story-production-orchestrator

name	story-production-orchestrator
version	1.0.0
description	Master orchestrator that creates Kanban boards for story production and dispatches tasks to the 6 specialist STV profiles. Loaded by the default aurora profile. Supports v1.0-native mode (14 decomposed tasks) as default.
tags	["orchestration","kanban","multi-agent","dispatcher","v2.0"]
metadata	{"hermes":{"related_skills":["story-direction","comfyui-ops","qc-image-review","flux-t2i-prompting","flux-edit-prompting","ltx-motion-prompting"]}}

Story Production Orchestrator (v1.0)

Quick-start (one sentence)

When a user says "produce {story_name} story", this skill runs a profile readiness pre-flight check, creates a 14-card Hermes Kanban board with atomic parent dependencies, dispatches tasks to the 6 specialist STV profiles (stv-director, stv-t2i-writer, stv-i2i-writer, stv-motion-writer, stv-reviewer, stv-ops), and monitors progress with a character-sheet user approval gate.

---

What changed in v2.0/v1.0

Area	v0.1-hybrid (old)	v1.0-native (new)
Execution	4 tasks wrapping monolith	14 decomposed cards
T3 Assignee	stv-t2i-writer (failed ops work)	stv-ops (correctly renders sheets)
Linking	Post-hoc hermes kanban link (racy)	Atomic --parent on task creation
Pre-flight	Basic CLI assignee check	Strict profile readiness (.env, symlinks, provider)
Failure limit	Dispatcher default (2)	Tasks overridden with explicit budgets (80-100 turns)
Human gate	Post-hoc blocking	T4 created with --initial-status blocked

---

1. Role

You are the master orchestrator. You do NOT do the work yourself. You:

1. Run the profile readiness gate (verify_profiles.py) to verify environment, symlinks, and providers for all 6 profiles.
2. Verify ComfyUI is reachable and OpenRouter API key is set.
3. Create a Kanban board for the story (hermes kanban init + hermes kanban boards create <slug> --switch).
4. Build the task graph (14 cards for v1.0-native).
5. Create the tasks with atomic parent links (hermes kanban create --parent <parent-id>).
6. Dispatch the ready tasks (hermes kanban dispatch).
7. Monitor progress via task completion logs (NOT active polling).
8. Surface the one human gate (character sheet approval) to the user when T3 completes.
9. On gate unblock, downstream tasks auto-promote.

You are NOT the writer. You are NOT the operator. You are NOT the QC. You route.

---

2. Trigger

The orchestrator activates when the user issues a request like:

• "produce rabbit race story"
• "make a video for the cherry story"
• "render the wolf film"
• "I have a new story: , can you produce it?"

The orchestrator reads the story text (or path to Story.md) and the story's working directory.

---

3. Pre-Flight

Before creating any cards on the board, the orchestrator runs:

3a. Profile Readiness Check

Checks all 6 STV profiles (stv-director, stv-t2i-writer, stv-i2i-writer, stv-motion-writer, stv-reviewer, stv-ops):

• Directory exists under ~/.hermes/profiles/
• .env exists with required keys (MINIMAX_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, COMFYUI_URL, COMFYUI_USER, COMFYUI_PASS depending on the profile)
• Skills symlinked inside skills/creative/
• config.yaml model provider is set to custom:minimax-anthropic

3b. Environment Variables

• COMFYUI_URL and credentials must be configured.
• OPENROUTER_API_KEY must be configured for the reviewer.

3c. Story path exists

The <story-slug>/Story.md must be present.

If any check fails, ABORT with exact instructions on how to fix the profile.

---

4. Board Generation

The default mode is v1.0-native (14 tasks).

v1.0-native Board (14 tasks)

T1  [stv-ops]         Init project + verify ComfyUI/models
  └→ T2  [stv-director]     Story expansion → story_manifest.json v3
       └→ T3  [stv-ops]          Render character sheets
            └→ T4  [user]             ★ APPROVAL GATE: character sheets ★
                 └→ T5  [stv-t2i-writer]   Draft FF prompts
                      └→ T6  [stv-i2i-writer]   Draft LF edit prompts
                           └→ T7  [stv-motion-writer] Draft motion prompts
                                └→ T8  [stv-reviewer]    Pre-flight text audit
                                     └→ T9  [stv-director]    Director final review
                                          └→ T10 [stv-ops]         Render FF+LF stills
                                               └→ T11 [stv-reviewer]    Per-image vision QC
                                                    └→ T12 [stv-ops]         Render FFLF video
                                                         └→ T13 [stv-ops]         Continuity chain
                                                              └→ T14 [stv-ops]         Final stitch

Creating the Board

# Init kanban DB (idempotent)
hermes kanban init

# Create the board and switch to it
hermes kanban boards create <story-slug> --switch

# Create task (atomic parent link, initial status)
hermes kanban create "T4: ★ APPROVAL GATE: character sheets ★" \
  --assignee user \
  --workspace "dir:/root/Syncthing/.../<story-slug>" \
  --parent <T3-id> \
  --initial-status blocked \
  --body "..."

---

5. The Single Human Gate

After character sheets are generated, the orchestrator MUST present them to the user for approval. This is the only human-in-the-loop checkpoint.

Workflow

1. T3 (character sheets) completes.
2. T4 (approval gate) is already created as blocked on the board.
3. Orchestrator notifies the user with the reference sheet paths.
4. User reviews and runs hermes kanban unblock <T4-id>.
5. T4 enters done, auto-promoting T5.

---

6. Failure Recovery

ComfyUI Timeout / Errors

• GPU tasks have --max-retries 3 specified on card creation to tolerate transient failures.
• Non-transient issues escalate to stv-ops or block the task for manual intervention.

Task Backfill

• If a task runs out of its iteration budget, it blocks. The orchestrator or user can update/reassign it via hermes kanban edit or hermes kanban reassign.

---

7. Output Contract

When the orchestrator completes, the user gets:

{
  "story_slug": "panda-pippin",
  "mode": "v1.0-native",
  "board_id": "panda-pippin",
  "tasks": {
    "T1": {"id": "t_01", "status": "done", "assignee": "stv-ops"},
    "T2": {"id": "t_02", "status": "done", "assignee": "stv-director"},
    ...
    "T14": {"id": "t_14", "status": "done", "assignee": "stv-ops"}
  },
  "final_film_path": "/root/Syncthing/.../panda-pippin/final_film.mp4",
  "manifest_path": "/root/Syncthing/.../panda-pippin/story_manifest.json"
}

---

8. Anti-Temptation Rules

The orchestrator's job is to route, not execute.

• Do not execute the work yourself.
• For any concrete task, create a Kanban task and assign it.
• Decompose, route, and summarize — that's the whole job.

---

9. CLI Surface

The orchestrator uses these subcommands:

• hermes kanban init — initialize kanban DB
• hermes kanban boards create <slug> --switch — create active board
• hermes kanban create — create task (supports --parent, --initial-status, --max-runtime, --max-retries)
• hermes kanban unblock <id> — unblock gate
• hermes kanban dispatch — force dispatch tick

---

10. Cost Expectations

• v1.0-native costs ~$1.07 per film due to full multi-agent validation.
• GPU rendering cost is subject to ComfyUI node usage.

---

11. Profile→Skill Mapping

Always map STV profiles to these exact skill names during card creation:

Profile	Skill Name (EXACT)
stv-director	story-direction
stv-t2i-writer	flux-t2i-prompting
stv-i2i-writer	flux-edit-prompting
stv-motion-writer	ltx-motion-prompting
stv-reviewer	qc-image-review
stv-ops	comfyui-ops

---

12. Tight Task Body Template

Every task generated by the orchestrator must follow this structure:

## Task: T<id> — <description>

### Setup
[Required environment sourcing and credentials]

### Helpers
[Specific scripts or modules allowed to be used]

### Success Criteria
[Specific, testable conditions and output files]

### Stop
[Clean exit condition]

For full v2.0 quality, use v1.0-native mode after validating v0.1-hybrid on rabbit race.