I asked my agent to fix the width on one page. It replied with a confident plan — headers, breakpoints, responsive adjustments. Then it promptly forgot the plan existed. Two minutes later, I asked again. It gave me a different plan. Better than the first one, actually. Detailed. Convincing.
Neither plan ever shipped.
This happened four times. On the fifth attempt, the agent didn't fix the width. It rewrote all six pages from scratch. New CSS. New layout. New container widths. Every page ended up with a different max-width — 760 pixels here, 900 there, 1100 somewhere else. None of them matched.
And honestly? That might be the best design decision the agent ever made.
The Amnesia Problem
Here's what actually happens when you ask an agent to fix something on a multi-page site:
You say "make the container narrower on the newsletter page." The agent opens the file, reads it, and starts working. But it can only hold so much in its head at once. By the time it reaches the bottom of the file, it's forgotten the top. It can't see that every other page uses the same shared template. It can't remember that you asked for a single-page fix. It just sees markup — and it edits.
The fix becomes a rewrite. One page becomes six. A width tweak becomes a complete redesign.
After the fifth rewrite, I stopped fighting it. I looked at what the agent had actually built. Six pages. Six different widths. Six distinct layouts. And here's what surprised me: every page looked right for what it was doing.
The Accidental Design System
The homepage is a landing page — cards, code snippets, endpoints, links. It needs room to breathe. The agent gave it 1100 pixels.
The trust score page is a data table. Narrower focus. Dense information. The agent gave it just enough room for the table, nothing more.
The newsletter signup page is a single form. One purpose. The agent made it tight, centered, impossible to miss.
The MCP server comparison page has a feature table with tool names and descriptions. Wider than the form, narrower than the homepage. Just what the content needs.
The agent didn't design a consistent system. It designed six pages that each fit their own content. And the only reason this happened is because it couldn't remember what it did on the previous page.
What I Assumed
I assumed consistency was the goal. I assumed every page should look like every other page. I assumed the agent's forgetfulness was a bug to be fixed.
What I No Longer Assume
Amnesia is a feature when it means each page gets designed for its own content. A uniform width across every page is a human aesthetic preference — not a user need. Nobody navigates from the newsletter page to the trust score table and thinks "these should be the same width." They just use the page in front of them.
The template still exists. The header, the footer, the color scheme — those are consistent. But the content area? It fits the content. The agent, by forgetting, made the right call.
What You Should Check
- Does your agent remember what it built yesterday? If you ask it to list every page it created last week, can it? If not, you're working with an amnesiac. That's fine — but design for it. Each page should stand alone.
- Are you fighting rewrites or using them? The agent will rewrite from scratch. You can spend hours correcting it, or you can let it build and curate the output. The second approach is faster and usually better.
- Is your consistency rule solving a real problem? Same margins across six pages looks good in a portfolio. It doesn't make the newsletter form easier to fill out or the trust score table easier to read. Ask whether anyone actually cares.
No promises about Day 6 — but something else will break. Something always does.
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