--- title: I got tired of prompting for tiny UI changes, so we... description: Recto lets you edit AI-generated UI on a canvas alongside your coding agent. Drag elements, change layouts, adjust typography, and see those edits reflected in... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-got-tired-of-prompting-for-tiny-ui-changes-so-we-built-recto-chfumqozh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I got tired of prompting for tiny UI changes, so we built Recto | daily.dev og:description: Recto lets you edit AI-generated UI on a canvas alongside your coding agent. Drag elements, change layouts, adjust typography, and see those edits reflected in... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-got-tired-of-prompting-for-tiny-ui-changes-so-we-built-recto-chfumqozh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ChfumqoZH.png og:image:alt: I got tired of prompting for tiny UI changes, so we built Recto og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I got tired of prompting for tiny UI changes, so we built Recto **[recto.](https://daily.dev/sources/recto)** · [@maroofkhan](https://daily.dev/maroofkhan) · 2 min read · 38 upvotes · 12 comments ## Summary Recto lets you edit AI-generated UI on a canvas alongside your coding agent. Drag elements, change layouts, adjust typography, and see those edits reflected in the underlying HTML/CSS. When the agent changes the code, the canvas updates too. It's free and available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. You use your own coding agent, with its usual provider charges. The team has also been exploring this approach for motion, 3D, and slides. ## Content **We built Recto because editing AI-generated UI felt harder than generating it** I've been using AI coding agents to build interfaces, and one thing kept annoying me. The agent could generate an entire page in minutes. But then I'd want to move a card a little to the left. Adjust the spacing. Make a heading slightly smaller. Suddenly, I was back to writing another prompt, tweaking CSS, or opening another tool. It felt ridiculous. The agent had already done the hard part. Why was making a tiny visual adjustment still so awkward? That got us thinking. What if you could work with a coding agent and directly edit what it creates, on the same canvas? So my cofounder @mdjanealam58 and I built **Recto**.  You can run your coding agent alongside a visual canvas, drag elements around, change layouts, adjust typography, and see those edits reflected in the underlying HTML/CSS. And when the agent changes the code, the canvas updates too. The idea isn't to replace coding agents or traditional design tools. It's to remove some of the friction between generating something and making it exactly how you want it. We've also been exploring this approach for motion, 3D, and slides. Recto is free and available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. You use your own coding agent, with its usual provider charges. [https://recto.design](https://recto.design?dd) I'm curious about something: When you build an interface with Claude Code, Codex, or another agent, **what do you usually do when the result looks almost right, but not quite?** Do you 1. Reprompt 2. Edit the code yourself 3. Open another design tool 4. Something else ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@kramer** · 3 upvotes > Going to give it a try! **@solancer** · 2 upvotes > is this open source? **@naeemprasla** · 0 upvotes > its good me but showing malware error in my pc 😑 **@steamvogue** · 0 upvotes > I plan don’t cards arc as dummies as well as most ui ux ahead with Claude . Looking for changes as it udosyes it on the flay and gives me lots of samples . That’s real ui design . Plan ahead . Dot relay on agents taste **@diyweb** · 0 upvotes > When the output is almost right, we usually stop prompting and adjust the layout directly: spacing, type, and how a section reads on a phone. A second prompt can fix one thing and quietly undo another, which is why a visual pass next to the code is a better loop for those last tweaks. Working on a website builder, we see the same split: generation gets you a draft, and the remaining time goes into small, visible edits the owner can judge. The useful test is whether those edits stay in the code, so you are not maintaining a design file and a generated page that have already drifted apart. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Direct agents with visual prompts in Design Mode · Cursor](https://daily.dev/posts/direct-agents-with-visual-prompts-in-design-mode-cursor-qzkdimpdi) · Cursor · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Future of UI Design is Agentic Design](https://daily.dev/posts/the-future-of-ui-design-is-agentic-design-ylqjeyduw) · UX Planet · 21 upvotes · 1 comments - [I used this free AI-powered design app with my local LLM, and it's shockingly capable](https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-this-free-ai-powered-design-app-with-my-local-llm-and-it-s-shockingly-capable-l6r75sgin) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#ui-design](https://daily.dev/tags/ui-design), [#claude-code](https://daily.dev/tags/claude-code), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-got-tired-of-prompting-for-tiny-ui-changes-so-we-built-recto-chfumqozh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-got-tired-of-prompting-for-tiny-ui-changes-so-we-built-recto-chfumqozh","headline":"I got tired of prompting for tiny UI changes, so we built Recto","text":"Recto lets you edit AI-generated UI on a canvas alongside your coding agent. 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