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Agent Skill

Pick Ui Library

pick-ui-library

Pick the right library for a given frontend task from a curated, opinionated list — numbers, OTP inputs, charts, command menus, virtualization, drag and drop, toasts, state, styling, and more. Only runs when explicitly invoked; it does not trigger on its own.

EmilkowalskiFrontendMarkdown

57K installs

emilkowalski/skills

by Emilkowalski

Score

8.5

/ 10

Installs

57K

Repo Stars

31.2K

Last Updated

2d ago

Fresh

Quality Ratio

97%

Description

Verified

Language

Markdown

First Published

Jul 2026

Summary

The Pick Ui Library agent skill provides opinionated, curated recommendations for frontend libraries across various tasks like UI components, animation, charts, state management, and styling. This agent skill is invaluable for frontend developers working on web applications who need to quickly choose the right tool for common UI challenges without extensive research. It is a skill with 44K installs, indicating significant adoption within the o-mega.ai registry. It acts as a lookup skill, taking a task description and recommending a specific library from its curated list. The agent is guided to first identify the underlying task, check existing project dependencies, and provide a single, opinionated recommendation, such as `Sonner` for toasts or `dnd kit` for drag and drop. It also advises on common mismatches, like using `base-ui` for accessible dropdowns instead of building manually, or `Virtuoso` for long lists.

Skill Definition

A lookup skill. When invoked with a task ("I need toasts", "what should I use for drag and drop?"), match the task to the curated list below and recommend the library. These are deliberate, taste-driven picks — don't substitute alternatives outside this list unless the user asks for one or the task genuinely isn't covered.

How to use this

  1. Identify the task, not the library the user named. "I need to show a dropdown" is a UI-primitives task (base-ui), even if they asked about something else.
  2. Check what's already installed. Look at package.json first. If the project already uses a listed library, use it. If it uses a competitor (e.g. react-window instead of Virtuoso), flag the recommendation but don't churn the dependency without being asked.
  3. Recommend one library, state what it's for in one sentence, and install/wire it up if that's part of the request. Don't present a menu of options when the list has a clear answer.
  4. If the task isn't covered by the list, say so explicitly and recommend from your own knowledge — but be clear you've left the curated list.

The list

UI components & primitives

TaskLibrary
Unstyled, accessible UI components (dialogs, popovers, menus, selects…)base-ui
Command menus (⌘K palettes)cmdk
Toasts / notificationsSonner
One-time password / verification code inputsinput-otp
Customizable GUIs / control panelsLevadialkit is an alternative

Motion & visuals

TaskLibrary
General-purpose animation (springs, layout animations, enter/exit)motion (Framer Motion)
Animating numbers (counters, prices, stats)NumberFlow
Animated text componentstorph
3D globesCobe
Dynamic OG images (HTML/CSS → SVG/PNG)Satori
Syntax highlightingshiki

Reach for motion when you need springs, layout animations, exit animations, or gesture-driven values. A simple hover or fade doesn't need it — plain CSS transitions are the right tool there.

Charts

TaskLibrary
Real-time / streaming chartsLiveline
General charts (static or interactive dashboards)recharts

The split: if data points arrive live and the chart scrolls with time, use Liveline. Everything else is recharts.

Interaction & performance

TaskLibrary
Drag and dropdnd kit
Virtualization (long lists, large tables)Virtuoso

State & styling

TaskLibrary
State managementzustand
Constructing className strings conditionallyclsx
Type-safe, variant-driven styling for Tailwindcva
Theme switching / dark mode (no flash on load)next-themes

The styling split: clsx for ad-hoc conditional classes; cva when a component has real variants (size, intent, state) that deserve a typed API. They compose — cva uses clsx-style inputs internally.

Common mismatches to catch

  • Toasts built by hand or with a modal library → Sonner exists for exactly this.
  • A <div>-based dropdown/dialog with manual focus handling → base-ui, which handles accessibility, focus trapping, and dismissal.
  • Animating a number by re-rendering text → NumberFlow handles digit transitions properly.
  • Rendering a 1,000+ row list directly → Virtuoso before reaching for pagination hacks.
  • A useState-per-component web of props for shared state → zustand.
  • Template-literal className ternaries three conditions deep → clsx (or cva if it's variant-shaped).

How to Use

Use in O-mega

Claude Code

npx skills add emilkowalski/skills pick-ui-library