables, gradients)

- Typography (fonts, sizes, weights, sources)

- Spacing (margin/padding scales)

- Borders (radius, widths, styles, colors)

- Shadows

- Motion (duration scale, easing curves, hover patterns per component type)

- Components (buttons, badges, inputs, links)

- Breakpoints

- Icons & frameworks



## Usage



```bash

dembrandt                         # Basic extraction (terminal display only)

dembrandt example.com --json-only      # Output raw JSON to terminal (no formatted display, no file save)

dembrandt example.com --save-output    # Save JSON to output/example.com/YYYY-MM-DDTHH-MM-SS.json

dembrandt example.com --dtcg           # Export in W3C Design Tokens (DTCG) format (auto-saves as .tokens.json)

dembrandt example.com --dark-mode      # Extract colors from dark mode variant

dembrandt example.com --mobile         # Use mobile viewport (390x844) for responsive analysis

dembrandt example.com --slow           # 3x longer timeouts (24s hydration) for JavaScript-heavy sites

dembrandt example.com --brand-guide    # Generate a brand guide PDF

dembrandt example.com --design-md      # Generate a DESIGN.md file for AI agents

dembrandt example.com /pricing /docs   # Extract specific paths and merge results into one output

dembrandt example.com --crawl 5        # Analyze 5 pages (homepage + 4 discovered pages), merges results

dembrandt example.com --sitemap        # Discover pages from sitemap.xml instead of DOM links

dembrandt example.com --crawl 10 --sitemap # Combine: up to 10 pages discovered via sitemap

dembrandt example.com --no-sandbox     # Disable Chromium sandbox (required for Docker/CI)

dembrandt example.com --browser=firefox # Use Firefox instead of Chromium (better for Cloudflare bypass)

dembrandt example.com --wcag           # WCAG 2.1 contrast analysis — real DOM pairs, AA/AAA grades

dembrandt example.com --stealth        # Opt-in anti-detection: navigator spoofing + human mouse simulation (use only when authorized)

dembrandt example.com --locale fi-FI --timezone Europe/Helsinki  # Browser fingerprint: locale and timezone

dembrandt example.com --user-agent "Mozilla/5.0 ..."            # Custom user agent string

dembrandt example.com --accept-language "fi,en;q=0.9"           # Custom Accept-Language header

dembrandt example.com --screen-size 2560x1440                   # Physical screen resolution to report

```



Default: formatted terminal display only. Use `--save-output` to persist results as JSON files. Browser automatically retries in visible mode if headless extraction fails.



### Multi-Page Extraction



Analyze multiple pages to get a more complete picture of a site's design system. Results are merged into a single unified output with cross-page confidence boosting: tokens appearing on multiple pages get higher confidence scores.



```bash

# Analyze homepage + 4 auto-discovered pages (default: 5 total)

dembrandt example.com --crawl 5



# Use sitemap.xml for page discovery instead of DOM link scraping

dembrandt example.com --sitemap



# Combine both: up to 10 pages from sitemap

dembrandt example.com --crawl 10 --sitemap

```



**Page discovery** works two ways:

- **DOM links** (default): Reads navigation, header, and footer links from the homepage, prioritizing key pages like /pricing, /about, /features

- **Sitemap** (`--sitemap`): Parses sitemap.xml (checks robots.txt first), follows sitemapindex references, and scores URLs by importance



Pages are fetched sequentially with polite delays. Failed pages are skipped without aborting the run.



### Browser Selection



By default, dembrandt uses Chromium. If you encounter bot detection or timeouts (especially on sites behind Cloudflare), try Firefox which is often more successful at bypassing these protections:



```bash

# Use Firefox instead of Chromium

dembrandt example.com --browser=firefox



# Combine with other flags

dembrandt example.com --browser=firefox --save-output --dtcg

```



**When to use Firefox:**

- Sites behind Cloudflare or other bot detection systems

- Timeout issues on heavily protected sites

- WSL environments where headless Chromium may struggle



**Installation:**

Firefox browser is installed automatically with `npm install`. If you need to install manually:



```bash

npx playwright@$(node -p "require('playwright-core/package.json').version") install firefox

```



### W3C Design Tokens (DTCG) Format



Use `--dtcg` to export in the standardized [W3C Design Tokens Community Group](https://www.designtokens.org/) format:



```bash

dembrandt example.com --dtcg

# Saves to: output/example.com/TIMESTAMP.tokens.json

```



The DTCG format is an industry-standard JSON schema that can be consumed by design tools and token transformation libraries like [Style Dictionary](https://styledictionary.com).



### DESIGN.md



Use `--design-md` to generate a [DESIGN.md](https://stitch.withgoogle.com/docs/design-md) file, a plain-text design system document readable by AI agents. The export follows Google's DESIGN.md draft format: YAML design tokens in front matter plus ordered Markdown guidance sections.



```bash

dembrandt example.com --design-md

# Saves to: output/example.com/DESIGN.md

```



DESIGN.md reports only what Dembrandt observed on the source site. Exact values (colors, typography, spacing, radii, shadows) live in the YAML front matter when available, and the Markdown body adds human-readable context. Sections with no extracted evidence are omitted rather than filled with invented defaults. For example, the elevation section is dropped when the site uses no box-shadow tokens.



### WCAG Contrast Analysis



Use `--wcag` to check accessibility contrast ratios across the page. Unlike palette-based checkers, dembrandt walks the actual DOM and finds what color is rendered on top of what background — per element.



```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --wcag

```



Returns every text/background pair with contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade (AA, AA-Large, AAA, or fail), sorted by how often each pair appears. Results are shown in terminal and included in JSON output as `wcag`.



Also captures **interactive state contrast**: dembrandt simulates hover, focus, and disabled states on buttons, links, and inputs and checks contrast on each state. State pairs are tagged `[hover]`, `[focus]`, or `[disabled]` in output so you can catch contrast failures that only appear on interaction.



### Motion Tokens



Motion tokens are extracted automatically on every run — no flag needed. Dembrandt analyzes CSS transitions and animations across the page and returns a structured motion profile.



```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com

```



Returns:

- **Duration scale**: all unique animation durations found on the page

- **Easing curves**: named easing types (ease-out, spring, custom cubic-bezier) with usage counts

- **Per-context profiles**: motion behavior by component type (button, nav, card, modal, hero)

- **Hover interaction deltas**: which properties animate on hover (transform, opacity, background, color) and the pattern (scale-up, fade-in, color-shift, slide-y)



Motion data is included in JSON output as `motion` and printed in terminal under a dedicated Motion section.



### Brand Guide PDF



Use `--brand-guide` to generate a printable PDF summarizing the extracted design system: colors, typography, components, and logo on a single document.



```bash

dembrandt example.com --brand-guide

# Saves to: output/example.com/TIMESTAMP.brand-guide.pdf

```



## Continuous integration



Dembrandt drives a real browser, so the browser revision must match `playwright-core`.



If you are not using the Playwright container image, install the browser revision that matches `playwright-core`:



```bash

# in dembrandt's own repo

npm run install-browser

# elsewhere — derive the version so it always matches

npx playwright@$(node -p "require('playwright-core/package.json').version") install --with-deps chromium

```



A mismatched version fails with "Executable doesn't exist". The container image avoids this entirely — just match its tag (`v1.60.0`) to the `playwright-core` version.



### Drift gate



Compare an extraction against a committed baseline and fail the job on drift:



```bash

# capture a baseline once (same environment you will check against)

dembrandt https://app.example.com --json-only > baseline.json



# in CI — exits non-zero on drift; writes a report artifact

dembrandt https://app.example.com --compare baseline.json --html report.html

```



A ready-to-use GitHub Actions workflow (preview vs production, run summary, report artifact, host-auth bypass) is in [`examples/drift-gate.yml`](examples/drift-gate.yml).



### Exit codes



A pipeline can branch on the exit code; "design drifted" and "extraction broke" are distinct:



| Code | Meaning |

|---|---|

| `0` | Success, or stable (no drift) under `--compare` |

| `1` | Drift detected (`--compare`) |

| `2` | Extraction failure (`EXTRACTION_FAILED`, `BROWSER_UNAVAILABLE`) |

| `67` | Navigation/connection timeout (`NAVIGATION_TIMEOUT`) — retryable, try `--slow` |



With `--json-only`, a failure also prints a machine-readable `{ "error": { "code", "message" } }` to stdout.



## Recipes



**Quick brand scan**

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com

```



**Compare two sites**

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --save-output

dembrandt braintree.com --save-output

# Compare output/dembrandt.com and output/braintree.com side by side

```



**Multi-page audit** — get a fuller picture across the whole site

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --crawl 10 --sitemap --save-output

```



**Spot-check a value** — verify a specific token fast

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --json-only | grep -i "border-radius"

```



**Export for Tailwind** — get spacing and color values into your config

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --dtcg --save-output

# Use the .tokens.json with Style Dictionary to generate tailwind.config.js

```



**Export for Tokens Studio / Figma**

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --dtcg --save-output

# Import the .tokens.json directly into Tokens Studio

```



**Generate DESIGN.md for your AI agent**

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --design-md

# Point your agent at the output DESIGN.md

```



**Accessibility audit** — check contrast on any live URL

```bash

dembrandt dembrandt.com --wcag

```



**Regression baseline** — snapshot now, catch drift later

```bash

dembrandt myapp.com --save-output --dtcg

# Store output as baseline, re-run after deploys and diff

```



**CI / headless environments**

```bash

dembrandt myapp.com --no-sandbox --save-output

```



## Use Cases



- Design system documentation

- Multi-site design consolidation

- Internal design audits on your own properties

- Learning how design tokens map to real CSS



## How It Works



Uses Playwright to render the page, reads computed styles from the DOM, analyzes color usage and confidence, groups similar typography, detects spacing patterns, and returns design tokens.



### Extraction Process



1. Browser Launch - Launches browser (Chromium by default, Firefox optional) with stealth configuration

2. Anti-Detection - Injects scripts to bypass bot detection

3. Navigation - Navigates to target URL with retry logic

4. Hydration - Waits for SPAs to fully load (8s initial + 4s stabilization)

5. Content Validation - Verifies page content is substantial (>500 chars)

6. Parallel Extraction - Runs all extractors concurrently for speed

7. Analysis - Analyzes computed styles, DOM structure, and CSS variables

8. Scoring - Assigns confidence scores based on context and usage



### Color Confidence



- High: Logo, primary interactive elements

- Medium: Secondary interactive elements, icons, navigation

- Low: Generic UI components (filtered from display)

- Only shows high and medium confidence colors in terminal. Full palette in JSON.



## Limitations



- Dark mode requires `--dark-mode` flag (not automatically detected)

- Hover/focus states extracted from CSS (not fully interactive)

- Canvas/WebGL-rendered sites cannot be analyzed (no DOM to read)

- JavaScript-heavy sites require hydration time (8s initial + 4s stabilization)

- Some dynamically-loaded content may be missed

- Default viewport is 1920x1080 (use `--mobile` for 390x844 mobile viewport)



## Intended Use



Dembrandt reads publicly available CSS and computed styles from website DOMs for documentation, learning, and analysis of design systems you own or have permission to analyze.



Only run Dembrandt against sites whose Terms of Service permit automated access, or against your own properties. Do not use extracted material to reproduce third-party brand identities, logos, or trademarks. Respect robots.txt, rate limits, and copyright.



Dembrandt does not host, redistribute, or claim rights to any third-party brand assets.



## Sponsors



The CLI is MIT-licensed and free. Sponsorship funds the enforcement layer: a committed project-level token baseline, `--compare` and the ingest API for CI/CD drift gates, and the App platform (snapshot history, team drift dashboard, alerts to Slack, Linear, and GitHub).



[![GitHub Sponsors](https://img.shields.io/badge/Sponsor-me-pink?style=flat&logo=github-sponsors)](https://github.com/sponsors/dembrandt)



## Contributing



Bugs, weird sites, pull requests. All welcome.



Open an [Issue](https://github.com/dembrandt/dembrandt/issues) or PR.



@thevangelist



MIT. Do whatever you want with it.