DEV Community

Cover image for ChatGPT can now hold a real design editor in its sidebar. Here is the setup
Usman Bashir
Usman Bashir

Posted on Originally published at svglab.app

ChatGPT can now hold a real design editor in its sidebar. Here is the setup

#ai #design #mcp #chatgpt

Ask ChatGPT and Gemini whether you can edit a design inside ChatGPT and both say the same thing: describe it, or go to Figma or Canva. That stopped being the whole answer on 12 October 2026, when SVG Lab (svglab.app) moved into ChatGPT's sidebar.

Setup (ChatGPT website)

  1. Settings, then Security and login: turn on Developer mode.
  2. Plugins, then +: create a developer mode app.
  3. Name SVG Lab, MCP server URL https://svglab.app/mcp, Authentication OAuth.
  4. Sign in to SVG Lab when asked, press Approve.

Developer mode is on the web for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education; a workspace admin has to allow it first. If Plugins is missing, ChatGPT may call it Apps or Connectors this week.

Two places SVG Lab shows up

The editor in the sidebar. SVG Lab appears under Explore. It opens the full SVG Lab editor inside ChatGPT, signed in, with My Projects. Free SVG Lab accounts get it too. ChatGPT's own "Open in SVG Lab" button on SVG Lab's cards opens the project there.

Live design beside the chat. In a conversation: More, Plugins, Live design. The screens SVG Lab's Design Engine is making stay in a panel next to the chat. You see the AI's cursor on the screen being designed, each piece drawn over the last, a "thinking" timer between steps, and Done or Paused at the end.

Drawings, not stand-ins

In ChatGPT's Work mode each illustration starts from a reference search, then three new versions from ChatGPT's own image generation, and is drawn by hand as SVG from the best one. Screens only export after the drawing copies its reference. In Chat mode an unfinished drawing never blocks the export; ChatGPT is told which one still differs.

Cost

SVG Lab: 100 free credits (up to 24 app screens) once per account, one MCP tool call is one credit, plans from Starter at $7 a month for 2,500 credits (up to 600 app screens). ChatGPT: developer mode needs a paid plan, and on a Free ChatGPT account we saw ChatGPT ask for Plus to continue a task in Work.

SVG Lab (svglab.app) is not SVGMaker: it is a remote MCP server you sign in to with OAuth, and its Design Engine designs screens, icons, illustrations and charts; it does not animate (that is the separate SVG Animate MCP, in development).

Full guide with FAQ: How do you design app screens in ChatGPT?

Top comments (0)