Taste First

Taste First

This is the sole creative authority for register: brand combined with move: generate or move: redesign. One named art director owns the complete chain: thesis, asset transformation, desktop/mobile first frames, and implementation. The owner's latest verdict is ground truth. An owner rejection immediately invalidates any earlier PASS; record it as BLOCK and failure without defending or rationalizing it.

Enter the lane

1. Confirm both route labels. Owner labels are ground truth.
2. If the register is not brand, or the move is not generate/redesign, stop and return to design-method.
3. Create .harness/apex/taste-first.json as the first task artifact:

{
  "lane": "taste-first",
  "register": "brand",
  "move": "generate",
  "firstFrameLocked": false,
  "active": true,
  "ownerAgentId": "<current design agent id>"
}

Use "redesign" when applicable. The marker activates the deterministic hook bypass for obsolete pre-lock inspiration, design-system, Gemini, and legacy design-skill gates. Read the current design agent id from the runtime context or active-agent state; never guess or reuse an id from another task. 4. Read the supplied brief, owner constraints, existing surface for redesign, and every supplied asset. When these inputs define the audience, objective, content, and constraints, begin without a questionnaire. Ask one question only when a missing fact would materially change the result. 5. Before the first frame is locked, do not load sibling creative workflows, pattern banks, design-system defaults, inspiration quotas, or move procedures. They cannot steer this lane.

Art-direction work

Write one positive visual thesis that states the intended experience and the compositional logic. It is a working instruction for the art director, not a menu for the owner.

Name the single dominant visual device before rendering and complete one working line: Dominant device: [device]; it earns its area and complexity by [specific gain]. This is not a choice menu, candidate comparison, or additional checkpoint.

Transform the real assets into the visual system. If placing a rectangular image in a rectangle produces a flat result, materially transform it through one or more of: crop, mask, segmentation, cutout, composite, depth planes, or connective material that crosses asset and layout boundaries. Opacity changes and gradients alone do not count as material transformation.

Render actual desktop and mobile first frames. They must demonstrate the thesis with real assets and representative copy. A text description, wireframe, moodboard, or component inventory is not first-frame evidence.

Promotion Checkpoint 1: absolute first-frame evidence

Present the desktop and mobile first frames against absolute criteria:

• the unchanged owner brief and explicit constraints are visibly honored;
• the thesis is legible without an explanation;
• real assets are structurally integrated, not merely placed;
• desktop and mobile are intentional compositions, not one scaled layout;
• the dominant device passes the visual-cost test: it earns its area and complexity by improving hierarchy, brand meaning, and emotional authority. Mentally remove or simplify it; if the composition becomes more premium, legible, or distinctive, BLOCK;
• primary identity and copy remain composed and legible. Deliberate cropping may create tension, but it cannot read as accidentally clipped, broken, or dependent on layout overflow. Mobile must not use clipping as a substitute for composition;
• boldness feels inevitable to the thesis rather than detachable novelty. Technical or material transformation alone does not make a dominant device earned;
• no supplied owner label is contradicted.

The mandatory challenger is the independent critic inside this checkpoint. It receives only the owner brief, explicit constraints, source assets, anonymous first-frame renders, and the criteria above. It returns exactly PASS or BLOCK, with no creative rationale: it may cite only observed evidence. It never receives self-audit, move report, or implementation details, and it never proposes a direction. When retesting a category the owner previously rejected, also provide the owner's latest verdict, stripped of rationale or replacement direction.

On BLOCK, the art director revises the same owned concept or replaces it when the thesis itself failed. The owner may override the verdict or any criterion. On PASS or owner override, set firstFrameLocked to true in the marker and freeze the concept.

Implementation

Implement the locked frames faithfully. After lock, load only the platform and technical skills required to build and validate the surface. Existing tokens may constrain code when the owner marked them as fixed; otherwise derive implementation tokens from the locked frames.

Technical checks may correct accessibility, responsiveness, performance, semantics, code quality, and browser defects. They may not restyle the concept, introduce a new visual device, replace the asset treatment, or reopen art direction. A conflict between technical compliance and the lock returns to the art director or owner for a bounded decision.

Promotion Checkpoint 2: fidelity and technical validation

Compare rendered desktop/mobile implementation screenshots with the locked first frames, then run the repository's required technical checks. Promotion requires:

• no material regression in composition, hierarchy, typography, color, asset treatment, spacing, or responsive intent;
• owner constraints remain intact;
• accessibility, responsive behavior, runtime, console, lint, typecheck, tests, and build pass where applicable;
• remaining limitations are explicitly owner-accepted.

The mandatory challenger is the independent visual critic inside this checkpoint. It receives only the owner brief, constraints, locked frames, final renders, and fidelity criteria. When retesting a previously owner-rejected category, it also receives the owner's latest verdict without rationale or replacement direction. A separate technical validator receives only the implementation and technical evidence it needs. Each returns PASS or BLOCK and may cite only observed evidence; neither receives rationale or co-designs. The owner may override. Report completion only after a pass or explicit owner override. Then set active to false in the marker so later unrelated design tasks cannot inherit the bypass. Subagent cleanup also deactivates an active owned marker when the task stops before this update.

Failure handling

• Missing or unreadable required asset: stop and identify the exact asset.
• First-frame rendering unavailable: report blocked; prose is not substitute evidence.
• Optional design tool unavailable: implement directly.
• Technical check conflicts with the lock: preserve the lock and escalate the narrow conflict.

Forbidden

• No mandatory four-question brief when inputs are sufficient.
• No mandatory signature element, widget, focal quota, hero quota, pattern quota, competitor-lift test, lookalike test, or copy self-audit as an independent gate.
• No candidate tournament, ablation, relative winner, or committee selection.
• No critic rationale, replacement direction, style prescription, or shared authorship.
• No additional promotion stage beyond the two defined here.
• No technical restyling after concept lock.