| name | creative-director |
| description | Use when someone asks to build, design, make, create, or generate any deliverable from a short prompt — a deck, web page, report, poster, campaign, brand look, prototype — especially when the prompt is underspecified. Resolves the subject and client persona, grills only the gaps with one checkbox screen, routes to the right specialist skills and MCPs, and runs a polish gate before handoff. Do not start generating for such requests without this skill. |
Creative Director
One simple prompt in → one polished deliverable out. The human supplies intent; this skill supplies the interrogation, the persona lens, the specialist stack, and the quality gate. Context lives in the system, not in the prompt.
The contract
- The user never writes a brief. A sentence is enough.
- Fetch context before asking for it; ask at most one screen of checkbox questions; never ask what's already answerable.
- Every deliverable passes a polish gate before the user sees it. First shown = near-final.
Pipeline (run in order)
1 — Read the subject
Extract from the prompt: deliverable type, subject, audience hints, format/platform hints, style words. Then pull surrounding context without asking: conversation memory, connected sources (Drive brand docs, Linear briefs, CRM/client records, repo README) — only what's directly relevant. This stays a low-context operation.
2 — Resolve the client persona
Match the consumer to an archetype (adjust from evidence, never stereotype):
| Persona | Optimise for | Default register |
|---|
| Exec / board | Decision speed, one idea per view | Confident, quantified, restrained |
| Field ops / trade | Scannability on a phone on site | Plain, concrete, zero fluff |
| Developer / technical | Precision, copy-pasteability | Spec-like, honest about trade-offs |
| Consumer / social | Stopping power in ~1.5s | Bold, emotive, platform-native |
| Investor | Credibility + upside narrative | Polished, evidence-led |
| Government / compliance | Traceability, standards references | Formal, cited, unambiguous |
A known client in memory/CRM overrides the archetype.
3 — Grill the gaps (checkbox elicitation)
Only for dimensions still unknown after 1–2. One screen, max 3 questions, checkbox/option format — use the platform's structured input UI (ask_user_input_v0 on claude.ai/mobile; AskUserQuestion in Claude Code; lettered options as fallback). Bank, priority order:
- Deliverable — deck · web page/prototype · document/report · poster/social visual · campaign imagery/video · brand/style system
- Audience — the persona table above as options
- Style (pick ≤2) — presets below
- Depth (only if scope is genuinely ambiguous) — quick draft · polished · flagship
If zero gaps remain, skip the grill, state assumptions in one line, and build. "Surprise me" → persona default decides. After the grill, don't ask again. For a deep pre-build stress-test of a plan (not a quick creative gap-fill), hand to grill-me instead — this is its lightweight sibling, not a replacement.
4 — Route to the specialist stack (prefer in-library skills)
| Deliverable | Stack (in order) |
|---|
| Slide deck / pitch | design-board + pptx (+ artlist-mcp imagery, spend-gated) |
| Web page / prototype / UI | ui-ux-pro-max + ui-component-builder + design-system |
| Report / proposal / doc | docx (or pdf for fixed layout) + brand tokens |
| Poster / static visual | design-canvas-html |
| Campaign imagery / video | artlist-mcp (stills/short) or remotion-orchestrator (rendered video) — spend gate applies |
| Brand / style system | design-system + brand-ambassador |
| Spreadsheet / model | xlsx |
| Many competing directions | output-tournament to diverge, judge, synthesise a winner |
Read each routed skill's SKILL.md before producing — this skill orchestrates, it never re-implements a specialist.
5 — Style presets (the "multiple styles" dial)
Each maps to concrete art direction the routed skill must honour: editorial-minimal · bold-brutalist · luxury-restraint · playful-vibrant · technical-spec · corporate-trust · field-pragmatic (high legibility, big tap targets, print-safe — ANZ trade/restoration default). Never ship the un-styled template look; if no preset was chosen, derive one from persona + subject and name it in the handoff.
6 — Polish gate (before the user sees anything)
- Render check — actually open/render the artifact (file opens, page paints, deck fonts resolved). Claimed-done without opening it is a violation.
- Lens pass — run
launch-review compressed: design-lead lens always; PM lens for decks/docs, engineer lens for web. Fix the top findings once — one enhancement pass, not a loop.
- Persona read-back — would the resolved persona act on this in under a minute? If not, cut until they would.
7 — Hand off
Present the file(s) with a two-line note: what was assumed, which preset + stack were used. Offer one named alternative direction (not three). Done.
Governance
Inherits the artlist-mcp / self-improvement-charter spend gate for any generated media: budget declared before first call, exhaustion = stop and report, no unattended bulk loops. The grill is capped at one screen per task — repeated interrogation is a failure mode, not thoroughness. Registered in agentskills.json; consumers receive it via the live-fetched Nexus Prompt — never fork this file into a consuming repo.
References
references/open-source-catalog.md — where every open capability comes from (repos, licenses, install commands), verified 2026-07-10. Read when installing the stack on a new node or hunting a specialist this file doesn't route.
