autodesign

name	autodesign
description	Generate candidate UIs for a brief, then evolve them iteratively against the saliency benchmark

AutoDesign — Loop Protocol & Artifact Schema

This skill documents the protocol the loop follows and the artifacts it produces. It is the contract between the orchestration prompt (.claude/commands/autodesign.md), the engine (pipeline/), and the dashboard (dashboard/). All three read this doc; none of them duplicate it.

Loop protocol

A run consists of:

1. gen-0 fan-out. The generator subagent runs loop.initial_candidates times (default 5) in parallel, producing meaningfully different candidates from the brief. Each is captured + scored independently. The highest combined wins; its name is written to gen-000/winner.json.
2. Iterate. For each generation N >= 1 until loop.iterations or loop.target_score:
   • critic reads the previous generation's winner (scores.json + frames) and writes a critique + a list of nameable_decisions.
   • generator (in edit mode) produces a single refinement at gen-NNN/cand-00/index.html.
   • Capture → benchmark → write gen-NNN/winner.json (always cand-00 when only one candidate exists) → append to lineage.jsonl.
3. Stop. Copy the overall winner's html to <run>/final.html. The dashboard manifest API exposes the full history.

On-disk artifact schema

Layout (defined in pipeline/artifacts.py):

.autodesign/runs/<utc-timestamp>/
  lineage.jsonl
  gen-NNN/
    cand-NN/
      index.html
      frames/0000.png ...
      saliency.png        (optional)
      scores.json
    winner.json           # { "winner": "cand-NN", "combined": <float|null> }
  final.html              # copy of the overall winner (written at run end)

scores.json per candidate:

{
  "candidate": "<path>",
  "per_criterion": { "<key>": <float|null>, ... },
  "combined": <float>,
  "scored_criteria": [...],
  "skipped_criteria": [...],
  "critique": "<string>",
  "nameable_decisions": [...],
  "raw": { "<key>": { "details": {}, "skipped": null }, ... }
}

winner.json per generation:

{ "winner": "cand-NN", "combined": <float|null> }

lineage.jsonl line per generation:

{ "generation": 0, "combined": null, "winner": "cand-00",
  "changed": "", "answered_critique": "" }

Status

TODO: this skill is documentation-only today. The orchestration prompt in .claude/commands/autodesign.md and the engine in pipeline/ are still being filled in.