| name | xxd-color-brief |
| description | Turn vague visual direction into a practical Chinese traditional color brief. Use when a user has mood words, client feedback, audience positioning, references, or an unclear Chinese traditional color direction that must become palette constraints before choosing colors. |
xxd-color-brief
Purpose
Use this skill before picking colors. Its job is to turn soft language like "高级", "东方", "年轻", "克制", "松弛", "科技感", or "不要太俗" into a brief that a designer can defend and reuse.
Pain Points This Solves
- Stakeholders use adjectives, references, or dislikes, but the designer needs concrete color constraints.
- Moodboards create alignment, but they often stop before deciding hue, brightness, saturation, contrast, and usage risk.
- Teams jump into swatches too early and later argue because the success criteria were never named.
Data Contract
- Use the bundled references inside this skill:
references/chinese-color-master-list.md: full 742-color Markdown source list.references/chinese-color-harmony.csv: complete machine-readable harmony table for all 742 colors.references/chinese-color-harmony.md: Markdown version of the same harmony relationships.
- Starting colors must include color name, HEX, and the reason they fit the brief.
- If the user provides an outside HEX, map it to the nearest project color and label it as a mapping.
- Do not produce a full palette unless the user explicitly asks; route to the next skill instead.
Briefing Workflow
- Identify the job behind the words: brand, UI, poster, data visualization, content series, packaging, or audit.
- Translate each adjective into observable constraints:
- Temperature: warm, cool, neutral, or controlled contrast.
- Lightness: pale, mid, deep, or high-contrast.
- Saturation: muted, clean, vivid, gray-toned, or ceremonial.
- Cultural signal: historical, editorial, product, youthful, premium, festive, technical.
- Risk: cliche, low readability, too decorative, too flat, too commercial, too nostalgic.
- Detect conflicts. For example, "年轻又古典" needs a modern neutral base plus one traditional accent, not an all-antique palette.
- Choose 3 to 5 starting colors from the 742-color set, each with a role hypothesis.
- Name the avoid list as concrete color families, contrast levels, or usage patterns.
- Route the next step:
- Need actual color combinations:
xxd-palette-builder
- Need placement on a layout:
xxd-palette-applier
- Need UI variables:
xxd-ui-token
- Need contrast repair:
xxd-accessible-color
- Need long-term brand rules:
xxd-brand-system
- Need charts:
xxd-data-viz
- Need to repair existing work:
xxd-existing-design-audit
- Need repeated content:
xxd-content-series
- Need physical production:
xxd-print-packaging
Output Shape
- Brief name: one project-facing phrase.
- Design decision: 2 to 4 sentences explaining the color direction in plain Chinese.
- Constraint table: mood word, translated color constraint, risk if misread.
- Starting colors: role hypothesis, color name, HEX, why it belongs.
- Avoid list: 2 to 4 concrete exclusions.
- Next move: one recommended skill and what it should produce.
If the user only provides a mood word with no surface, state the missing surface and give a provisional brief instead of blocking.
