Make the code-led GROUND fallback deterministic, compare like for like

The quality bar leaves the color-authority chain (it arrives as card
image paths and never governs composition). With no comp, a color
OWN-WORLD names is the target; when it names none, the review states
there is no GROUND authority instead of inventing a target. The build
side of the numeric comparison now samples the same way each record
was taken: patch average against patch average, gradient ends against
gradient ends.

AI-assisted change (Cursor), prepared under maintainer direction.

Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

skill/reference/new-work.md

@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ For `shape`, return the selected direction to [shape.md](shape.md) and stop befo
 
 ## 6. Build with full commitment
 
-When an approved comp exists, the comp is king, and the build happens in phases. The comp is a spatial contract, not a mood board: only the user can downgrade its authority, in explicit words, and difficulty never infers a downgrade. Phase one is reproduction: rebuild the comp at its own breakpoint until a screenshot at the comp's width and height overlaps it near pixel-perfectly, materials, components, elevation, assets, and implied design language included. Exactly three concessions exist: fonts (the closest obtainable face), icons (exact match unless the user already chose an icon library), and genuine defects in the generated comp such as spelling errors. Everything else must match, and models systematically believe their HTML, CSS, and SVG recreation succeeded when it did not, so the overlap comparison is the authority, never your conviction: set the screenshot beside the freshly reopened comp image at identical dimensions after every region, never beside your memory of it, and when a region keeps losing that comparison, stop recreating it in code and produce it as a rendered asset composited into the page. The comp also outranks every written record of it: when the recorded brief or inventory commits to less than the comp shows, a softer texture, a sparser field, a sculpted plate reduced to flat CSS, correct the record upward to the comp; qualifiers like subtle, restrained, and low-contrast, and counts rounded down to a comfortable fraction, are how approved materials die between approval and build. A produced material must then survive to the screen: a texture buried under a nearly opaque color wash ships the wash, not the material, so judge every material by the screenshot beside the comp, never by the stylesheet. Every color the brief records gets that comparison by number, not by eye: sample the build screenshot's ground, dominant fields, and accents and set each hex against the recorded comp value (sampled from the comp itself when the brief lacks one), and when a texture or tile paints over a base token, measure the net on-screen value, because the eye files a drifted color under the same color word and the number is what catches it. Judge the gap like a colorist, not a diff tool: a difference with a color name (warmer, grayer, darker than the record) is drift to fix, while a few digits of render and compression noise are the same color. <!-- rule:skill-color-by-number --> Only when reproduction holds does phase two begin: static regions that should live become animated or interactive, reveals and motion are added, then responsiveness across the surface's devices. Where the comp does not cover the whole surface, continue building the remainder inside the comp's recorded world and design language; a component the comp never shows inherits the recorded system's corner language, line weights, and materials, and may not introduce container styles, border weights, or chrome the comp never uses. <!-- rule:skill-comp-is-king -->
+When an approved comp exists, the comp is king, and the build happens in phases. The comp is a spatial contract, not a mood board: only the user can downgrade its authority, in explicit words, and difficulty never infers a downgrade. Phase one is reproduction: rebuild the comp at its own breakpoint until a screenshot at the comp's width and height overlaps it near pixel-perfectly, materials, components, elevation, assets, and implied design language included. Exactly three concessions exist: fonts (the closest obtainable face), icons (exact match unless the user already chose an icon library), and genuine defects in the generated comp such as spelling errors. Everything else must match, and models systematically believe their HTML, CSS, and SVG recreation succeeded when it did not, so the overlap comparison is the authority, never your conviction: set the screenshot beside the freshly reopened comp image at identical dimensions after every region, never beside your memory of it, and when a region keeps losing that comparison, stop recreating it in code and produce it as a rendered asset composited into the page. The comp also outranks every written record of it: when the recorded brief or inventory commits to less than the comp shows, a softer texture, a sparser field, a sculpted plate reduced to flat CSS, correct the record upward to the comp; qualifiers like subtle, restrained, and low-contrast, and counts rounded down to a comfortable fraction, are how approved materials die between approval and build. A produced material must then survive to the screen: a texture buried under a nearly opaque color wash ships the wash, not the material, so judge every material by the screenshot beside the comp, never by the stylesheet. Every color the brief records gets that comparison by number, not by eye: sample the build screenshot's ground, dominant fields, and accents the same way each record was taken (an interior patch average where the record is an average, both end colors where the record is a gradient) and set each value against its recorded counterpart (sampled from the comp itself when the brief lacks one), and when a texture or tile paints over a base token, measure the net on-screen value, because the eye files a drifted color under the same color word and the number is what catches it. Judge the gap like a colorist, not a diff tool: a difference with a color name (warmer, grayer, darker than the record) is drift to fix, while a few digits of render and compression noise are the same color. <!-- rule:skill-color-by-number --> Only when reproduction holds does phase two begin: static regions that should live become animated or interactive, reveals and motion are added, then responsiveness across the surface's devices. Where the comp does not cover the whole surface, continue building the remainder inside the comp's recorded world and design language; a component the comp never shows inherits the recorded system's corner language, line weights, and materials, and may not introduce container styles, border weights, or chrome the comp never uses. <!-- rule:skill-comp-is-king -->
 
 Build the assigned direction, not a safer interpretation of it. The form supplies structure, reading order, component conventions, and native motion; the product supplies every fact. Commit every atom: nav, buttons, inputs, and links are rebuilt in the form's vocabulary, and a stock component inside a committed form is a lapse. Land the first build fully committed; committing is the hard part, and the passes that follow exist to make the committed thing clear and effective, never to dilute it. In unattended work, the safe rendition is the known risk. <!-- rule:skill-commit-every-atom -->