Direction

direction — commit to one aesthetic

Stage: Phase 2 — Direction - Reads: design/BRIEF.md, the shortlisted entries of references/CATALOG.md, the award canon's ARCHETYPE-MAP.md (+ the taste constitution; in guided mode, design/MOCKUPS.md's Approved line) - Writes: design/DIRECTION.md

Standard

This is the highest-leverage decision of the build. A first-grade direction is ONE archetype from the catalog below, executed 20% past comfortable; ONE named signature move with a location and a budget; and a "we will NOT" list of ≥5 real temptations. The test: a stranger reading DIRECTION.md could sketch the homepage. If two different archetypes could have produced the same DIRECTION.md, it is not a direction — it is a hedge, and per taste, timid design that hedges reads as no design.

Process

1. Read design/BRIEF.md: site type, energy budget, audience, tone tension. Do not touch the catalog before this — archetype-first is taste applied to nothing.
2. Shortlist archetypes whose Use for matches the site type — exactly THREE in guided mode (two at sketch tier), deliberately contrasting (different palette temperature, different type stance: three flavors of minimal is a fake choice); 2–3 in autonomous mode. Shortlist off the table's Use for column, then Read ONLY the shortlisted entries in references/CATALOG.md at the line numbers grep -n '^### ' returns — the full catalog never enters this context, and at sketch tier those two entries plus the archetype map (step 6) are this skill's only references/ reads. The tone tension usually decides what makes the list ("warm but exact" → Warm Organic vs Swiss; the tension says: Swiss grid, warm palette twist). Fingerprint check: if ~/.claude/ultraweb/taste.md exists, read it now — as a TIEBREAKER between candidates the brief already ranks equal, never as an input that outranks BRIEF.md or taste (a Swiss-grid-loving operator still gets a warm organic shortlist for a roastery). When the profile influenced a seat, the shortlist must also carry the heretic seat per ultraweb:mockup §Fingerprint — the profile stays disconfirmable. Reference input: when the user pointed at a real site or screenshot ("like linear.app", "something like this"), analyze it into catalog vocabulary — which archetype it actually is, plus at most one named borrowable principle ("their sticky chapter nav") — and let that seed ONE shortlist seat. The reference seeds a seat, never skips the round: steal the principle, never the surface, and record the reference plus the borrowed principle in DIRECTION.md's References line.
3. Guided mode: hand the shortlist to ultraweb:mockup — each candidate gets an archetype, a palette/type sketch, and one signature-move idea taken from that archetype's shortlisted entry (the brief names the archetype and hands over that seat's sketch; each candidate Reads its ONE entry at the grep line itself, never the whole catalog), and comes back as a static preview the user picks from, mixes, or sends back for revision. The commit is whatever earns the Approved line in design/MOCKUPS.md; a commissioned mix arrives as the base archetype plus one recorded twist, pre-decided. Do NOT write DIRECTION.md before that line exists. Autonomous mode: tiebreak per taste yourself, on the shortlisted entries alone: the direction more specific to THIS brief wins; if still tied, the one whose signature move you can execute strongest within the energy budget.
4. Dark Tech check: if it made the shortlist, attempt to disqualify it first. Was it chosen because the audience genuinely lives in dark terminals — or by reflex? It survives only with a written justification sentence in DIRECTION.md — and in guided mode it still needs the justification even if the user picked its mockup: approval buys the look, not an exemption from the constitution.
5. Commit to ONE — on the full shortlisted entries, never on a table row; the row shortlists, the entry decides. A deviation is allowed as one recorded twist ("Swiss, on warm paper instead of white" — or the mockup round's commissioned mix) — never a 50/50 hybrid. Mixing two archetypes is choosing none.
6. Choose ONE signature move — from the archetype's ideas or invented — sized to the energy budget. Name it, place it (page + section), and bound it (what it may cost: one canvas scene, one scroll sequence, one typographic gesture). One move; the rest of the site stays disciplined so it can sing. Consult the committed entry's Signature moves and Canon lines — the shortlisted entries are already in this context; no further entry is opened — and the award canon's archetype map, read as a file — ARCHETYPE-MAP.md in <plugin>/skills/award-canon/references/: Phase 2 loads no canon skill, and that map is the only canon file it reads. Together they name the reference winners — qualities to chase, never URLs to reskin — and the canon pattern whose principle the move borrows. Those pattern names are the vocabulary for the References line. If the move is SVG choreography — multi-path draw, morph, motion path, a scroll-scrubbed vector sequence — it must name ultraweb:animejs in DIRECTION.md, in writing, alongside its bounds; the engine is installed in Phase 9 against that sentence and no other justification. The sentence is necessary, not sufficient: ultraweb:animejs still runs its own four-part gate (≥2 capabilities, intensity ≥2 — 3 if scrubbed or pinned, authored SVG) and returns the moment here if any arm fails. Unnamed means uninstalled: a single drawn path is motion's pathLength or CSS, free. If the move is the site itself — one persistent scene the whole site inhabits, a scroll-driven camera as the narrative spine, one material world every route shares — it must name ultraweb:set-design in DIRECTION.md, in writing, alongside three bounds and not two: which routes the canvas survives, the byte budget in gzip, and what the complete static edition of each of those routes contains. The renderer is installed in Phase 9 against that sentence and no other justification. The sentence is necessary, not sufficient: ultraweb:set-design runs its own five-part gate (archetype 12 or an equally immersion-led recorded twist, intensity 3, an authored scene asset carrying a camera clip and a material-name contract, a static edition per route that would pass gate-visual alone, and a site type with the energy budget) and returns the move here if any arm fails. Unnamed means one set piece at most, and one hero scene is showpiece's, not this: escalation is a scope decision, never a default. Same construction as showpiece's canvas gate and animejs's engine gate — this file is the only authority that can commission any of the three.
7. Write the "we will NOT" list, ≥5 entries, drawn from three sources: (a) the runner-up archetypes by name, (b) every taste banned-list item this direction will be tempted by (glassmorphism for Soft Depth, gradient text for Retro-Futurist, glow-everything for Dark Tech), (c) effects and scope explicitly out (no parallax, no dark mode hero video, no second accent).
8. Write design/DIRECTION.md in the format below. Re-read it against the taste banned list: any banned item that appears must carry its justification sentence inline, or it goes.

The catalog — 12 archetypes

Full entries: references/CATALOG.md — read only the shortlisted ones: grep -n '^### ' <plugin>/skills/direction/references/CATALOG.md, then Read with offset/limit. Each entry carries the full type/color/motion stances, the Use for list, the signature-move ideas, and the Canon line the table abbreviates.

DIRECTION.md format

# Direction — <archetype> (+ <twist, if any>)
**Why this, for this brief:** 2–3 sentences tied to audience + tone tension.
**Signature move:** <name> — <page + section it lives in> — <its budget/bounds>.
**Type stance:** the archetype stance, made concrete for this brief.
**Color stance:** ditto — name the ground tint, the accent family, the dark-mode intent.
**Motion stance:** ditto — durations, easing family, what never animates.
**References:** 2–3 named qualities to chase (not URLs to copy).
**We will NOT:** ≥5 entries — runner-up archetypes by name, tempting banned-list
items, out-of-scope effects. Gate-visual and gate-antislop enforce this list.

Any taste banned-list item this direction uses (Dark Tech's look, a retro gradient) carries its justification sentence here — this file IS the "unless DIRECTION.md explicitly justifies" mechanism.

Anti-patterns

• modern and clean / clean and modern / sleek / cutting-edge as the direction — describes every site, so no site
• minimalist with a touch of — hybrid hedging; one archetype, one recorded twist
• DIRECTION.md with no We will NOT section — unenforceable direction is decoration
• Dark Tech with no justification sentence — the reflex pick, banned by default
• Two or more signature moves — five gestures means zero signatures
• Archetype chosen before BRIEF.md exists or without citing its tone tension
• Guided mode: DIRECTION.md written before the Approved line exists in design/MOCKUPS.md — the user's pick IS the commit
• A shortlist of three near-identical candidates handed to the mockup round — divergence is what makes the choice real
• Catalog stance pasted verbatim with no brief-specific concretization (which hue? which section? which words?)

Worked example — Kaffeewerk Ost, Berlin roastery shop + subscriptions

Moved to references/example.md — read only when this build's case is genuinely ambiguous; the sections above are the decision material.

Composes with

Moved to references/composes.md — the handoff map; load it when orchestrating this skill against its neighbors.