How the GW OSPO Uses Skill.md and AI

GW Open Source Program Office

David Lippert

GW Open Source Program Office

Overview

Based in the Library, serving all GW students, faculty, staff, and researchers.

Mission: foster a culture of open collaboration through open source software, open data, and open access.

ospo.gwu.edu

What we do

Overview

Educate

  • What is open source?
  • How do I make research outputs public?
  • Can open source help me get a job?

Connect

  • Open source as the glue to help academia, industry, government, & other orgs work together
  • Network: CURIOSS, CHAOSS, OFAI, UN, Nava, Civic Tech DC, CMS, TODO, …

Support

  • Consultations
  • Workshops
  • Grant support
  • Initiatives
  • Events

Events

Overview
  • GW OSCON, March 31 to April 1, 2027
  • GW Coders Lunch & Learn
  • Hackathons and the Halloween Robot Challenge
  • Student ambassadors and awards

2025/2026 GW OSPO Ambassadors

A design skill and a review process

Part 1

How AI helps us make on-brand materials.

From first draft to final

Part 1 · Design skill

Original

→

Final

Review process

Part 1 · Design skill

1 · Generate

Our internal OSPO Marketing & Comms team creates a flyer, newsletter, website, or other output.

2 · Review

The design skill checks the graphic against the brand and layout principles.

3 · Human decides

A person reads the report, fixes priorities, iterates, and approves.

What the review checks

Part 1 · Review process

Proximity

Related things sit together.

Alignment

Every element lines up with something.

Repetition

One visual system, used consistently.

Contrast

The main point is obvious.

How a review is written

Part 1 · Review process
ReadOne-line read and what the eye sees first, second, third.
Start hereWhat’s working. Two or three real strengths, before any criticism.
Must fixBreaks a brand rule or accessibility. Not taste.
Should fixHarder to read than it needs to be.
ConsiderA suggestion. Take it or leave it.
NextIf you only do three things: a short checklist.
The top of a design review written in markdown: the one-line read, reading order, what's working, and the first must-fix findings

Review finding 1: an off-brand blue

Part 1 · Review of the original
Original GW OSPO 2026 Open Source Awards flyer12

A flat blue that isn’t in the GW palette runs through the page.

  • Measured #0096D5, not Potomac #0075C8
  • White text on it: 3.32:1, large text only
  • On Potomac: 4.80:1, passes at any size
  • Fix: swap both areas to Potomac

Review finding 2: no Gazzetta

Part 1 · Review of the original
Original GW OSPO 2026 Open Source Awards flyer12345

Every headline is set in a serif face. Gazzetta appears nowhere.

  • Five headline moments, one serif face
  • Source Serif should stay rare: one word or a pull quote
  • Fix: reset all five in Gazzetta
  • No Gazzetta? Use Avenir Next Bold, not the serif

Review finding 3: hierarchy

Part 1 · Review of the original
Original GW OSPO 2026 Open Source Awards flyer123

The loudest shape is the prize amount. The deadline is last.

  • Reading order: prize banner, photo, title, and only then the deadline
  • The hero block is centered; the rest is left-aligned
  • Fix: left-align the hero and give the deadline more weight
  • Or quiet the cream prize banner

From first draft to final

Part 1 · Design skill

Original

→

Final

Inside the design review repo

Part 1 · The skill

SKILL.md The instructions Claude follows: how to look at a design and how to write the report.

brand/ DESIGN.md is the rulebook, palette.json the colors, profile.md who the reviews are for.

references/ brand-checks.md, design-principles.md, and report-format.md: what to check and how to write it.

scripts/ contrast.py and palette_audit.py measure; rasterize.py turns PDFs into images.

Lives in .claude/skills/gw-design-review/. A ready-made gw-design-review.zip is included for claude.ai.

Using a skill with Claude

Part 1 · The skill
claude.ai
  1. Download gw-design-review.zip
  2. Settings, then Capabilities, then Skills
  3. Upload skill (don’t unzip)
Claude desktop, Cowork, Code
  1. Download the repo (Code, then Download ZIP)
  2. Point Claude at the folder
  3. Nothing to install
Any other AI tool
  1. Attach the four text files
  2. Ask for the report
  3. No setup, no auto contrast checks

Then ask: “Review this poster against our brand guidelines. It’s a printed 11×17 for the OSCON call for papers.”

Where to find the skills

Part 1 · The repos

gwospo-brand Brand assets and the design system for the GW OSPO, including the OSCON palette and patterns.

github.com/gw-ospo/gwospo-brand

gw-design-review The design reviewer. Checks a flyer, poster, deck, or page against the brand and the four principles.

github.com/gw-ospo/gw-design-review

gw-presentation Builds GW-branded slides. The newest piece, and it helped build this deck.

github.com/gw-ospo/gw-presentation

Professor Lorena BarbaAll three skills created by Professor Lorena Barba

Quarto and AI

Part 2

Research from Professor John P. Helveston.

Quarto disentangles content and format

Part 2 · Professor John P. Helveston, posit::conf(2026)

Quarto disentangles content and format, continued

Part 2 · Professor John P. Helveston, posit::conf(2026)

Same content, four formats - output tokens

Part 2 · Quarto

1× Quarto

1.8× PDF (LaTeX)

4× HTML

7.2× Word

Three benefits with AI

Part 2 · Quarto

Modularity

Content and format live apart, so AI can edit one without breaking the other.

Efficiency

Plain text is short. Fewer characters means fewer tokens, lower cost, faster edits.

Correctness

Small readable files are easy for people to check and for Git to diff.

This deck is a quarto markdown file

Part 2 · Quarto

index.qmd holds the words. gw-theme.scss holds the look.

Change the theme and every slide changes. Change a sentence and the design is untouched.

Source

github.com/gw-ospo/todo-ai-agent-presentation

Other AI work

Part 3

Research, policy, and the pop-up AI museum.

AI research

Part 3 · Other AI work

TAI · Trustworthy AI

  • Openness as a path to trust
  • NSF TRAILS: AI skills and open source literacy

OFAI · Open Forum for AI

  • CMU, UT Austin, Georgia Tech, Purdue, GW
  • Research, prototypes, policy, community, talent

Open source research game

Part 3 · TAI

Open Source, AI, and Art

Part 3 · Other AI work
good first contributions
Digital art student stickers
digital art student stickers
Open source art show
open source art show

Thank you

Questions?

ospo.gwu.edu · ospo@gwu.edu · github.com/gw-ospo

Let’s collaborate on research projects and provide opportunities for students together.

Backup

Backup slides

Open source discovery and curation.

Open Source Discovery & Curation

Backup · Discovery

ORB · Open Source Repository Browser

  • Built by the UC OSPO Network
  • Maps and classifies open source projects across UC campuses
  • Makes projects easier to find for researchers, students, and collaborators
  • Raises visibility, recognition, and funding potential

ORB on GitHub

OSPO Radar · with Software Heritage

  • Two-year, Sloan Foundation funded project
  • Institutional portal and software assets dashboard for OSPOs
  • Builds on CodeMeta metadata and Software Heritage archiving
  • Includes an Open Science helpdesk and training

OSPO-RADAR launch post