# Annotating for Agents

Essay by Benji Taylor (https://benji.org)

The gap between seeing and describing.

Topics: Review, Craft
Source: https://benji.org/annotating

## For agents

Nothing to install. This is a reference: cite it, or fetch the source when
the reasoning matters.

Read it at: https://benji.org/annotating

The full text is not reproduced here. It belongs to its author. What is
above is the author's own summary and the topics it covers.

Skills in this library that act on the same ground:

- emil-design-eng (https://www.stackskills.dev/md/emil-design-eng): The design-engineering house style behind Sonner and Vaul.
- review-animations (https://www.stackskills.dev/md/review-animations): Reviews your motion strictly, against Emil's rules.
- improve-animations (https://www.stackskills.dev/md/improve-animations): Audits every animation in a codebase and hands back prioritised plans.
- prototype (https://www.stackskills.dev/md/prototype): Builds several genuinely different UI variants behind a live picker.
- apple-design (https://www.stackskills.dev/md/apple-design): Apple's interface and motion principles, translated for the web.

## The short version

Visual AI tools let you point straight at an element but lock you into one editor, while flexible tools like Claude Code make you describe everything in words. Benji's point is that describing loses precision exactly where you need it. The button hover feels sluggish, but which part, the delay or the duration or the easing? Screenshots only help a little, because the agent still has to guess which part you mean. The gap hurts most on animation, where the state you want to talk about lasts a fraction of a second. His answer is a localhost overlay that captures selectors, positions and context alongside the note, then emits markdown any agent can act on.

## Verification

- Source link: Resolved (HTTP 200) (pass)
- Reading copy: Plain markdown for agents at /md/annotating-for-agents (pass)
- Attribution: Credited to Benji Taylor (pass)

Full page: https://www.stackskills.dev/library/annotating-for-agents