Your own design reference library, collected by a browser that explores websites for you.
Galleries like Mobbin are great until the site you want to study isn't in them. Refs lets you build that kind of library yourself. You give it a website, and it browses the site the way a curious designer would: it opens the pages, tries the menus and tabs, and saves everything it sees. You end up with a clean, searchable collection of screens, sections and components you can come back to whenever you need inspiration.
- Every page, captured properly. Refs takes full-page screenshots on desktop and on mobile, waits for images to load, and clicks away cookie banners first.
- The pieces, not just the pages. Heroes, pricing sections, navigation bars, buttons, forms and dialogs are cut out on their own, so you can compare them side by side.
- How it all connects. Refs remembers which link or button led from one screen to the next, so you can follow a site the way a visitor moves through it.
- A library that's pleasant to browse. Sites, screens and elements live in a calm, image-first interface made for looking at design.
- Yours, on your machine. Everything is stored locally, and the AI parts run on your own GPU. No subscription, no upload, no account.
Refs is young, and we're building it in the open.
- Capture. Explore a site, take the screenshots and cut out the elements. This is what we're finishing now.
- Understanding. A local vision model recognises what each page is, such as a pricing page or a signup screen, describes it, and makes everything searchable by what it looks like. You'll be able to type "dark hero with a product screenshot" and find it.
- Flows. The explorer works toward goals, like starting a free trial, and saves the journey as a flow you can step through.
- Library. Browse components across all your sites, save favourites into collections, and switch to a dark theme.
Refs only ever sees what a visitor sees. It never logs in, and it never clicks anything that could buy, delete or change something.
bun install
bun run db:up # start the database
bun run dev # open the library at http://localhost:5173
bun run crawler # in a second terminal, the explorer that picks up new sitesThen click Add site, paste a URL and watch the screens come in.
Ideas, bug reports and pull requests are all welcome. Have a look at the open issues to see what's planned, or open a new one if something is missing. If you're writing code, CLAUDE.md explains how the project is put together and the style we keep to.