JSX Renderer

OpenPencil uses JSX as its design creation language. LLMs have seen millions of React components — describing a layout as <Frame><Text> is natural, no special training needed. Every token matters when an AI agent performs dozens of operations, and JSX is the most compact declarative representation.

JSX is also diffable. When an AI modifies a design, the change is a JSX diff — readable, reviewable, version-controllable.

Creating Designs

The render tool (available in AI chat, MCP, and CLI eval) accepts JSX:

<Frame name="Card" w={320} h="hug" flex="col" gap={16} p={24} bg="#FFF" rounded={16}>
  <Text size={18} weight="bold">Card Title</Text>
  <Text size={14} color="#666">Description text</Text>
</Frame>

In the MCP server and AI chat, the render tool accepts JSX strings directly. In the CLI, use the export command to go the other direction — exporting designs as JSX.

Elements

All node types are available as JSX elements:

Element	Creates	Aliases
<Frame>	Frame (container, supports auto-layout)	<View>
<Rectangle>	Rectangle	<Rect>
<Ellipse>	Ellipse / circle
<Text>	Text node (children become text content)
<Line>	Line
<Star>	Star
<Polygon>	Polygon
<Vector>	Vector path
<Group>	Group
<Section>	Section

Style Props

Compact shorthand props inspired by Tailwind's naming.

Layout

Prop	Description
flex	"row" or "col" — enables auto-layout
gap	Space between children
wrap	Wrap children to next line
rowGap	Counter-axis spacing when wrapping
justify	"start", "end", "center", "between"
items	"start", "end", "center", "stretch"
p, px, py, pt, pr, pb, pl	Padding

Size & Position

Prop	Description
w, h	Width/height — number, "fill", or "hug"
minW, maxW, minH, maxH	Size constraints
x, y	Position

Appearance

Prop	Description
bg	Background fill (hex color)
fill	Alias for bg
stroke	Stroke color
strokeWidth	Stroke width (default: 1)
rounded	Corner radius (or roundedTL, roundedTR, roundedBL, roundedBR)
cornerSmoothing	iOS-style smooth corners (0–1)
opacity	0–1
shadow	Drop shadow (e.g. "0 4 8 #00000040")
blur	Layer blur radius
rotate	Rotation in degrees
blendMode	Blend mode
overflow	"hidden" or "visible"

Typography

Prop	Description
size / fontSize	Font size
font / fontFamily	Font family
weight / fontWeight	"bold", "medium", "normal", or number
color	Text color
textAlign	"left", "center", "right", "justified"

Exporting to JSX

Convert existing designs back to JSX:

open-pencil export design.fig -f jsx                   # OpenPencil format
open-pencil export design.fig -f jsx --style tailwind  # Tailwind classes

The round-trip works: export a design as JSX, modify the code, render it back.

Visual Diffing

Because designs are representable as JSX, changes become code diffs:

 <Frame name="Card" w={320} flex="col" gap={16} p={24} bg="#FFF">
-  <Text size={18} weight="bold">Old Title</Text>
+  <Text size={24} weight="bold" color="#1D1B20">New Title</Text>
   <Text size={14} color="#666">Description</Text>
 </Frame>

This makes design changes reviewable in pull requests, trackable in version control, and auditable in CI.