Creative Rounds

Creative rounds

Generated pictures and clips are cheap to make and expensive to choose between. This skill runs the choosing: every round of options goes onto one published page, the reviewer writes on the page, and the next round is built from what they wrote.

The tools are in tools/ beside this file. They build self-contained HTML pages from JSON manifests. Run them with python3 (Pillow required; ffmpeg for video posters). This skill never calls an image or video generator: use whichever one the user has, then put its output on the page.

The flow

project
├── Sketch          3–5 different ideas per round, drawn cheaply (pencil-sketch style, lowest price tier)
│   └── rounds      comment · Lock · Drop on every card → next round
├── Hi-fi           only the Locked sketches, rendered properly; two takes per open question
│   └── rounds      same controls; for film work: anchor stills first, then clips in the review room
└── Production      the Locked hi-fi design, cut for every surface it runs on
    └── rounds      one row per surface (feed, story, LinkedIn, listing...), shown inside a mock of the surface where one exists

The phase names are the default. A manifest can name its own with "phases".

Rules for every round

1. One page per project, same address every round. Rebuild and republish to the same slug. Make a new address only when the user asks for one.
2. Newest round on top. Earlier rounds stay on the page, folded ("fold": "closed" on a strip; "open": false on a review-room round). Nothing is deleted while a choice is open.
3. Every card has a name a person can say. Name a card by the one thing that sets it apart, in plain words: "warm table", "cool table". The reviewer refers to cards by these names, so never use codes like "option B" or "v3".
4. A sketch round shows 3 to 5 different ideas unless a comment asks for fewer. Different means different ideas; five crops of one idea is one idea.
5. Every card and every row carries a comment box, a Lock and a Drop. Lock and Drop exclude each other.
6. Read the page before building the next round. With a notes store configured: curl -s <notes_api>/v1/<slug>/text. Comments come back grouped by round, locks under "Locks" as LOCKED, drops under "Drops" as DROPPED. Never ask the user to paste comments you can read. Without a store, ask them to press Copy all notes and paste.
7. Build the next round from what you read:
   • LOCKED stays exactly as it is. Never regenerate a locked item.
   • DROPPED is not shown again.
   • Everything else is reworked from its comment. A comment changes the prompt itself (the idea, the framing, the count); it is never pasted onto the end of the old prompt.
   • New cards may be added.
   • Fold locks and drops into the manifest ("locked": true, "dropped": true) so they survive the rebuild. The manifest is the state between sessions.
   • A reworked card keeps its earlier version folded underneath ("before").
8. Check the phase first. The switch at the top of every page belongs to the project. Read it with curl -s <notes_api>/v1/<project>/text (group "Phase"). Move to the next phase only when the current one has Locked cards; render the next phase from those cards only.
9. Price before you generate. State the cost of a round before running it, and ask before spending more than the user's threshold. Decide on sketches; render finals once.
10. One link per round in your reply, plus one line on what changed. The page carries the rest.

What the user says, and what it means:

If a brief asks for something that cannot be true or cannot physically happen, say so in one sentence and build the corrected version. After one "no" on a design direction, ask what reference the user has in mind before trying again on your own taste.

Which page tool

python3 tools/storyboard-sheet.py project/concepts.json --out build/concepts.html            # build
python3 tools/storyboard-sheet.py project/concepts.json --out build/concepts.html --publish  # build and put live

A complete worked example, with placeholder art drawn in code: examples/demo/ (python3 examples/make-demo-assets.py first).

Video: notes that point at a frame

In the review room the reviewer scrubs with the pointer (Shift gives a fine ±0.5 s window), steps single frames with the arrow keys, marks in and out, and loops the marked part. Note the frame writes [Take name · frame 51 · 0:02.125] into that take's comment; note the marked part writes the range. Treat these as exact: when a note says a clip is right up to a frame, keep everything before that frame and change only what follows. Once the user approves a passage of a film, later rounds never touch it (the film locks forward).

For each note on a clip or still, make two takes that differ in one named thing, so the comparison answers one question.

Read when needed

• references/flow.md — the whole process in detail, phase by phase, with the project folder layout.
• references/manifests.md — every manifest key for the three page tools.
• references/production-surfaces.md — the surfaces, their sizes, crop or re-render, surface mocks.
• references/sketch-prompts.md — a prompt block that makes any image model draw a flat pencil sketch.
• references/anchor-frames.md — locking stills before paying for motion.
• references/setup.md — one-time setup: the notes store (a small Cloudflare worker) and publishing.

Setup check

Before the first round, look for creative-rounds.json (in the project folder or above it) or ~/.config/creative-rounds/config.json. If neither exists, the pages still build and work: comments stay in the reviewer's browser and travel by Copy all notes. Offer the setup in references/setup.md once; do not block on it.