font-matchmaker

A Claude Code skill that reads your project and recommends fonts that match its personality — with actual reasoning, not "just use Inter."

Install

In Claude Code, run:

/plugin marketplace add josharsh/font-matchmaker

Or manually:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/font-matchmaker
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/josharsh/font-matchmaker/main/skills/font-matchmaker/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/font-matchmaker/SKILL.md

Manual: Copy skills/font-matchmaker/SKILL.md to ~/.claude/skills/font-matchmaker/.

Why I Built This

Every project I start, I spend an hour on Google Fonts scrolling through 1,500 options. I pick something that "looks nice." But "looks nice" isn't a strategy. Fonts communicate personality before a single word is read — research shows people form typographic impressions in under 50 milliseconds.

A Kubernetes monitoring tool shouldn't use the same font as a meditation app. A fintech dashboard shouldn't feel like a children's game. But most developers pick fonts arbitrarily or default to whatever's popular. Inter is great, but it's not great for everything.

/font-matchmaker reads your project — the README, the tech stack, the domain, the audience, the tone — and recommends fonts based on what your product actually IS. Not what's trending. What matches.

How It Works

The skill maps fonts to personality using five axes from typography research:

Axis	What it measures	Low end	High end
Warmth	Human vs. mechanical	Geometric precision	Organic curves
Formality	Casual vs. serious	Rounded, loose	Structured, tight
Authority	Light vs. commanding	Thin, delicate	Heavy, bold
Innovation	Traditional vs. modern	Serif, classical	Geometric, minimal
Clarity	Expressive vs. functional	Display, decorative	Readable, even

It profiles your project on these axes, then matches to fonts whose design characteristics (x-height, aperture, stroke contrast, terminals) align.

Example

You: /font-matchmaker

Claude: Let me read your project...

  Project Personality:
    Warmth: 2/5 — technical CLI tool, not consumer-facing
    Formality: 3/5 — professional but not corporate
    Authority: 4/5 — infrastructure tool, needs to feel solid
    Innovation: 5/5 — cutting-edge developer tool
    Clarity: 5/5 — documentation-heavy, must be readable

    Archetype: Precision DevTool

  Font System:
    Headings: Geist Sans (600-700 weight)
    Body: Geist Sans (400 weight)
    Code: Geist Mono (400 weight)

  Why Geist:
    Geometric construction signals precision. High x-height and open
    apertures maximize readability at all sizes. Monolinear strokes
    feel modern without being cold. Built by Vercel specifically for
    developer interfaces — the intent matches your domain exactly.

  Alternatives:
    - More warmth: Inter (slightly rounder, more humanist)
    - More authority: IBM Plex Sans (heavier, more institutional)
    - More personality: Space Grotesk (distinctive 'a' and 'g')

  Implementation:
    font-family: 'Geist', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif;
    Available via: npm install geist, or Google Fonts CDN

Commands

Command	What it does
/font-matchmaker	Analyze project and recommend fonts
/font-matchmaker check	Evaluate current font choices against project personality
/font-matchmaker why <font>	Explain why a specific font does or doesn't fit

What It Considers

• README and docs — the language and tone your project uses
• Tech stack — library? app? CLI? dashboard?
• Target audience — developers? designers? enterprise? consumers?
• Domain — fintech, healthcare, devtools, creative, education
• Existing brand — current colors, logos, design system
• Communication style — formal or casual? technical or accessible?

Testing

Tested with skillmother:

skillmother test skills/font-matchmaker/

Uninstalling

rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/font-matchmaker

License

MIT