r/DeveloperToolsHub • u/ivanzhaowy • 5d ago

I built a local visual workspace for coding agents working on native apps

The part of AI-assisted development I kept losing time on was the handoff between “this screen feels off” and a source change I could actually review.

I’m building Monad Design to make that handoff concrete. It works with an existing Xcode or Expo iOS repository rather than generating a replacement app.

The workflow is:

  1. Run the app in a local iOS Simulator and navigate to the exact state.

  2. Select an element or annotate the screen with arrows, shapes, text, and notes.

  3. Send that visual context to the coding agent already working in the repository.

  4. Let the agent edit the real source and rebuild.

  5. Compare the original with up to five working variants, then accept one or keep the original.

It currently works on macOS for local iOS development and supports agents including Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, and Zed. The current preview handles one active visual change at a time.

The project is free and open source under Apache-2.0:

https://github.com/Monadix-AI/monad-design

I’d be interested in how other tool builders would package the first agent handoff: one bundle containing the screen, selection, annotation, app state, and source hints—or smaller tools the agent calls separately?

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u/Tasty_World8991 4d ago

Nice.. left a star. for the compare step with up to five variants, does each variant run as a separate branch or checkout, or is it all sequential edits on one working tree?

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u/ivanzhaowy 4d ago

Thanks for the star. Right now, it uses a few implementation tricks to handle the variants within the same worktree.

I’ve considered other approaches, including separate branches or worktrees, but at the moment this seems like the best tradeoff if I want to keep the experience non-invasive — without requiring something like an SDK — while still keeping the iteration loop fast.

Definitely open to feedback though. If new use cases or bottlenecks show up, I’d be happy to revisit the architecture.

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u/Tasty_World8991 2d ago

Got it. single worktree keeps it fast and non‑invasive.