Vc Decorate

Invocation for vc-decorate (launcher decorate)

Same three-path shape as the fleet, with this skill's literals — see the canonical Delegation Matrix:

• Shared three paths
• Launcher catalogue
• Per-launcher rule
• Native vs external

Path	Literal for this skill
1. User-launched worker	vibecrafted decorate <agent>
2. Interactive	/vc-decorate — execute in this session; use native subagents when required; do not externalize merely because a launcher exists
3. Agent-operator	may dispatch the worker form above via vc-dispatch / operator lines while preserving this skill's identity

Freer native on some runs ≠ abandon external fleet. vc-dispatch and vc-ship keep their own identities.

vc-decorate — Coherence First. Premium Second.

Human Operator Entry

Living Tree / Worktree Rule

This workflow runs in the operator's current checkout and current branch. Do not create, switch to, or move execution into a git worktree unless the operator explicitly asks for a worktree in this prompt. Generic words like "isolate", " parallel", or "clean branch" are not enough. Re-read files before editing, adapt to concurrent changes, and report a substrate failure if the current tree is too poisoned to continue safely. The one sanctioned second mode is a Fleet Worktree dispatch (written plan, pre-committed verifiers, disjoint domains, single-thread integrator — see Living Tree Rule, Mode B); outside that formation, stay in the shared tree.

See Living Tree Rule.

Canonical Orientation Gate

Before this workflow performs repo-specific analysis, planning, implementation, review, release, or delegation, it MUST run or consume the vc-init procedure for the assigned repo. If fresh vc-init evidence is absent, perform the init pass first and treat workflow-specific work as blocked until repo truth exists.

Loctree:loctree is the default structural perception skill for that pass. Use Loctree before grep or docs-driven claims to produce or refresh the Code-Derived Application Map: repo-view, focus, slice, impact, find, and follow as relevant. Search for existing symbols and contracts before creating new ones; run impact before delete or major refactor; run slice before editing.

The point is to find the hooks: load-bearing hubs, twins, dead code, drift, runtime entrypoints, and blast-radius traps. If the task is explicitly non-repo or no-code, state the no-repo exception in the report. Otherwise, missing vc-init /Loctree evidence is a process failure.

Standard launcher: vibecrafted start / vc-start, then vibecrafted decorate <agent> / vc-decorate (see Delegation Matrix).

vibecrafted decorate agy --prompt 'Polish the landing page'
vc-decorate claude --prompt 'Coherence audit on the CLI output surface'
vibecrafted decorate codex --file /path/to/decorate-plan.md

"Do not decorate chaos. First make the system coherent. Then make it feel premium."

Decorate is not a "make it pretty" skill. It is a late-stage product finishing skill. Its job: take a working product and turn it into a coherent, intentional, premium experience.

That means:

• Detect the user's real design language (colors, fonts, theme, spacing, interaction rhythm)
• Separate identity from drift
• Preserve what is distinctive
• Upgrade what is weak, dated, or inconsistent
• Verify the end-to-end feel
• Only then add tasteful visual polish and micro-interactions

Decorate does not impose the agent's taste, overwrite the user's brand, or add random blur, glow, parallax, or "AI prettiness." Its job is to make the existing system feel: more deliberate, more modern, more stable, more precise, more complete.

Premium is not ornament. Premium is coherence.

Repository Work Doctrine

For repository work, start with Loctree as the map: use loct context, loct occurrences, loct body, and loct find --literal before broad manual search. Use AICX for intent and session context. Use rg/grep as fallback or local magnifier, not as a replacement for structural mapping. If Loctree fails or misses a surface, append feedback to ~/.vibecrafted/loctree/loctree-fail.md.

Core Rule: Detect, Don't Dictate

Before decorating anything, run style detection and system audit:

1. SCAN existing CSS variables, theme files, brand colors, fonts, spacing, components
2. IDENTIFY palette, font stack, theme mode, surface logic, interaction rhythm
3. AUDIT for visual drift, weak patterns, inconsistent states, prototype-feel leftovers
4. SEPARATE identity from drift:
   - preserve what is distinctive
   - improve what is weak, stale, or incoherent
   - remove the style diffusion, competing truths
   - eliminate the conflicting areas by hard prune duplicates or races
5. PROPOSE improvements using THEIR tokens, THEIR language, THEIR stack
6. ASK which changes should be applied
7. IMPLEMENT only approved changes
8. VERIFY the experience end-to-end

If no existing style detected, offer to scaffold a suitable design system — present options, don't assume taste, don't force a visual identity.

CLI Is Also an Interface

A terminal is not a dumping ground. CLI output is a UI. It deserves the same coherence, rhythm, and intentionality as a web page. Nasty, raw, unformatted terminal output is not "developer-friendly" — it is offensive to the operator.

Decorate applies to CLI surfaces too. If the product has a terminal interface, that interface is part of the product surface. Decorate it. The obvious areas include:

• installer output (alignment, colors, progress signals)
• main runtime (branded, compact, informative)
• post-execution (spinners, progress bars, per step summaries)
• help/--help outputs (structured sections, colors, columns)
• doctor/health checks (clear pass/fail summaries, readable minimal logs)
• error messages (machine/human-readable separation)

If screenscribe is available, vc-decorate can consume a narrated UI screencast to detect drift, awkward transitions, and coherence breaks across a real flow — useful when static screenshots are too thin.

Unicode Toolkit for CLI

𝚅𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚍. ships a Unicode database (2601 chars, 13 categories) and a unicode-puzzles-mcp server. Use them for CLI decoration instead of guessing code points or hardcoding ANSI escape sequences.

Pipeline: plain text → unicode transform → decorate_text

1. Write the plain text content first
2. Transform labels/titles via rewrite_using_unicode (choose style)
3. Wrap final layout with decorate_text for box art (if needed)

Never hand-pick code points by memory. Use the MCP — it returns verified, consistent characters from the same Unicode block.

Available styles (rewrite_using_unicode):

CLI decoration elements (Unicode DB):

Braille sparklines deserve attention. A single Braille char encodes 8 dots in a 2×4 grid (256 combos) — 40 chars = 320-point convergence curve in the terminal, no graphics library. Use for: token usage over time · P0/P1/P2 findings across marbles loops · agent activity timelines · any trend data.

Rules:

• Zero ANSI escape codes for text styling — pure unicode renders everywhere.
• ANSI colors (\033[32m etc.) acceptable for status coloring only.
• Never mix Unicode blocks within one label (squared F next to negative squared R looks like a bug, not a choice — unless deliberately a signature mark like 🅵·🅁·🄰·🄼·🄴·🅆·🄾·🅁·🄺).
• Test rendering on at least two terminals (macOS Terminal + Linux default).
• Use search_unicode to find a specific symbol — don't guess.

When To Use

• Product works but feels flat, prototype-ish, unfinished
• User asks for visual polish, smaczki, curb appeal, premium feel
• UI is functionally correct but lacks coherence across surfaces
• Good ingredients, weak system feel
• Inconsistent cards, buttons, spacing, focus states, animation timings
• Showcase page, demo, landing page, or app needs a finishing pass
• Team wants the product to feel intentional, not just decorated
• CLI output is functional but ugly, unbranded, hard to scan

Pipeline Position

scaffold → init → workflow → followup → marbles → dou → [DECORATE] → hydrate → release

Decorate sits after dou, ensuring the now-complete product surface is visually coherent before final packaging (hydrate) and shipping (release).

Identity vs Drift

One of decorate's most important jobs:

• Identity — the user's actual visual language: chosen palette, typography, spacing rhythm, component forms, interaction style.
• Drift — things that merely accumulated: inconsistent border radii, mismatched spacing, conflicting button styles, random hover behaviors, prototype artifacts.

Preserve identity. Reduce drift.

Implementation Pattern

1. Detect  — scan tokens, stylesheets, framework config, component patterns
2. Audit   — identify identity vs drift and weak patterns
3. Propose — present coherence fixes, premium upgrades, smaczki
4. Implement — apply approved changes using user's tokens and structure
5. Verify  — review before/after for experience integrity

Anti-Patterns

• Decorating a broken structure
• Keeping bad patterns because "the user already had them"
• Replacing their style with ours
• Adding motion without interaction purpose
• Adding blur/glow because "premium"

Phase 3 — Ship (dou → decorate → hydrate → release)

𝚅𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚍. with AI Agents by Vetcoders (c)2024-2026 LibraxisAI