AutoDesign¶

Development line: project:autodesign · thread autodesign-development
Last event: - · 0 dated since - · Researched: 2026-09-05 · confidence: high

What it is¶

AutoDesign is an MIT project for researchers and teams who need editable materials from a paper PDF using a coding agent and a chosen LLM provider.

• Generation: produces an HTML poster, slides, landing page, and subtitled video.
• Local storage: saves manifests, run events, candidates, and outputs locally.
• Harness optimization: tunes the surrounding agent harness rather than base model weights.

PosterBench formal evaluation covers only academic posters; slides, web pages, and video remain pilot tracks. We can use it for a reproducible paper-to-poster workflow; test other formats on your own examples.

Development line¶

• The dated line is not written up yet; what is known stands in the sections below.

What changed¶

• 2026-08-13 — Paper introduced AutoDesign as a meta-harness for paper-to-poster and PosterBench: 100 papers in the main set and 10 in the controlled mini-set; authors reported 78.32 points on Main Track and 253 tool calls across 40 minutes of autonomous execution.
• 2026-08-14 — First public repository release published.
• 2026-08-16 — AutoDesign became available as a public project with source code and a web interface; confirmed scope is converting multimodal sources into academic posters, not a general UI generator.
• 2026-08-17 — Standalone Agent Skills became available for posters, presentations, web pages, and video.
• 2026-08-18 — Poster Skill moved to agent-first v2: direct PDF handling, revision-bound attempts, and read-only DOM QA.
• 2026-08-19 — Web UI added poster canvas controls: templates, aspect ratios, exact dimensions, and academic presets.

How to use this¶

As of 2026-08-16, practitioners may treat the linked AutoDesign website and repository as sources to investigate, but should not infer a verified release, capability, or workflow change from this link-only record.

1. Install Node.js 22+ and ffmpeg/ffprobe, run the local launcher, and check the environment with autodesign doctor. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign
2. For running from source, install dependencies with uv sync, install Playwright browsers, and configure video runtime and web client dependencies. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign
3. Upload a PDF and run Paper All-in-One, or call python -m autodesign run with the PDF and poster template. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign
4. Check final/poster.html, preview, final manifest, and run_events.jsonl; file presence alone does not guarantee validation success. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign

Best practices¶

• Use reference posters only for the visual system: their text, logos, QR codes, tables, and links must not become evidence for new work. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign
• Inspect terminal status and manifest feedback instead of treating a generated file as proof of success. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign
• Use autodesign and AUTODESIGN_* variables for new automation: legacy names design_anything and DESIGN_ANYTHING_* are deprecated aliases. — https://github.com/Yaxin9Luo/AutoDesign

Superseded by this¶

• 2026-08-17 — Monolithic server-only usage is no longer required: standalone installable Agent Skills are available.
• 2026-08-18 — Previous Poster Skill replaced by agent-first v2 for PDF-oriented workflows and DOM QA.
• Current documentation marks design_anything, design-anything, designanything, and DESIGN_ANYTHING_* as deprecated compatibility aliases; new setups use autodesign and AUTODESIGN_*.

Still unknown¶

• Reported benchmark results and human evaluation scores are published by the authors but were not reproduced independently in this review.
• Stability of the hosted demo and production readiness of bundled integrations remain unverified.
• The 2026-08-16 event has no separate dated primary source; details rely on the 2026-08-13 paper and the 2026-08-14 public release.

Sources¶

Agent brief¶

• Subject: project:autodesign, thread autodesign-development, 0 dated events - → -.
• Practical note: As of 2026-08-16, practitioners may treat the linked AutoDesign website and repository as sources to investigate, but should not infer a verified release, capability, or workflow change from this link-only record.
• Confidence: high. Dated supersedes above are the authority for what is obsolete.