State of Play Design Tools Are Going Headless: Tom Krcha
May 12, 2026
Tom Krcha, founder of Pencil.dev and former Adobe XD creator, shares his long arc from Flash to agent-powered design tooling. He discusses why agents handle the first 80% while humans finish the last 20. The conversation explores headless design tools, agent-first canvases, orchestration of many AI designers, and why hands-on taste still matters.
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Use Canvas Tweaker And Headless Agents
- Build three complementary tools: a canvas for exploration, a tweaker for visual edits on production, and headless agents for automated tasks.
- Tom says Pencil provides a headless CLI so agents can run on servers and tap into files and code.
Headless Means Canvas Runs Off Screen
- A headless design tool means running the canvas off-screen and interacting via terminal or CLI, with files as portable JSON context.
- Tom notes Pencil files are JSON text and the headless agent can read and generate designs without launching the UI.
Designers Will Carry A Portable Briefcase Of Context
- Designers will carry portable context — a 'briefcase' of customer feedback, specs, and files — that agents use to produce targeted designs.
- Tom envisions refining that context for agents so organizations can consistently hire internal AI designers.