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podopodo/design-agent-skills/skills/dark-pattern-audit/SKILL.md

dark-pattern-audit

Skill32 starsChanged 6 months agoMITView on GitHub

Audits codebases and product copy for deceptive dark patterns inferable from local source code and text — no runtime inspection or screenshots needed. Produces a structured narrative report with confidence grading, source locations, concise reasoning, and official pattern reference links for each detected pattern. Covers pricing, subscriptions, consent, modals, preselected controls, misleading CTAs, and more.

1 other project uses a version of this.

Adopted by

Most recently taken up by

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

1 rule. About 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈1

    Distinctive · estimate

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    License: no LICENSE file in the repo <!-- das:install:end -->

    line 57

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

dark-pattern-audit

Catalogue stub — full skill: SidKH/skills

<!-- das:install:start — generated from stub.yaml by `npm run generate`; edit stub.yaml, not this block -->

Decision tree

  1. Is the full skill already installed?
    • Global: f=~/.agents/skills/dark-pattern-audit/SKILL.md; [ -f "$f" ] && ! grep -q "^das:" "$f" && echo "installed" || echo "pointer"
    • Project: f=.agents/skills/dark-pattern-audit/SKILL.md; [ -f "$f" ] && ! grep -q "^das:" "$f" && echo "installed" || echo "pointer"
    • installed → the skill is installed as dark-pattern-audit, invoke it and proceed
    • pointer → go to step 2

  2. Detect scope, then install:

    [ -e ~/.agents/skills/dark-pattern-audit ] && echo "global" || echo "project"

    Global:

    npx skills add SidKH/skills --skill dark-pattern-audit -g -y

    Project:

    npx skills add SidKH/skills --skill dark-pattern-audit -y

    Claude Code: send a command as a chat message starting with ! to run it without leaving the conversation.

Heads-up

  • License: no LICENSE file in the repo
<!-- das:install:end -->

Invoke after install

  • Skill name: dark-pattern-audit
  • The upstream skill sets disable-model-invocation: true: an agent will not start it on its own. Ask the user to run /dark-pattern-audit (in Claude Code), or to name the skill explicitly in the prompt.
  • Trigger phrases: "dark pattern audit", "dark pattern detection", "deceptive design audit"

What it does

Static analysis of a codebase for dark patterns — purely from source code and copy, without runtime access:

Surfaces covered:

  • Pricing, checkout, billing, fees, cart, upsells
  • Subscriptions, trials, renewals, cancellation flows
  • Consent dialogs, privacy prompts, notification permissions
  • Modals, interstitials, countdown timers, fake stock counters
  • Preselected controls, bundled choices, forced steps
  • Misleading CTA text, low-contrast disclosures, hidden disclaimers

Output per finding:

  • Pattern name + official reference link
  • Confidence grade (conservative — only high-confidence findings reported)
  • Exact source location (file, line, component)
  • Concise reasoning grounded in local evidence

Workflow: Confirm scope → load pattern catalog → search evidence in code/copy → report

When NOT to use

  • General design quality audit (typography, dark mode, RTL) → use design-auditor
  • WCAG accessibility compliance → use wcag-ai-skill
  • AI writing pattern detection → use humanize-text
  • Ethical design strategy → use plan-design-review

Download now (ZIP)

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What did you use it for? e.g. Reviewing pull requests in a Rails app

Using an agent? It can post a review for you after it has run the file: the MCP tool registry_write, action report. How to connect one.

Your trail

Files you open will collect here, so you can find them again.

Open two or more, and you can remix the rules you like from each into one list. Kept in this browser only.

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