About Slipstream UI
A small, open-source project with a single thesis: coding agents are users too, and they deserve machine-readable contracts.
Last updated: November 2026
Why this exists
AI coding assistants are good at writing React, and bad at remembering the exact prop names, required fields, and accessibility rules of a design system they have never seen. The usual fix is more prompt context or a bigger README - both drift the moment a component changes.
Slipstream UI flips the direction: the source of truth ships with the code. Every one of the 80 components (63 core + 17 AI) carries a COMPONENT_MANIFEST; an MCP server serves those manifests, and validate_usage checks generated JSX against them before it reaches your editor.
Principles
- Agents are first-class users. A contract an agent can query is as important as a prop table a human can read.
- Stateless by design. Components render; you own state, transport, and data. No runtime lock-in, no hidden providers.
- Accessibility is not a variant. Keyboard behaviour, ARIA wiring, and reduced-motion paths are part of the component contract and are covered by jest-axe suites.
- You own the code. Install through npm packages or the shadcn-compatible registry and keep the source in your repository.
Who maintains it
Slipstream UI is built and maintained in the open by Michael McShinsky. Issues, discussions, and pull requests are welcome in the GitHub repository.
Current version: v0.5.0. The project follows semantic versioning and publishes from CI with npm provenance.
How to verify the claims
- Read a manifest and compare it with the component source.
- Run the MCP server and call
validate_usageon a deliberately broken snippet. - Review the accessibility statement and the automated audit scope.
- Security policy and security.txt.