| name | manga-adaptation-pipeline |
| description | Top-level controller for the story-first manga workflow. Use when Codex needs to turn prose into a manga prologue, chapter, or production packet by routing through detailed script adaptation, strengthened visual style and character design, OpenAI/GPT Image 2 direct page prompts, quota-aware rendering, and QC. The current default skips board files. |
Manga Adaptation Pipeline
This is the controller, not the writing room. It must not jump from source prose to image generation. The required order is script adaptation, visual design, direct page prompt pack, two-round prompt review, pilot render, quota-aware sequential rendering, then QC.
If a render process is already running and the user redirects the task, stop the render first. A half-wrong pipeline can spend quota faster than it produces useful pages.
Current Production Rule
The current default is direct page rendering from page script plus character references. Do not require deterministic board PNGs. Do not add a board-file stage unless the user explicitly asks for separate thumbnails outside the main skill stack.
The page script owns story pressure, suggested page rhythm, key visual moments, dialogue function, and text economy. The image model may compose backgrounds, props, camera angles, and panel geometry from that page brief. For final page renders, pass character references by default. Scene and prop design assets inform prompts, but do not pass them as reference images unless the user explicitly wants that control.
Direct English lettering is allowed when the user wants speed. Keep image-rendered text short and exact. If publication-grade lettering is required, render blank balloons or blank prop surfaces and add text in a separate lettering pass.
Required Modules
Use manga-script-adaptation for story conversion. Its output must preserve environment information, inner state, hidden information, object continuity, and dialogue function before any page prompt exists.
Use manga-visual-design for the shared project DESIGN.md, character sheets, and optional scene/prop design briefs. Colored reference images are never allowed to define the page style in a black-and-white manga project; they only carry identity, silhouette, costume construction, prop geometry, and setting structure.
Use manga-image-prompt for OpenAI/GPT Image 2 direct page prompts. It owns the prompt template, character-reference indexing, direct-text policy, preserve/change contract, output flags, and two-round review.
Use manga-quality-gate only if it exists in the current installation. In this rebuilt stack, QC can also be written directly as qc/page-XX-qc.md using the gates in this controller.
Project Layout
Use or create a project root with this layout:
source/raw/
source/manifest.json
script/source-diagnostic.md
script/adaptation-treatment.md
script/beat-sheet.md
script/page-script.md
script/cut-merge-ledger.md
design/DESIGN.md
design/characters/
design/scenes/
design/props/
design/renders/
prompts/page-XX-reviewed-render.txt
prompts/page-XX-two-round-review.md
renders/quota-ledger.md
renders/pages/
qc/
Run scripts/bootstrap_project.py to create this skeleton. Refresh or write source/manifest.json before claiming source coverage.
Rendering Discipline
All manga rendering goes through scripts/render_with_gpt_image2.sh, which delegates to gpt-image-2-skill and defaults to the Codex provider. Do not call generic image tools for manga production pages.
Render a pilot page before spending a multi-page batch when a prompt pattern changes. If the pilot passes and the user asked for multiple pages, a serial render loop is acceptable. Never parallelize image requests. Every page prompt must have *-two-round-review.md with both rounds passing before rendering.
For black-and-white manga, every render prompt must explicitly say to ignore hue, saturation, and color palette from reference images. References preserve identity, silhouette, construction, material logic, and layout only. The prompt must also restate the project DESIGN.md style lock and the bans against color wash, gradients, glossy digital rendering, photoreal texture, 3D lighting, clean vector line, moe/chibi proportions, UI marks, and decorative fake text.
Use quality high, png, and 1088x1536 unless the user chooses a different approved production target. Put size, quality, and format in CLI flags when calling the wrapper. Use --background opaque only when the selected provider supports it; the Codex provider relies on the prompt's white page-field instruction.
Update renders/quota-ledger.md after every image output. Record saved images and also record backend retry events when visible in logs. Repairs are allowed only for hard failures: broken panel count, wrong character identity, object continuity failure, unreadable composition, severe style drift, or plot-critical text corruption.
Done Gate
A page is not done because it looks good. It is done only when the page script, DESIGN.md, reviewed prompt, render, quota ledger, and QC note agree on the same story function.
