Book Visuals

Book Visuals

Goal: every image in the book looks like it belongs to this book, sits where the text needs it, and is release-ready on the first export. Images that vary with the model, drift between chapters, or decorate instead of doing work are the visual equivalent of AI prose tells.

Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/loom/quality-bar.md (the visual section) and the genre skill's Visuals section.

Why images go wrong, and the fix

Image types and who makes them

Workflow

1. Art bible (/book-visuals plan)

Invoke art-director. It reads PRD.md, STYLE.md, bible.md, outline.md, existing drafts, and any author-supplied references in visuals/ref/, then writes:

• art-bible.md (human) and .velith/art-bible.json (machine): medium, technique, movement or era descriptors (never living artists' names), line, palette with roles, value range, lighting, texture, detail level, composition rules, safe margins, aspect per placement, mood words, negative rules; character and setting constants (fiction); figure system (diagram grammar, node and edge semantics, font, color roles, caption style, grayscale survivability) for nonfiction and technical; photo policy; backend profile.
• visuals/plan.md and visuals/manifest.json: the figure list. Per image: id, chapter, placement, type, purpose (what the reader learns or feels that the text alone cannot deliver), maker, source data or scene, caption, alt text, status.

For nonfiction and technical books, the figure list is part of the argument: each figure has a purpose sentence, and a figure without one is cut. For fiction, 0-4 illustrations per chapter by weight; a chapter can have none.

2. Look lock (/book-visuals lock)

Before producing volume, produce three candidate style samples of the same subject (the book's most representative image) with three variants of the art bible. The author picks one. Record the choice, the reference image path, and the backend settings (style reference, seed) in the art bible. Required stop. For books with no diffusion images (pure technical), the look lock is a rendered sample figure instead.

3. Produce

• figure-engineer renders every code-based figure: source file in visuals/figures/src/, output SVG and PNG (300 dpi at final size) in visuals/figures/. Verifies labels against the chapter text and the bible's term rules. Every figure survives grayscale.
• illustrator compiles prompts (velith.mjs images compile), generates when an image tool is available (--execute) or hands the compiled prompt pack to the author, then runs vision QA on each result: reads the image, scores against the art bible (palette, medium, character constants, composition, artifacts, text contamination), rejects and regenerates with a corrected prompt up to three times, then escalates.
• cover-designer works from the art bible, produces concepts and the print/ebook/audiobook/marketing variants, and hands the chosen art to art-director for the consistency review.
• Photos: art-director writes the shot list or stock brief, records license and attribution in visuals/manifest.json, applies the treatment defined in the art bible.

4. Author brief (/book-visuals add "prompt" --chapter N --type T)

The author's prompt is an intent, not the final prompt. art-director interprets it through the art bible and the chapter's content, writes the spec, and the appropriate maker produces it. The result matches the book even if the author's prompt named a different style; if the author explicitly wants to break the art bible, they say so and the exception is recorded.

5. Check (/book-visuals check)

node ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/velith.mjs images check <project-dir>: every manifest entry has a file; dimensions meet the placement minimum; aspect within 5%; file size within EPUB budget; every image reference in drafts resolves and has alt text; every file in visuals/ is in the manifest. Then art-director reviews the contact sheet: consistency across all images and the cover, one final pass.

6. Integrate

Chapter-writer already placed references during drafting for planned figures:

![Alt text that describes the figure for a reader who cannot see it](../visuals/figures/ch03-fig01.svg)

*Figure 3.1 — Caption in the book's voice, one sentence, ends with a period.*

Illustrations added after drafting are inserted by illustrator at the manifest's placement. book-publish resolves paths with --resource-path and prefers SVG for EPUB and PNG for PDF.

Print and screen constraints

• Print interior: 300 dpi at final size; grayscale-safe unless the book is color; CMYK conversion at the printer's step, note it in PUBLISH-NOTES.md; bleed 3 mm / 0.125 in for full-bleed images.
• EPUB: JPEG or PNG, sRGB, each < 500 KB, SVG allowed for figures (EPUB 3), total image payload under 20 MB. Alt text required.
• Placement minimums: full-page 1600×2400, chapter header 2400×800, inline 1200×1200, spot 800×800, cover front 1600×2560 (2500×3750 recommended), audiobook 3200×3200, social 1200×628.
• Text in images: only on the cover, and only via a text-capable model or typography added in the layout step. Everything else: no text in the image; labels go in SVG or captions.

Output structure

{project-dir}/
├── art-bible.md
├── visuals/
│   ├── plan.md
│   ├── manifest.json
│   ├── ref/                 # author references, look-lock samples, character sheets
│   ├── figures/src/         # .mmd .d2 .dot .svg .py .json sources
│   ├── figures/             # rendered svg + png
│   ├── illustrations/       # ch{NN}-{slug}.jpg|png
│   ├── photos/              # licensed, with LICENSES.md
│   └── prompts/             # compiled prompt packs per image, per backend
└── publish/cover/           # cover art and variants (unchanged path)

Gate

Art bible exists with a recorded look lock. Manifest covers every planned image with status done or an author-accepted deferred. images check passes. Art-director consistency review recorded in visuals/plan.md.

Post-completion

node ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/velith.mjs scan [project-dir]