Slop.md.

Slop.md is a single Markdown file from the developer behind pols.dev that you append to your AI agent's instructions. Its pitch is two words on the landing page: "Install taste." The file is a design law for coding agents — a long, opinionated catalogue of what makes AI-generated websites instantly recognisable as AI-generated, and rules for doing better.

It works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, and Amp— anything that reads a Markdown instructions file. There's nothing to run and no dependency to manage: the entire product is one file your agent reads before it designs anything.

The file defines slop as generic, look-alike output that carries no real creative decisions — and then gets brutally specific, naming over fifty individual tells. A sample:

• Typography tells — Space Grotesk everywhere, the Fraunces-plus-Work-Sans pairing, Inter as the answer to every question.
• Component tells — glowy pill buttons, oversized icons in colored tiles, floating cards with pointless animation, testimonial cards nobody asked for.
• Pattern tells— blue-to-purple gradients, fake macOS window mockups, the three-tier pricing block with a "MOST POPULAR" pill.
• Layout tells — the default hero stack (eyebrow badge → headline → subline → two buttons), and the full SaaS template of hero + features + pricing + FAQ + CTA slab.

The test it gives the agent is memorable: if the last site and this one share the same five section shapes, you didn't design a site — you reskinned a theme.

Installation is one line in your terminal. It appends the file to your global Claude instructions, so every project gets it:

Because it's plain Markdown, the same trick works anywhere agent instructions live — scope it to one project, or point it at the file your particular agent reads:

Slop.md isn't only a blocklist — roughly half the file tells the agent what good looks like:

• Execution failures— hard rules against the classic AI bugs: content hidden behind entrance animations ("content is visible by default"), text clipped at container edges, comparison grids that don't align, and things that are almost-but-not-quite centered.
• Premium craft signals — what reads as designed rather than generated: real translucency over rich backdrops, tonal elevation instead of hard borders, bespoke geometry, custom iconography, and purpose-built micro-interactions.
• The signature formula — a recipe for a memorable page: one signature artifact, atmosphere, layered depth, populated detail with real copy and data, a character display face, one bespoke silhouette, and a deliberately treated navigation.
• Field notes — practical judgment calls: cohesion beats individual parts, take the design languagefrom references but never the content, and "animate y, not opacity-to-0" so motion never gates content.

Two things determine whether Slop.md actually helps you:

The file itself is upfront about this. Your instructions always override its defaults — it's a floor, not a ceiling. And its closing note is the right frame for every tool in this category: design is a point of view applied with conviction; a checklist can only make work less wrong. It cannot make it good. Slop.md deletes the bad defaults — what fills the space is still up to you.