Recto is a free, local-first desktop app that gives your AI coding agent a visual workspace. Instead of describing a design in words and hoping the agent renders what you imagined, you see every change as it happens: drag elements, tweak styles, scrub a motion timeline, and pin comments that go straight back to the agent as feedback. It works with the tools developers already use, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode.
What it does
Recto auto-detects the coding agents installed on your machine and lets you run their CLIs inside the canvas, even with multiple agents working on one design at the same time. Everything on screen stays directly editable: move, resize, restyle, and animate elements by hand, or reprompt the agent when you would rather describe the change. Underneath, every design is real HTML and CSS, exportable to production.
Key features
- Four creation modes: UI, Motion (with a visual timeline), SVG, and 3D, all in one canvas.
- Direct manipulation: drag, resize, style, and animate elements on the canvas; the agent follows what you do.
- Pinned comments: drop feedback on any element and it is sent to the agent as a new instruction.
- Web import: paste a URL to pull an existing page into the canvas as a starting point (Figma import is on the roadmap).
- Design-system tokens: colors and type are plain CSS variables the agent can read and reuse consistently.
- Local-only workflow: no MCP setup and no API configuration; Recto runs on your machine on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Who it is for
Recto is built for developers and designers who already build with AI coding agents and want a visual layer over the terminal: prototype a landing page, design a marketing motion graphic, or iterate on a 3D scene while the agent does the heavy lifting and you keep art direction.
Pricing
Recto is free, with no paid tiers or pricing page on the official site (confirmed from recto.design, checked 2026-11-04). Download the desktop app and start using it with your existing coding agent.
Information in this post is based on the official Recto website and changelog, checked on 2026-11-04. Recto launched its first public release (v0.1.0) in early November 2026.
