Walid Boulanouar recently shared something that caught my attention: "google stitch mcp is now released" and then asked, "who has used google stitch for ui design?" He followed with a simple claim that feels bigger than it looks: "designing ui is now much easier directly from your ide" because we can "plan and provide context" so the design is more accurate.

That short post captures a real shift happening right now: UI design is moving closer to where engineering work already lives, inside the IDE. And when you combine that with structured context and a few strong prompts, you get faster iteration without sacrificing consistency.

What Walid is really pointing to

Walid's message is not just "new tool dropped." It is a workflow upgrade:

UI creation happens where developers spend their time (the IDE).
Context becomes first-class input (requirements, constraints, existing components).
Prompting moves from vague "make it modern" to actionable specifications.

"designing ui is now much easier directly from your ide" is less about convenience and more about reducing the translation loss between product intent, design, and implementation.

If you have ever watched a beautiful mockup turn into a slightly-off implementation, you already know the cost of that translation loss.

Google Stitch + MCP in plain terms

Even if you have not used Stitch yet, the concept is straightforward:

Google Stitch (as a UI design assistant)

Think of Stitch as a way to generate, iterate, and refine UI design artifacts with AI support. The key promise is speed: generate drafts quickly, then steer toward what fits your product.

MCP (why it matters for IDE workflows)

MCP is best understood as a standard way for your tools to share context and capabilities with an AI assistant. Instead of copy-pasting requirements into a chat box, the assistant can pull relevant context from your working environment.

In UI work, context is everything. A good design depends on constraints like:

Your existing component library and tokens
Platform targets (web, iOS, Android)
Accessibility rules
Information architecture and content hierarchy
Engineering constraints (what is already built, what is feasible)

Walid's point about being able to "plan and provide context" is the difference between a pretty screenshot and a design that actually fits your system.

Why IDE-native UI design is a big deal

Design-in-the-IDE can sound like it is "for developers only," but it can help teams of any shape because it compresses the feedback loop.

1) Faster iteration cycles

When design output is closer to the codebase, iteration becomes:

prompt -> draft -> adjust -> validate -> implement

instead of:

draft -> export -> handoff -> re-interpret -> rework

2) Less drift from design systems

If Stitch can reference your design tokens, component APIs, and patterns, you get fewer one-off styles. That reduces UI entropy over time.

3) More accurate UI from richer context

Generic prompts yield generic UI. Context-rich prompts yield product-specific UI. Walid's phrase "more accurately" is the north star here.

The prompting shift: from "a few prompts" to a reusable spec

Walid wrote: "you are few prompts to make the best design." I agree, with one nuance: the best teams turn those few prompts into a repeatable template.

Here is a practical way to think about it: you want prompts that behave like a mini design brief plus constraints.

A prompt structure that works

Use four blocks, in this order:

Goal
Users and scenario
Constraints (system, platform, accessibility)
Output format (what you want back)

The more you treat prompting like a spec, the less you have to fight the model later.

Example prompt (UI screen)

Ask for something concrete and verifiable:

Goal: Create a "Create Project" screen for a B2B internal tool.
Users: Ops managers creating projects daily.
Constraints: Use our neutral palette, 8px spacing, clear validation, keyboard-first navigation, WCAG AA.
Output: Provide layout description, key components, states (empty, error, loading), and microcopy suggestions.

You can then iterate with narrower prompts like "reduce cognitive load" or "make errors more specific" because the foundation is already aligned.

A practical workflow to try this week

If you want to test what Walid is hinting at without boiling the ocean, run a small pilot.

Step 1: Pick one screen with clear requirements

Good candidates:

Settings page
Auth screens
CRUD forms
Dashboard cards

Avoid complex multi-step flows for the first run.

Step 2: Feed real constraints, not just vibes

Bring:

component inventory (buttons, inputs, modals)
spacing scale
typography scale
color tokens
existing patterns (tables, filters)

If you do not have these documented, even a rough list helps. The model cannot respect what it does not know.

Step 3: Generate multiple variants intentionally

Do not ask for "the best design" immediately. Ask for three options with tradeoffs:

Option A: fastest to implement
Option B: most accessible
Option C: most scalable for future fields

This keeps the conversation grounded in constraints, not aesthetics.

Step 4: Lock decisions into a reusable prompt

Once you like the direction, capture the winning constraints as a template. That is how "a few prompts" become a team asset.

What can go wrong (and how to prevent it)

Tooling like this is powerful, but a few failure modes show up quickly.

Problem 1: "Pretty" but unbuildable UI

Fix: require component-level output.

Ask for: "Use only components from this list" or "Map each UI element to a component name." This forces the design to stay within your implementation reality.

Problem 2: Inconsistent spacing and typography

Fix: specify tokens.

Even a simple constraint like "Spacing must be multiples of 8" reduces inconsistency dramatically.

Problem 3: Accessibility as an afterthought

Fix: make accessibility part of the prompt, not a later review.

Include explicit requirements: focus order, error messaging, contrast, touch targets, keyboard interactions.

Problem 4: Context rot

Fix: keep context close to the source of truth.

Walid's IDE angle matters here. The best context is current: the actual components, the actual tokens, the actual routes and states.

A quick checklist for teams adopting Stitch MCP-style UI generation

Use this as a practical readiness test:

Do we have a component library (even partial)?
Do we have design tokens or a style guide?
Can we describe our users and tasks in 3-5 bullets?
Can we list constraints (platform, performance, accessibility)?
Do we have acceptance criteria for the screen?

If you can answer these, you are not "starting from prompts." You are starting from a real brief, and the tool becomes leverage.

Closing thought

Walid Boulanouar's post is short, but the implication is big: when UI design becomes IDE-native and context-driven, the bottleneck shifts from drawing rectangles to expressing intent clearly.

If you try Google Stitch MCP, I would take Walid's question seriously: "who has used google stitch for ui design?" The real value is not just that it is released. It is whether your team can turn "a few prompts" into a shared, repeatable design language that ships.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Walid Boulanouar, building more agents than you can count | aiCTO ay automate & humanoidz | building with n8n, a2a, cursor & ☕ | advisor | first ai agents talent recruiter. View the original LinkedIn post →