lavish-axi

For when a rich editor is not rich enough.

HTML is the new markdown. Lavish is the new editor for your HTML artifacts.

Agents are good at producing rich HTML artifacts, but the human-agent collaboration loop on such artifacts is lacking and falls back into screenshots and long responses for “tell me what to change.” That loses the thing HTML is best at: interactivity.

Lavish Editor opens agent-generated HTML files in a local browser, lets you pinpoint elements or selected text and send feedback to the agent to address.

• Local only - Work with your local HTML artifacts with a local CLI. Zero cloud dependency.
• Human-AI collaboration - Annotate elements, selected text ranges, and send messages to the agent without leaving Lavish Editor.
• Battery included - Lavish Editor teaches your agent good visualization for common use cases such as product or technical plans, design explorations and more out of the box.

Lavish Editor is an AXI, which means -

• It's just a CLI any capable agent can run without setup.
• It's optimized for agent ergonomics. TOON output, long polling, and contextual disclosure making it highly token efficient.
• The skill and hooks below only handle discovery; agents learn to use the AXI by using it.

Quick Start

Install the Lavish skill in the Agent Skills format with npx skills:

npx skills add kunchenguid/lavish-axi --skill lavish

That is the entire setup - no npm install needed. The skill teaches your agent to run Lavish through npx -y lavish-axi, so the CLI comes along on demand. Its frontmatter also includes Hermes Agent metadata, so Hermes-compatible harnesses can categorize and surface it as a first-class productivity skill.

Then, in agents that expose skills as slash commands (Claude Code, for example), invoke it directly:

/lavish let's discuss our plan here

Or just ask for anything that is easier to grasp visually - a plan, comparison, diagram, table, diff, or report - and the agent loads the skill on its own when it recognizes the task.

By default the skill lands in the current project's skills directory (.claude/skills/, for example); add -g to install it for all projects (~/.claude/skills/).

Other Ways to Use Lavish

The skill is the recommended path, but it is not the only one.

Zero setup

Lavish is an AXI, so any capable agent can run the CLI directly with nothing installed at all. Just tell your agent:

Use `npx lavish-axi` to write a product or technical plan for what we discussed.

Session hook

Want Lavish's ambient context - including your live open sessions - fed into every agent session instead of loading on demand? Install the CLI globally and opt into the hook:

npm install -g lavish-axi
lavish-axi setup hooks

This installs a SessionStart hook for Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode that surfaces open sessions, visualization playbooks, and usage guidance at the start of each session. Unlike the skill, the hook also shows your live open sessions, so a fresh agent session can resume an in-flight review. Restart your agent session after running this so the new hook takes effect.

From source

git clone https://github.com/kunchenguid/lavish-axi.git
cd lavish-axi
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm run build
pnpm link

How It Works

┌───────────────┐
│ Agent writes  │
│ artifact.html │
└───────┬───────┘
        ▼
┌────────────────────────┐
│ lavish-axi <file_path> │
│ opens local browser UI │
└───────┬────────────────┘
        ▼
┌────────────────────────┐
│ Human annotates text   │
│ or elements, or        │
│ sends chat feedback    │
└───────┬────────────────┘
        ▼
┌────────────────────────┐
│ lavish-axi poll waits  │
│ and returns prompts    │
└────────────────────────┘

• File-path identity - Sessions are keyed by the canonical HTML file path, so agents do not need opaque IDs.
• Portable artifacts - The artifact runs in an iframe while Lavish injects a small SDK for annotations, snapshots, and feedback controls. Lavish does not inject any design system, so the saved HTML file renders identically whether you open it through lavish-axi or directly in a browser. Before writing HTML, choose a design system in strict priority order: follow a user-requested look first; otherwise inspect the current project for a Tailwind or theme config, CSS variables or design tokens, a component library, brand assets, or existing styled pages and match what you find; only when both come up empty, run lavish-axi design for a copy-pasteable Tailwind CSS v4 + DaisyUI v5 CDN fallback. That fallback guidance recommends DaisyUI's luxury theme by default and warns not to @apply DaisyUI classes inside Tailwind browser-runtime style blocks.
• Local assets - Copy local images, CSS, fonts, and scripts next to the HTML artifact and reference them with relative paths from that directory; root-prefixed paths such as /assets/logo.png will not resolve through Lavish's artifact route.
• Live reload - Lavish watches the HTML artifact file by default and preserves the artifact iframe scroll position across reloads. To also reload on sibling asset changes, add data-lavish-live-reload-root to the root element or <meta name="lavish-live-reload" content="root">.
• Feedback controls - Native form controls (radios, checkboxes, inputs, selects, buttons, labels, contenteditable) are interactive automatically, so they do not need data-lavish-action; wire their handlers to window.lavish.queuePrompt() or window.lavish.sendQueuedPrompts() to send feedback. Mark only custom (non-native) clickable elements with data-lavish-action so Lavish does not annotate them. The browser chrome keeps editing actions in the overflow menu (copy path, reload artifact, copy DOM snapshot, end session) and can submit queued prompts with Send & end session, which delivers the prompts before ending the session.
• Keyboard shortcuts - In the chrome composer, Enter sends queued prompts and Shift+Enter inserts a newline. In the annotation card, Enter queues the annotation, Shift+Enter inserts a newline, and Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on macOS) queues it and sends all queued prompts immediately.
• Agent presence - The browser shows when no agent is listening, keeps queued feedback for the next successful lavish-axi poll send even across reloads, and only blocks sending while the agent is working on delivered feedback. The no-timeout poll writes an immediate stderr banner and periodic stderr heartbeats while stdout stays reserved for the final response; if the poll is interrupted or times out, re-run it because queued feedback is never lost.
• Precise targets - Text annotations include selected text plus range anchors, so agents are not limited to whole-element selectors.
• Server cleanup - The detached server stops after the last session ends when nothing is connected, or after LAVISH_AXI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS (default 30 minutes) with no browser or poll connections. Set LAVISH_AXI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS=0 or off to disable idle self-shutdown.
• Local-first state - Session state stays under .lavish-axi/ in the workspace.
• Network binding - The server binds to loopback (127.0.0.1) by default. Set LAVISH_AXI_HOST to bind elsewhere; a wildcard (0.0.0.0 or ::) binds every interface. Binding beyond loopback exposes an unauthenticated server that can read and serve arbitrary local files to anything that can reach it, so only do so on a trusted network. Set LAVISH_AXI_LINK_HOST to control the hostname written into generated session links (defaults to the bind address, or loopback when bound to a wildcard).

CLI Reference

Command	Description
lavish-axi	Show current sessions and usage guidance.
lavish-axi <html-file>	Open or resume a Lavish Editor session.
lavish-axi poll <html-file>	Long-poll until the user sends feedback or ends the session; leave no-timeout polls running, or re-run them if interrupted.
lavish-axi end <html-file>	End a session.
lavish-axi stop	Shut down the background server.
lavish-axi playbook [id]	List focused artifact guidance or show one playbook.
lavish-axi design	Show the Tailwind + DaisyUI CDN fallback, including the luxury default theme and DaisyUI @apply warning.
lavish-axi setup hooks	Install or repair optional SessionStart hooks for Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode; restart the agent session afterward.
lavish-axi server	Run the local Lavish Editor server.

Known playbook IDs: diagram, table, comparison, plan, diff, input, slides. One artifact often combines several playbooks, such as a plan that includes a comparison and a diagram, so read every playbook relevant to the artifact for the best quality.

Flags

Command	Flag	Description
lavish-axi <html-file>	--no-open	Ensure the server/session exists without opening another browser window.
lavish-axi poll	--agent-reply "..."	Show the agent's reply in the existing browser chat before polling again.
lavish-axi poll	--timeout-ms <ms>	Test/debug escape hatch only; agents should normally omit it and leave the long poll running.
lavish-axi stop	--port <port>	Shut down a server running on a non-default port.
lavish-axi server	--verbose	Log session and watcher events to stderr; can also be enabled with LAVISH_AXI_DEBUG=1. Detached server output is appended to ~/.lavish-axi/server.log (or LAVISH_AXI_STATE_DIR/server.log) for startup and crash diagnostics.

Development

pnpm run check          # Run all verification commands
pnpm run build          # Bundle the publishable CLI, chrome, and design assets
pnpm run build:skill    # Regenerate the installable lavish skill
pnpm test               # Run node:test tests
pnpm run lint           # Run ESLint
pnpm run format:check   # Check Prettier formatting
pnpm run typecheck      # Run TypeScript checkJs validation