Local visual design tool for React, Vue, Svelte & Astro.
Click any element on a live canvas, edit styles and layout visually,
and Glide writes the changes directly back to your source code — no cloud, no proprietary formats.

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What is Glide?

Glide is a local visual design tool that sits on top of your existing frontend app. You open it in your browser, click on any element on screen, and edit its styles, layout, and position — just like Figma. The difference? Every edit is written directly back to your source code (JSX, TSX, Vue SFC, Svelte, Astro, or HTML) as real code.

No cloud. No proprietary formats. No lock-in. Just your code, edited visually.

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How It Works

flowchart LR
    App["Your App\n(npm run dev · port 5173 / 4321)"]
    Server["Glide Server\n(port 7777)"]
    Canvas["Visual Editor Canvas\n(browser · localhost:7777)"]
    Files["Your Source Files\n(JSX · Vue · Svelte · Astro · HTML)"]

    App -->|"proxied into"| Canvas
    Canvas -->|"click / drag / edit"| Server
    Server -->|"AST write-back"| Files
    Files -->|"Vite HMR"| App

Loading

1. Your app runs normally (e.g., npm run dev on port 5173)
2. Glide's server connects to it and opens a visual editor at localhost:7777
3. You click elements on the canvas → Glide highlights them and shows their styles
4. You change a value → Glide rewrites the source file using AST transformations

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18+

• npm v8+

• GitHub Packages Registry Configuration

  Since this package is hosted on GitHub Packages under the @srivarsank scope, you need to configure npm to route requests to GitHub:

  Step 1 — Add to .npmrc in your project root (or ~/.npmrc globally):

  @srivarsank:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com

  Step 2 — Authenticate with a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) with read:packages scope:

  npm login --registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com
  # Username: your GitHub username
  # Password: your GitHub PAT

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Method 1: Run via npx (Easiest)

Once the registry is configured, point Glide at any running frontend project — no cloning needed.

# Terminal 1 — your app
npm run dev

# Terminal 2 — Glide
npx @srivarsank/glide 5173

Then open http://localhost:7777 in your browser.

Replace 5173 with whatever port your frontend app is using.

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Method 2: Local Development & Source Build

If you want to run Glide from source:

# 1. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/SrivarsanK/Glide.git
cd Glide
npm install

# 2. Build
npm run build

# 3. Start your frontend app in another terminal, then:
node dist/cli.js 5173

Open http://localhost:7777 to start editing.

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Features

Feature	Description
🎨 Visual Canvas	Figma-like workspace — select, drag, resize, zoom, and pan elements
📐 Smart Snapping	Snaps to sibling edges, centers, and pixel grid with live guide lines
✍️ Universal Live Code Write-back	Real-time direct source editing across React (JSX/TSX), Vue (SFC), Svelte, Astro, and HTML — for Tailwind classes, inline styles, and text content
🚀 Astro Framework Support	Native support for .astro SFCs with server frontmatter preservation
⚡ Zero-Flicker Drag	Positions written to glide-positions.json — no HMR reload on drag
🗂️ Layers Panel	Hierarchical tree view of all elements with Figma-style hover controls
🎛️ Properties Panel	Edit geometry (X, Y, W, H), spacing, border, radius, shadows, fills, and typography
🌈 Color Picker	Custom popup with 16 presets and hex input — no native OS dialog
📱 Device Preview	Switch between device presets or set a custom width & height
🌿 Git Branching Mode	Safe sandbox (git: <branch> ▾) to preview changes before committing
🎛️ Quick Toggles Navbar	Snapping, grid, rulers, and repo view in a compact header toolbar
↩️ Undo / Redo	Full undo/redo history for the entire session
🗂️ Component Registry	Auto-scans and indexes every component into glide-components.json at startup

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Color Picker

Glide uses a custom popup color picker (not the native OS dialog). Click any color swatch to open it. You can:

• Pick from 16 preset colors
• Type a hex code directly
• Use the 🧪 eyedropper button to sample a color from the screen

⚠️ Known Bug — Eyedropper Tool: The eyedropper (🧪) is currently buggy in some Chromium versions. It may not close the color picker or register the sampled color. Use hex input or presets instead.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
V	Select tool
H	Hand / Pan tool
F	Frame
R	Rectangle
O	Ellipse
T	Text
C	Comment
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo
Escape	Deselect / Close popup

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Project Structure

Glide/
├── packages/
│   ├── cli/            # Entry point — run this to start Glide
│   ├── overlay/        # Visual editor UI (HTML/JS at localhost:7777)
│   ├── server/         # WebSocket + HTTP server that connects to your app
│   ├── core/           # Shared types, AST scanner, component registry
│   ├── ast-writer/     # Writes style changes back to source files
│   ├── adapters/       # Framework adapters (vue, svelte, astro, html, react)
│   └── vite-plugin/    # Stamps elements with source locations (data-gl-source)
├── skills/             # AI agent skills shipped with the package
│   └── glide-component-segregator/
├── docs/               # Extra documentation and design specs
├── logo/               # Logo assets
└── README.md

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AI Agent Skills

Glide ships a built-in AI agent skill with every install. It teaches AI coding assistants — like Antigravity IDE — how to use glide-components.json to find and edit any component by name, without guessing file paths or re-scanning the source tree.

How it works

When Glide starts, it scans your project and writes glide-components.json to your project root. Every component — including layout wrappers and background elements — gets its own entry with file path, line number, and a list of all its HTML elements:

{
  "buckets": [
    {
      "name": "Card",
      "file": "/src/components/Card.tsx",
      "exportType": "named",
      "line": 12,
      "elements": [
        { "id": "src/Card.tsx:13:4", "tagName": "div", "isRoot": true, "classNames": ["card"] },
        { "id": "src/Card.tsx:14:6", "tagName": "h2", "isRoot": false }
      ],
      "cssFiles": ["/src/components/Card.module.css"]
    }
  ]
}

The registry auto-updates within 300 ms whenever you add, rename, or delete a source file — no manual rescan needed.

Supported frameworks

Framework	Export types detected	Single File Component (SFC) Support
React / TSX	Named, default, arrow function, anonymous JSX	JSX AST parsing
Vue SFC	.vue files — <template> block scanned	Full template class write-back
Svelte	.svelte files — <script> / <style> stripped	Full template class write-back
Astro	.astro files — Frontmatter (---) preserved	Full template class & text write-back
HTML	<head>, <script>, <style> excluded	DOM attribute write-back

Installation

Antigravity IDE — automatic. The skill at skills/glide-component-segregator/SKILL.md is picked up automatically when you install Glide.

Other AI tools — one command:

# Run from your project root after installing @srivarsank/glide
cp node_modules/@srivarsank/glide/skills/glide-component-segregator/SKILL.md \
   .agents/skills/glide-component-segregator/SKILL.md

Note

Add these generated files to your .gitignore:

glide-components.json
glide-positions.json

Agent workflow

Once active, the agent follows this 6-step pattern for every component edit:

1. Read glide-components.json
2. Find the bucket by component name (e.g. "Card", "Header")
3. Inspect elements — target by isRoot / tagName / classNames
4. Use element.id as the data-gl-source edit target
5. For CSS edits — open the file listed in bucket.cssFiles
6. After adding a new component — wait 300 ms, then re-read the registry

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Known Issues & Limitations

Feature / Issue	Status
🎨 Eyedropper tool	✅ Fixed (state restoration fixed; Chromium 150 freeze bug guarded)
📐 Element resizing	✅ Fixed (generation sync + instant state resync)
⚡ Vue / Svelte / Astro editing	✅ Fully Supported (class, style, and text writeback across all 5 frameworks)
🏷️ Source Stamping	By design (data-gl-source tagged automatically by Vite plugin)
📍 Drag Positions	By design (stored in glide-positions.json for zero-flicker live drag)

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License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.