craft + brand: framework foundation, build-pipeline respect, image verification

Three closely-linked additions surfaced by an eval-harness session
investigating why the agent always shipped flat single-file HTML and
zero imagery on greenfield brand briefs.

1. craft.md gains a new Step 0 "Project Foundation" before Shape.
   Detects existing framework / component library / icon set and
   uses what's there. Greenfield: ask the user via AskUserQuestion
   with sensible defaults framed by the brief (Astro for content/
   brand sites, SvelteKit/Next/Nuxt for app surfaces, single
   index.html only for one-shot demos). Skipping the framework
   decision and writing flat HTML "to satisfy the spec" produces
   work that reads as a 2018 prototype regardless of visual
   quality.

2. craft.md Step 5 production bar gains two bullets:
   - Respect the build pipeline. Edit source files and run the
     project's `npm run build`; do not write to build/ / dist/ /
     .next/ directly with cat/heredoc/Bash redirects. Bypassing
     the pipeline skips asset hashing, image optimization, code
     splitting, and CSS extraction.
   - Verify external image URLs before referencing them. Use an
     image-search MCP, web-fetch tool, or browser if available;
     guessed photo IDs ship as broken-image placeholders.

3. brand.md "Imagery" section:
   - Generalizes the Unsplash URL guidance to "verify URLs
     before referencing them" with a hierarchy: image-search MCP
     > web-fetch > confidence-restricted manual selection >
     fewer photos.
   - Tightens the tech/dev-tool exception. Old line "zero imagery
     can be correct" gave models a permission slip. New framing
     keeps the underlying truth (typography + code + diagrams
     primarily carry voice) but raises the floor: imagery still
     earns its place when it serves the brief, and skipping it
     requires naming the typographic/diagrammatic move that's
     carrying the visual weight instead. "Zero imagery is the
     failure mode of laziness, not restraint."

Eval-harness corpus that prompted this: 19/19 brand landing tasks
shipped 0 images each, including ones where Opus had taste enough
to break the dev-tool color default lane. The skill needs to teach
both halves of the decision; the harness shouldn't have to nudge.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Paul Bakaus
2026-05-08 15:01:11 -07:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 4.7
parent 8f98f36e3d
commit e3ad2eff25
2 changed files with 27 additions and 2 deletions
+2 -2
View File
@@ -81,12 +81,12 @@ Brand surfaces lean on imagery. A restaurant, hotel, magazine, or product landin
**When the brief implies imagery (restaurants, hotels, magazines, photography, hobbyist communities, food, travel, fashion, product), you must ship imagery.** Zero images is a bug, not a design choice. "Restraint" is not an excuse. If the approved comp or brief is image-led, ship real project assets, generated raster assets, or a credible canvas/SVG/WebGL scene. Do not replace photographic, architectural, product, or place imagery with generic CSS panels, decorative diagrams, cards, bullets, or copy.
- **For greenfield work without local assets, use stock imagery.** Unsplash is the default. The URL shape is `https://images.unsplash.com/photo-{id}?auto=format&fit=crop&w=1600&q=80`. Pick real Unsplash photo IDs you're confident exist (`photo-1559339352-11d035aa65de`, `photo-1590490360182-c33d57733427`, etc.); if unsure, pick fewer photos but don't substitute colored `<div>` placeholders.
- **For greenfield work without local assets, use stock imagery.** Unsplash is the default. The URL shape is `https://images.unsplash.com/photo-{id}?auto=format&fit=crop&w=1600&q=80`. **Verify the URLs before referencing them.** If you have an image-search MCP, web-fetch tool, or browser access, use it to find real photo IDs and confirm they resolve. Guessed IDs (even ones that look real) often 404 and ship as broken-image placeholders. Without a verification path, pick fewer photos you're confident exist over more that you guessed; never substitute colored `<div>` placeholders.
- **Search for the brand's physical object**, not the generic category: "handmade pasta on a scratched wooden table" beats "Italian food"; "cypress trees above a limestone hotel facade at dusk" beats "luxury hotel".
- **One decisive photo beats five mediocre ones.** Hero imagery should commit to a mood; padding with more stock doesn't rescue an indecisive one.
- **Alt text is part of the voice.** "Coastal fettuccine, hand-cut, served on the terrace" beats "pasta dish".
Tech / dev-tool brands are the exception where zero imagery can be correct; a developer landing page often carries its voice through typography, code samples, diagrams. Know which kind of brand you're working on.
"Imagery" here is broader than stock photography: product screenshots, custom data visualizations, generated SVG, and canvas/WebGL scenes are all imagery. Text-only pages where typography alone carries the entire visual weight are the failure mode.
## Motion