ply
Ply (formerly Base UI (Angular)) — MIT copy-in Angular + Tailwind components. Pro stays paid.
Install / Use
claude mcp add ply-ui-ng -- npx -y github:ply-ui-ng/plyIf the server publishes to npm under a different name, use that package instead — check the repo README.
MCP Server
Model Context Protocol server
Quality Score
Category
Development & EngineeringSupported Platforms
Our assessment of ply
ply scores 81/100 on our quality scale, 2858th of 4,529 Development & Engineering skills we index.
Its MCP Server is 18 KB long, well organised into 17 sections with 8 code examples: a thorough specification that gives an agent plenty to work with.
It has 10 GitHub stars, so there is little community track record yet; judge it on its content.
Maintenance, license and trust
- The repository was last updated 2 days ago, so ply is actively maintained.
- No license is declared. By default that means all rights are reserved: you can read it, but reusing or redistributing it is not clearly permitted. Ask the author before building on it commercially.
- Its trust signals score 80/100, with 2 cautions from licensing, adoption, age or documentation. These come from repository metadata, not a code audit — read the skill file before letting an agent act on it.
Safety scan
No issues foundOur scan of the whole file found no instruction hijacking, hidden characters, credential access, data exfiltration or destructive commands.
Automated pattern scan on 2026-10-01. It catches known dangerous patterns, not every risk — read a skill before letting an agent act on it.
ply compared with similar skills
All 4 of these similar skills score higher than ply; compare them before choosing.
| Skill | Score | Stars | Updated | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ply (this skill)by ply-ui-ng | 81 | 10 | 2d ago | MCP Server |
| Agent-Reachby Panniantong | 100 | 87.2k | 16d ago | CLAUDE.md |
| headroomby headroomlabs-ai | 100 | 74.2k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| rufloby ruvnet | 100 | 73.6k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| CowAgentby zhayujie | 100 | 47.2k | today | CLAUDE.md |
Frequently asked questions
- How do I install ply?
- Run
claude mcp add ply-ui-ng -- npx -y github:ply-ui-ng/ply. The install tabs above show the steps for each supported agent. - Which AI agents does ply work with?
- It is written for Claude Code and Claude Desktop, as a MCP Server file. Other agents that read the same format can often use it too.
- Is ply safe to use?
- Our scan of the whole file found no instruction hijacking, hidden characters, credential access, data exfiltration or destructive commands. It declares no license and scores 80/100 on trust signals. Skills are instructions an agent will follow, so read the file before installing it and do not approve commands you do not understand.
- Is ply still maintained?
- The repository was last updated 2 days ago, so ply is actively maintained.
Skill content
View source on GitHubMIT free-tier source. Components live in
components/(same layout asnpx ply-ui-cli add). CLI and MCP live inpackages/. Pro items are not stored here — install those withPLY_LICENSE_KEYfrom ply-ui.com.Angular 19+: free components on
compat/angular-19.mainis Angular 22 (signal-forms[formField]).
Ply — Angular + Tailwind Component Library
Ply (formerly Base UI (Angular)) — ply-ui.com — is a CLI-first Angular + Tailwind CSS component library: 218 components and blocks (128 free, 90 Pro), 390 icons, and 18 full page layouts — standalone, zoneless, signal-based and SSR-safe, delivered shadcn-style: npx ply-ui-cli add copies the source into your project and it's yours. Not MUI Base UI (React).
📚 Documentation & live previews: ply-ui.com
📝 Changelog: ply-ui.com/changelog · CHANGELOG.md · Issues · Discussions
♿ Accessibility (ACR): ply-ui.com/accessibility · npm run test:a11y
🖥️ SSR-safe: the docs site prerenders every catalog route, enforced by a blocking CI job · how we verify it
🤖 AI agents (MCP): ply-ui.com/getting-started#ai-agents-mcp · ply-ui-mcp · why copy-in UI works better with LLMs · token walkthrough: rich text editor
🎨 Figma Design System: Ply Design System
✨ See what you can build for free: Live Admin Dashboard Demo (Source code: ply-free-dashboard)
🚀 Quick Start (Free Tier)
The free tier is production-ready with no account or license: all primitives (buttons, cards, dialogs, hover cards, menubars, inputs, currency fields, selects, tabs, stacked toasts, tooltips, and more) plus all 19 form blocks (login, signup, checkout, billing, wizard, …).
1. Initialize your project
npx ply-ui-cli init
This writes ply-ui.json, creates ply-ui.css (CDK overlay styles, keyframes, autofill fixes) imported from your global stylesheet, and downloads the icon sprites into your assets folder. Use --yes to accept defaults non-interactively. It does not install npm packages, so add the Angular CDK yourself: npm install @angular/cdk.
2. Configure Tailwind CSS
Ply works with standard Tailwind CSS 4 — no custom theme file required.
- Install Tailwind CSS 4 and PostCSS (Angular guide).
- Create
src/tailwind.css, register it inangular.jsonbefore global SCSS, and point@sourceat your templates.@sourcepaths are relative to the CSS file:
@import "tailwindcss";
@source "./**/*.{html,ts}";
Buttons, inputs, folder/underline/pills tabs, selects, combobox, toast, accordion, and the command palette read --ply-primary from ply-ui.css. That file aliases --color-blue-* to the same scale, so blue-* widgets follow it. A Theme Studio export sets --ply-brand and --ply-scale-*.
Optional — custom brand color: set --ply-brand in any stylesheet (load order does not matter), or copy a Theme Studio export:
:root {
--ply-brand: #7c3aed;
--ply-brand-hover: #6d28d9;
--ply-brand-active: #5b21b6;
}
Use Theme Studio (or the docs customizer) to live-preview those controls and export a full 50–950 scale as a Tailwind v4 @theme block. Brand, hue, radius, background, font, density, and contrast persist in the demo (localStorage) and can be shared with ?theme=nord&radius=0.75&bg=zinc&font=inter&density=compact.
3. Add components
npx ply-ui-cli add button card dialog
Omit the name (npx ply-ui-cli add) in a terminal to pick from the catalog. Pass names plus --yes in CI and for agents.
Component dependencies are resolved recursively, and missing npm packages are installed with your package manager automatically. Run npx ply-ui-cli list to see everything that's available.
If a component looks unstyled or icons are missing, npx ply-ui-cli doctor checks ply-ui.json, Tailwind, CDK, and the icon sprites (read-only). Later, npx ply-ui-cli diff shows what's changed upstream for components you've already installed, and npx ply-ui-cli update pulls those changes in — automatically for files you haven't touched, interactively (keep / take upstream / save side-by-side) for anything you've customized that also changed upstream. See packages/cli for details.
4. Import in your Angular app
All components are standalone — import them from your local components folder:
// app.component.ts (standalone)
import { CardComponent } from './components/card/card.component';
import { BaseButtonDirective } from './components/button/button.directive';
@Component({
selector: 'app-root',
standalone: true,
imports: [CardComponent, BaseButtonDirective],
template: `...`,
})
export class AppComponent {}
💎 Ply Pro
Pro components are the pre-built blocks — blog and article cards, ecommerce blocks, media and social widgets, 18 full page layouts — plus advanced widgets (data table, date pickers, command palette, mega menu, file upload, multi-select, rich text editor, crop image, product gallery, tree, mention input, splitter).
After purchasing a license at ply-ui.com, set your license key once and add pro components with the same CLI:
export PLY_LICENSE_KEY=your-license-key
npx ply-ui-cli add layout-dashboard blog-card-gradient-hero
The key is validated server-side by the pro registry on every fetch. In CI, set PLY_LICENSE_KEY as a secret.
🛍️ Templates
Templates are complete, production-grade applications built on Pro — every route wired up, shipped as source you own. Each bundle includes a Ply Pro license.
- Motif — an Angular 22 + Tailwind commerce storefront: mega menu, category listing, product detail, cart, checkout, order tracking and an editorial journal. $149 including Pro. Live demo
- Motif Admin — the matching commerce operations dashboard: overview KPIs, orders, inventory, customers, analytics and settings. $149 including Pro. Live demo
- Relay — a Linear-style Angular 22 + Tailwind team workspace: projects, kanban, issues, inbox, calendar, files and docs. $149 including Pro. Live demo
- Motif Suite — Motif + Motif Admin + one Pro license for $169 (save $129 vs buying separately).
📦 What's included
| Category | Free | Pro | | --- | --- | --- | | UI primitives | 50+ (buttons, inputs, dialogs, hover cards, menubars, currency, kbd, tabs, calendar, stacked toasts, …) | data table, date pickers, command palette, mega menu, file upload, multi-select, rich text editor, crop image, product gallery, tree, mention input, splitter | | Form blocks | all 19 (login, signup, checkout, billing, wizard, …) | — | | Blocks & widgets | — | blog/article cards, ecommerce blocks, media + social widgets | | Page layouts | — | 18 (dashboard, kanban, inbox, docs, admin table, …) | | Directives, services, utils | all | — | | Icons | 390 SVG sprite icons | — | | Templates | — | Motif storefront, Motif Admin dashboard, Relay workspace ($149 each, or Motif Suite $169) |
🔧 Development (this repository)
Free component source lives in components/. CLI and MCP source live in packages/. Pro components are not in this repository.
npm ci
npm test
npm run lint
npm test --prefix packages/cli
npm test --prefix packages/mcp
Pull requests: see CONTRIBUTING.md. Free, CLI, and MCP PRs merge on this repository. A private docs/Pro tree imports main afterwards so ply-ui.com and npm stay in sync.
📋 Requirements
- Node.js 22+
- Angular 22+ on
main. Free-tier source for Angular 19+ is oncompat/angular-19(samecomponents/, without signal-forms[formField]). - Tailwind CSS 4.x
Server-side rendering
Components are safe to server-render or prerender. Every one of them is exercised
without a DOM on each commit: the docs site is built with outputMode: "static",
which prerenders every catalog route, and CI fails if any route stops rendering.
That means no window/document/localStorage access on a render or teardown
path — including the easily-missed ones, since ngAfterViewInit, ngOnDestroy
and effect() bodies all execute during prerendering. The
full write-up
covers what broke when we turned it on.
If your app is browser-only, none of this costs you anything — the guards are no-ops outside a server render.
🤖 AI / LLM Reference
For AI agents and LLM-assisted development:
- MCP server —
ply-ui-mcp: catalog toolslist_components,search_components,get_component. Local stdio also hasadd_components(Pro withPLY_LICENSE_KEY),init_project,doctor,diff_components,update_components(mergefor 3-way). Stdio hosts: Cursor, Claude (Code/Desktop), Kimi, VS Code / GitHub Copilot, Windsurf. ChatGPT/Gemini chat catalog: mcp.ply-ui.com/mcp (read-only; install withnpx ply-ui-cli add <name>). Runnpx -y ply-ui-mcplocally to install. Setup: Getting started — AI agents (MCP). The CLI remains the canonical installer; MCP wraps it. - Component catalog —
docs/ai/components.md: selectors, inputs, outputs, and descriptions in one file. Published at ply-ui.com/docs/ai/components.md and inlined in llms-full.txt. - Cursor rules & snippets —
docs/ai/ply-ui.mdcanddocs/ai/ply-ui.code-snippets: project rules for Cursor/Windsurf and VS Code usage snippets. Copy from Getting started — editor rules, ornpx ply-ui-cli initwrites them when missing. - UI design skill —
docs/ai/skills/ply-ui-design/SKILL.md: aesthetic, primitives, and loading / empty / error states for agents. Save as.cursor/skills/ply-ui-design/, or letnpx ply-ui-cli initwrite it when missing. - Cookbooks — ply-ui.com/cookbooks: assembled screens (settings form, dialog + CVA, invoice table, AI chat, signal forms, httpResource, @defer, view transitions).
- Non-interactive CLI —
npx ply-ui-cli init --yesand `add <n
Truncated for display — read the full file on GitHub.
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Languages
Trust signals
From repository metadata: license, adoption, age and documentation. Not a code audit — see the Safety scan above for what the skill file itself contains.
