No comps outside the state: generate-image refuses .impeccable/mocks/ output while a roll is pending and build-phase has not started

The first paid confirmation sweep showed the failure: models rendered the
three comps first and ran build-phase.mjs start after, so a session cut at
the composition pick carried no state.json and the resumed model followed
the conversation ('translate the comp into HTML now') instead of the
phases. Decision comps (.impeccable/mocks/decision/) are unaffected;
--force-mock overrides.

AI-assisted (Claude).

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

skill/reference/visualize.md

@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ A probe tests composition, narrative, hierarchy, density, focal moment, signatur
 
 ## Generate three compositional options
 
+The comp round runs inside the build's phase state: `build-phase.mjs start --direction <seed key> --kind <...>` has already run (the roll's output names the command) and its `comps` phase is open before the first comp is generated; a comp rendered before that sits outside the state, and a session resumed from that point has no phases to follow. `generate-image.mjs` refuses to write under `.impeccable/mocks/` until start has run; a harness-native image tool is bound by the same order.
+
 Render three distinct high-fidelity north-star comps of the requested surface, saved under `.impeccable/mocks/` so they survive the session. Comp at the surface's own viewport: portrait at device size for a native app or mobile-first surface, desktop landscape otherwise; a phone screen comped landscape misstates the composition before anything is built against it. Comps are the build thread's own work, never delegated: the thread that writes the prompts holds the direction's full context and has seen every comp when the build starts. Open every image by its workspace-relative path; sandboxed viewers reject absolute paths, and everything under the project root has a relative one. Base the comps on real content and the surface concepts already developed with the user. On an established world, anchor every comp on the real identity: capture a screenshot of a representative existing page and pass it as a reference image (the harness image tool's input image, or `generate-image.mjs --ref`); the prompt leads with the new surface's structure while the reference carries palette, type, and component character, because DESIGN.md words alone drift where a pixel reference does not. Name what the reference contributes and what it must not: chrome, palette, type, and component character carry over; the reference page's own content does not, and a banner, hero, or card lifted verbatim is the reference leaking, not fidelity. Three is the number: one comp invites rubber-stamping; the spread between three surfaces the composition worth building. The chosen card's decision comp is the first of the three: it already renders this direction at full fidelity under this discipline, so generate two more that vary what the first held fixed, and send all three to the approval point together. Only a round arriving with no decision comp (a degraded roll, an identity-mode page, a direction pinned without the decision round) renders all three here.
 
 - A comp is a designed surface, not a picture of the subject. Lead the prompt with the surface's own structure: the regions this design has, named in order with their scale relationships; a page with no navigation says so instead of inventing one, and an unconventional surface states its unconventional skeleton. A prompt that leads with atmosphere gets a vignette back: the model paints the fish market instead of the fish market's website. Self-check every render: if it could hang as a poster, or reads as a photograph with some text on it, it is not a comp; regenerate with the layout scaffold stated more literally.