varick-engagement-letter
7 files · 154 KB.docx + PDF from a JSON spec
- SKILL.md12 KB
- assets/letter-base.docx118 KB
- assets/letter.example.json18 KB
- assets/varick-wordmark.svg10 KB
- references/layout.md12 KB
- scripts/build_letter.py36 KB
- +1 more
Build
Design skills
The design system is a set of generators. Almost every branded artefact Varick produces has a skill that already knows the house style, and reaching for the generic tool instead is the main way the style drifts.
Source of truth: .claude/skills · Downloads/varick-design-skills · Downloads/varick-engagement-letter
Get the skills
Copy a SKILL.md straight to the clipboard, or download the whole folder when a skill carries scripts and assets. Drop it in ~/.claude/skills and it triggers on its own.
varick-charts
5 files · 26 KBPNG or self-contained HTML
- SKILL.md9 KB
- assets/chart-primitives.jsx13 KB
- assets/chart-template.html31 KB
- references/chart-spec.md16 KB
- scripts/render_png.py3 KB
varick-docs
4 files · 52 KB.docx
- SKILL.md10 KB
- assets/varick-wordmark.png40 KB
- assets/varick-wordmark.svg20 KB
- references/template.js20 KB
varick-doc-builder
1 file · 4 KB.txt in marker syntax
- SKILL.md7 KB
varick-content-calendar
10 files · 18 KBNotion rows + produced assets
- SKILL.md5 KB
- assets/cadence.example.yaml2 KB
- references/notion-automations.md2 KB
- references/pipeline.md3 KB
- scripts/expand_cadence.py4 KB
- scripts/fanout.py3 KB
- +4 more
Every zip unpacks to a folder named after the skill, with its SKILL.md at the top, so the install command on each card is the whole job. No Claude Code? The document builder runs in a browser and produces the same documents.
Routing
Work out who owns the artefact before you build anything. This table is the whole point of the page.
| Skill | Reach for it when | Produces |
|---|---|---|
varick-engagement-letter | Engagement letter, scope letter, SOW, Phase 1 letter, diagnostic scope, countersignature doc. | .docx + PDF from a JSON spec |
varick-invoicenot in local pack | An invoice or a bill. | .docx + PDF |
varick-reportnot in local pack | A multi-page navy-cover report, explainer or leave-behind. | .docx + PDF |
varick-charts | Chart, graph, data viz, leaderboard, standings, benchmark, "make this data look good". | PNG or self-contained HTML |
varick-docs | Anything else in a document: memo, proposal, brief, policy, process doc, client writeup. | .docx |
varick-doc-builder | Case study or RFI response for demo.varickagents.com, or the doc builder is named. | .txt in marker syntax |
varick-content-calendar | Content calendar, "what am I shipping this week", carousel from an article, next quarter of slots. | Notion rows + produced assets |
varick-agents-brandnot in local pack | A one-pager or a pre-call brief. |
Route before you build
The generic docx and pdf skills do not know the house style. Use a Varick skill first so the masthead, the palette and the footer come out right, and fall back to the generic tool only when nothing owns the artefact.
In the local pack
Where each one lives on disk. Only one of these is installed as a Claude Code skill today.
| Skill | Path |
|---|---|
varick-engagement-letter | Downloads/varick-engagement-letter |
varick-charts | Downloads/varick-design-skills/varick-charts |
varick-docs | Downloads/varick-design-skills/varick-docs |
varick-doc-builder | .claude/skills/varick-doc-builder |
varick-content-calendar | Downloads/varick-content-calendar |
Only varick-doc-builder is actually installed
The rest are folders sitting in Downloads. Claude Code will not find them there, which means the house style is currently one manual copy away on every job that needs it. Install them under
~/.claude/skills/ and they become automatic.cp -R ~/Downloads/varick-design-skills/varick-docs ~/.claude/skills/
cp -R ~/Downloads/varick-design-skills/varick-charts ~/.claude/skills/
cp -R ~/Downloads/varick-engagement-letter ~/.claude/skills/
cp -R ~/Downloads/varick-content-calendar ~/.claude/skills/Each folder already has a SKILL.md with frontmatter, so nothing else needs writing. The description fields are what make them trigger without being named.
Referenced but missing
Three skills the others route to that do not exist in the pack. If you reach for one of these, you will not find it, and the artefact will get built by hand, off-system.
| Skill | What it owns | What happens today |
|---|---|---|
varick-invoice | Invoices and bills. Shares the masthead asset with varick-docs. | Built by hand, or approximated with varick-docs. |
varick-report | Multi-page navy-cover reports, explainers and leave-behinds. | Built by hand, or approximated with varick-docs. |
varick-agents-brand | One-pagers and pre-call briefs. | Built by hand, or approximated with varick-docs. |
varick-docs is the honest fallback for all three. It runs the same masthead, palette and footer, so a hand-built report at least lands in the system. The gap is the specialised structure: a navy cover, an invoice line-item table, a one-pager grid.
3 of 8 skills in the routing table are missing. That is the largest single gap in the design system as it stands.
Using one well
Four habits that apply across all of them.
- Copy the template and rewrite the content. Do not rebuild the blocks. That is how the house style drifts, and it is the failure mode every one of these SKILL.md files warns about by name.
- Look at the output. Render to PDF, convert to images, and check every page. Code review does not catch a stranded heading or a masthead that stopped repeating.
- Check the tool before trusting the reference. The doc builder has gained block types between sessions; the marker list in the skill can be behind the live tool.
- Load anti-ai-writing before drafting copy, not after. Editing a draft into voice is slower and worse than writing it in voice.
Look at every page
The five checks: the masthead and its rule at the top of each page, the first line clearing that rule by about 0.3in, the footer reading Page X of Y with the right total, no heading stranded from its table, and no bracketed placeholder left in.
Adding a skill
What a new Varick design skill needs to be worth installing.
- A frontmatter description dense with the phrasings people actually use, including the ones that never say "Varick" or "brand". That is what makes it trigger.
- A route-away table naming the skills it must not be used instead of.
- A working template in references/, tested, that the skill tells you to copy rather than to imitate.
- A "what not to change" section. The rules that exist because someone already broke them are the most valuable part of every one of these files.
- The brand constants inline, so the skill is correct even if this site is unreachable.
The constants belong in tokens.json as well, so a new skill can be checked against them rather than becoming a fourth independent copy of the palette.