Two adversarial reviews later, the discipline says half as much

Two independent skeptic passes over the added prose, one hunting
oversteer and example bias, one hunting mode and platform damage. What
they killed, and why:

- The absolute 'never a medium' rule contradicted the file's own
  imagery-stance fixity two paragraphs up and stripped legitimate guards
  (an illustration-committed world, a native app screen warding off
  stock-photo drift). A medium ban now belongs to the committed imagery
  stance, never to caution, and the rule appears once per reader context
  instead of five times corpus-wide.
- The quoted incident string and the four-example subject list taught
  the model the exact framings they existed to prevent. Gone; the
  abstract rule plus the point-at-the-subject check carry it.
- 'A first-time visitor learns what this is, why it matters, and what
  to do' was Persuade anatomy imposed on all four modes. The guard is
  now mode-neutral: a quieted region keeps its information and stops
  performing.
- 'Calm is what Operate and Read surfaces are for' contradicted
  operate.md's density affordance. Deleted; modes stay defined in one
  place.
- The focal-moment count now presupposes nothing: it fires only where
  the direction names a focal moment, and only on same-scale rivalry,
  so an even, calm field stops reading as a failure.
- The decision-comp clause and the mode bullet no longer restate what
  they can reference.

Net: the prose additions drop from roughly 480 words to under 200, with
no quoted strings and no example lists.

AI-assisted (Claude Fable 5), prepared for maintainer review.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

skill/reference/new-work.md

@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ The script assigns which structure gets built; your top-ranked structure is what
 
 The standing exit: every direction round offers one quiet, permanent alternative, the category standard, played straight. It is the user's door, never yours: never recommend it, never weigh it against the roll, never let it soften the dealt directions; the counterweights bind the unchosen default, not the chosen one. When the user takes it, in the canon action, a safer-steer, or plain words asking for the familiar or competitor-like path, convention becomes the commitment: ask once for two or three products this should sit alongside, make their craft level the bar, and execute the canon at full fidelity, without irony or smuggled quirk. A standing preference gets recorded as a brand commitment in PRODUCT.md. <!-- rule:skill-canon-standing-exit --> Re-roll eliminates every direction already shown, grounded and challenger alike; after two consecutive re-rolls, ask what quality is missing. You may re-roll on your own only on named factual grounds, when the assigned direction cannot carry the product's truth or task; taste is never grounds. The user may re-roll freely, and a user- or brief-pinned direction beats the roll, always. <!-- rule:skill-assigned-plus-reroll --> Present the decision visually: write an options payload with the assigned direction leading and its raised lines included, the pick card when one exists, the dealt challengers as alternates carrying their QUALITY BAR cards plus each challenger's verdict and kept line, re-roll with its safer and bolder registers, steer, plus canon enabled, and `followup: true` when the execution-contract round will follow (it does whenever image generation exists and no standing build-path preference is recorded); a degraded roll with no challengers still uses the page, as a single text-only card with re-roll. Give every card the same anatomy, thesis, palette, materials, first viewport, honest risk, and the challengers' case lines (run the script with `--schema` for the exact shape); the page renders identity from these fields, routes declined challengers to a demoted row on its own, and a challenger's catalog image rides as labeled inspiration, never as the promise of the build. Author `canonCard` too: the category standard as one honest card with the same anatomy; the page keeps it subordinate, and the counterweights still bind you. Run `node {{scripts_path}}/serve-question.mjs --start --payload <file>` (run it with `--schema` first for the exact payload shape). It daemonizes, prints the page URL and a key, and exits immediately; now open that URL for the user, in-app browser first, then the system opener, then showing the URL. Collect the choice with `--wait --key <key>`, repeating while it exits 3; the ANSWER prints as JSON. Exit 4 means the page was closed without an answer: re-present once through the structured question tool, and with no answer there either, proceed unattended with the assigned direction and state the assumptions. A harness that can leave a shell blocked in the background may instead run the script without `--start` and let it auto-open and block. Only a session where no browser can open at all, headless, CI, an eval worker, a remote shell with no display, puts the same decision through the structured question tool instead; the script self-detects these environments and exits 2 with that advice, so treat exit 2 as this fallback, never as an error to retry. <!-- rule:skill-visual-decision-page -->
 
-When image generation exists, every card also declares a `comp` path under `.impeccable/mocks/decision/`, the canon card included. Where the harness sandboxes its shell, start the page through the least-sandboxed command path it offers: a sandboxed shell cannot bind the board's port, and the first-attempt failure costs a retry every session. Serve the page first, then produce the comps; the page shimmer-waits per slot and the user may answer before they land. Each card's image is that direction's north-star comp at full fidelity, produced under the comp discipline in [visualize.md](visualize.md): the requested surface's first viewport, structure-led prompt, real product name and real content, no invented commercial claims, in that card's own palette, type character, and material world, committed all the way, where commitment is depth, not coverage: visualize.md's self-checks, the mode readable from the image, one dominant move, the subject present as content, bind decision comps identically. Generation takes the same time at any fidelity, so an unfinished draft pays draft quality for comp cost; fairness between cards comes from equal fidelity in each card's own grammar, one surface, one aspect, never from shared unfinishedness. The frame's aspect is the surface's own: a native app or mobile-first surface comps portrait at its device viewport, a desktop web surface landscape, and the decision page adapts to either, so a phone screen comped landscape is a broken frame, not a neutral default. Produce in the order the user reads, the assigned card, then the pick, then the full-card hand, then canon, each file written with its prompt sidecar the moment it is done, so a re-roll's spend front-loads onto the cards read first; declined challengers get no comp, their catalog thumb is their face. When the harness runs subagents in parallel, fan the set out as one agent per card: each spawn is the shipped asset producer with a single-comp packet, that card's fields, PRODUCT.md, the shared frame, and the card's declared path, up to four in flight at once. A slot still empty when its agent returns is regenerated inline, and a slot still empty when the user answers is dropped without ceremony; no other supervision is owed. Without parallel subagents, generate in the main thread after serving, in the same reading order, and let the harness's own generation display carry the progress; the wait for the answer follows the last file. The chosen card's comp is not spent by the choice: on a comp-led build it enters the comp round as compositional option one, and on a code-led build it returns at the finish review as the critique reference, what the image dared that the build did not. The unchosen comps stay in `.impeccable/mocks/decision/` as the round's spent hand; they carry no approval and imply none. With no image generation, the cards carry their identity in palette chips and facts, and that page is complete, not a lesser version; the page then also demotes every challenger's catalog art to a labeled thumbnail on its own, because salience must encode the verdict, never the accident of which cards have images. <!-- rule:skill-decision-comps-full-fidelity --> <!-- rule:skill-salience-parity -->
+When image generation exists, every card also declares a `comp` path under `.impeccable/mocks/decision/`, the canon card included. Where the harness sandboxes its shell, start the page through the least-sandboxed command path it offers: a sandboxed shell cannot bind the board's port, and the first-attempt failure costs a retry every session. Serve the page first, then produce the comps; the page shimmer-waits per slot and the user may answer before they land. Each card's image is that direction's north-star comp at full fidelity, produced under the comp discipline in [visualize.md](visualize.md): the requested surface's first viewport, structure-led prompt, real product name and real content, no invented commercial claims, in that card's own palette, type character, and material world, committed all the way; visualize.md's self-checks bind decision comps identically. Generation takes the same time at any fidelity, so an unfinished draft pays draft quality for comp cost; fairness between cards comes from equal fidelity in each card's own grammar, one surface, one aspect, never from shared unfinishedness. The frame's aspect is the surface's own: a native app or mobile-first surface comps portrait at its device viewport, a desktop web surface landscape, and the decision page adapts to either, so a phone screen comped landscape is a broken frame, not a neutral default. Produce in the order the user reads, the assigned card, then the pick, then the full-card hand, then canon, each file written with its prompt sidecar the moment it is done, so a re-roll's spend front-loads onto the cards read first; declined challengers get no comp, their catalog thumb is their face. When the harness runs subagents in parallel, fan the set out as one agent per card: each spawn is the shipped asset producer with a single-comp packet, that card's fields, PRODUCT.md, the shared frame, and the card's declared path, up to four in flight at once. A slot still empty when its agent returns is regenerated inline, and a slot still empty when the user answers is dropped without ceremony; no other supervision is owed. Without parallel subagents, generate in the main thread after serving, in the same reading order, and let the harness's own generation display carry the progress; the wait for the answer follows the last file. The chosen card's comp is not spent by the choice: on a comp-led build it enters the comp round as compositional option one, and on a code-led build it returns at the finish review as the critique reference, what the image dared that the build did not. The unchosen comps stay in `.impeccable/mocks/decision/` as the round's spent hand; they carry no approval and imply none. With no image generation, the cards carry their identity in palette chips and facts, and that page is complete, not a lesser version; the page then also demotes every challenger's catalog art to a labeled thumbnail on its own, because salience must encode the verdict, never the accident of which cards have images. <!-- rule:skill-decision-comps-full-fidelity --> <!-- rule:skill-salience-parity -->
 
 The moment the direction lands, one more round on the same open table decides the execution contract. The direction payload declares `followup: true`, so the table stays open after the pick; deliver the build-path payload through `--update` immediately. Two text-only cards. **Comp-led**: a first-viewport comp is generated and it is law, the finish review audits the build against it; boldest composition on the table, fix rounds expected, motion at risk; choosing it makes the comp non-optional, no silent skipping. **Code-led**: no comp of this page and no apology for it; the QUALITY BAR boards still calibrate finish, and the ambition moves into the written contract, the FIRST VIEWPORT block plus a named signature interaction and motion grammar, which the finish reviewer audits in behavior; code-led is not a discount on commitment, the direction still lands fully committed in code. Lead with the chosen world's fit: a costume-heavy catalog world leads comp-led, a quiet or conventional direction leads code-led; the lead is a default, never a decision, and the user flips it freely. A standing preference, voiced once, is recorded as a brand commitment in PRODUCT.md and skips this round on later surfaces. Without image generation there is no fork and no round: code-led is the only path, stated in one line rather than asked. Only a detached table (`--start`) stays open for `--update`: a blocking serve or the structured-tool channel runs the build-path round as its own second question instead, and `followup: true` belongs only on a detached round. <!-- rule:skill-build-path-round -->
 
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ Build the assigned direction, not a safer interpretation of it. The form supplie
 - **The first viewport is a thesis, not a header.** Demonstrate the mechanism immediately, at the scale the form has in life; do not trap the concept inside a standard hero or card shell. The memory test: if someone left after one viewport, what would they describe an hour later? If the honest answer is a mood, the concept has not committed yet.
 - **Prove the hero before building past it.** When an approved comp exists, render the first viewport, capture it, and set it beside the comp's first viewport before any later section: the hero carries the run's ambition, and every following section inherits its shortfall. Judge scale and density as quantities, a field at a tenth of the comp's coverage or type at half its weight is a different design, and a five-minute retry here is what a rebuild verdict at the finish costs when this check is skipped. <!-- rule:skill-hero-checkpoint -->
 - **Prove, don't claim.** Show the subject doing its job: the interface at work, the mechanism dramatized, specifics a competitor could not copy-paste. Sections that restate a claim in different words add length, not substance. Demonstration data is design material: author it at full fidelity and label it synthetic; claims stay uninventable.
-- **Author the assets; never substitute chrome.** Great surfaces live on carefully made content: names, entries, copy, covers, thumbnails, textures. In greenfield work every blank the ask round left open is yours to author at production fidelity; content is authorable, claims are labelable, no section is omittable. An unanswered commercial claim ships as a clearly marked placeholder on the user's replacement list. When image generation exists, producing the design's imagery is part of building, at the scale the composition needs: a viewport that wants atmosphere gets a full-bleed layered scene, and a library of small centered subjects standardized for tidiness forecloses it. Gradients, glass, and generic icon tiles where an authored asset belongs are the gap wearing chrome; icons drawn in the world's own grammar are the remedy, not the target. Generation prompts ban fabrications, never media: "no photography" on a photographic subject deletes the subject, not the risk. <!-- rule:skill-author-assets-not-chrome -->
+- **Author the assets; never substitute chrome.** Great surfaces live on carefully made content: names, entries, copy, covers, thumbnails, textures. In greenfield work every blank the ask round left open is yours to author at production fidelity; content is authorable, claims are labelable, no section is omittable. An unanswered commercial claim ships as a clearly marked placeholder on the user's replacement list. When image generation exists, producing the design's imagery is part of building, at the scale the composition needs: a viewport that wants atmosphere gets a full-bleed layered scene, and a library of small centered subjects standardized for tidiness forecloses it. Gradients, glass, and generic icon tiles where an authored asset belongs are the gap wearing chrome; icons drawn in the world's own grammar are the remedy, not the target. <!-- rule:skill-author-assets-not-chrome -->
 - **Build the form's web leverage.** When the chosen world names a technique (canvas, WebGL, view transitions, generative motion), build the technique itself, not a static imitation of it; the graceful fallback serves constrained clients, it is not the default experience.
 - **Pace the scroll like a studio.** Vary density, scale, image, motion, and quiet inside one grammar; a dense passage earns a quiet one, and the page ends anchored by a real close. One spacing rhythm throughout, with more space above a heading than below it.
 - **Use real, verified imagery when the brief implies it.** Search for the subject's physical object rather than the category; one decisive photo beats five mediocre ones. Verify stock URLs resolve.