> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.canva.dev/docs/apps/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# generate-design

Create design candidates from a natural-language brief.

Use `generate-design` to produce candidate designs. Present the candidates to the user to choose from rather than auto-selecting.

## Example prompt

*"Create an Instagram post announcing our new AI editing feature. Bold and modern."*

## Example response

IDs, URLs, and tokens below are placeholders; field names and structure are exactly as returned.

This tool wraps results in an asynchronous `job` object.

```json
{
  "job": {
    "id": "job_EXAMPLE",
    "status": "success",
    "result": {
      "generated_designs": [
        { "candidate_id": "dg-EXAMPLE1", "url": "https://www.canva.com/d/EXAMPLE1", "thumbnails": [ { "url": "https://design.canva.ai/EXAMPLE1" } ] },
        { "candidate_id": "dg-EXAMPLE2", "url": "https://www.canva.com/d/EXAMPLE2", "thumbnails": [ { "url": "https://design.canva.ai/EXAMPLE2" } ] }
      ]
    }
  }
}
```

Returns a `job` whose `result.generated_designs` holds the candidates. Each has a `candidate_id`, `url`, and `thumbnails`. The job's top-level `id` is needed for [create-design-from-candidate](https://www.canva.dev/docs/apps/mcp/tools/create-design-from-candidate/).

NOTE: Thumbnail URLs may need redirects resolved. Thumbnails are typically returned in the form `https://design.canva.ai/<id>` and aren't always directly embeddable in an HTML `<img>` tag. Your AI application may need to follow redirects to resolve the URL to the underlying image before displaying it.

## Learn more

* [MCP tools and rate limits](https://www.canva.dev/docs/apps/mcp/tools/)
* [create-design-from-candidate](https://www.canva.dev/docs/apps/mcp/tools/create-design-from-candidate/)
* [Verify your Canva MCP app](https://www.canva.dev/docs/apps/mcp/verify-app/)
* [Design edit handoff](https://www.canva.dev/docs/apps/mcp/workflows/design-edit/)