designing-production-visual-systems

name	designing-production-visual-systems
description	Use when designing production visual systems is required during visual-design product work, especially when the result must be traceable, independently reviewable, and safe to hand to another agent.
license	MIT
compatibility	ForgeOS-compatible Agent Skills hosts; no provider-specific model required.
metadata	{"author":"forgeos-community","version":"0.2.0","pack":"domain","kind":"domain","status":"candidate"}

Designing Production Visual Systems

Overview

This skill owns one bounded responsibility: designing production visual systems. Its focus is turn a verified product brief into an accessible, reusable visual system rather than a one-off mockup. It converts declared inputs into typed artifacts and reproducible evidence without silently changing product scope.

Trigger

Activate only when the project is in one of these stages: product-definition, ux-design, architecture, planning, implementation, verification, release-readiness, all contract preconditions pass, and the router identifies a missing output this skill can produce. Do not activate merely because the skill name resembles the user request.

Required Inputs

• product-definition
• Optional: architecture-decision
• Optional: verified-build
• Current gate result, open findings, artifact hashes, and invalidation state
• Required tools: none
• Optional tools: none
• Confirmed human decisions relevant to this scope

Method-Specific Protocol

1. Establish audience, brand constraints, target surfaces, accessibility obligations, and measurable visual outcomes.
2. Define semantic color, typography, spacing, elevation, icon, motion, and content tokens with contrast and state rules.
3. Compose representative components and layouts for normal, empty, loading, error, dense, and narrow-screen states.
4. Review visual hierarchy, keyboard focus, text scaling, localization expansion, and image or font licensing against the system.
5. Package source files, export rules, token references, review decisions, and the open questions required before implementation.

Procedure

1. Read the confirmed product definition, domain context, assurance profile, and active findings.
2. Identify the domain objects, actors, state transitions, regulations, provider boundaries, and operational constraints owned by this skill.
3. Establish audience, brand constraints, target surfaces, accessibility obligations, and measurable visual outcomes.
4. Define semantic color, typography, spacing, elevation, icon, motion, and content tokens with contrast and state rules.
5. Compose representative components and layouts for normal, empty, loading, error, dense, and narrow-screen states.
6. Review visual hierarchy, keyboard focus, text scaling, localization expansion, and image or font licensing against the system.
7. Package source files, export rules, token references, review decisions, and the open questions required before implementation.
8. Model normal, boundary, failure, recovery, permission, concurrency, migration, and abuse behavior before implementation.
9. Define stable contracts and explicit non-goals; do not leak domain concerns into unrelated modules.
10. Create executable acceptance, negative, resilience, and compatibility checks proportional to risk.
11. Publish the domain artifact, evidence packet, unresolved assumptions, and downstream invalidations.

Verification Questions

• Can every essential state be understood without color alone?
• Do representative foreground and background combinations meet the stated contrast target?
• Can a developer identify the reusable token and component behind each visual choice?
• Does the delivery distinguish a design specification from a rendered or deployed product?

Evidence Packet

Produce or reference all applicable evidence:

• visual-system specification
• token inventory
• state and accessibility review
• asset provenance register

Evidence must identify the current artifact hash, command or method used, result, reviewer identity, timestamp, and limitations.

Output Contract

Produce:

• domain-blueprint
• domain-evidence

The primary artifact must include schema version, provenance, consumed artifact IDs, decisions, evidence references, residual risks, validation state, and invalidation targets. Narrative explanation may accompany the artifact but cannot replace it.

Quality Gate

Reviewer: visual-design-reviewer

• The output directly and completely performs designing production visual systems within its declared boundary.
• Can every essential state be understood without color alone?
• Do representative foreground and background combinations meet the stated contrast target?
• Can a developer identify the reusable token and component behind each visual choice?
• Does the delivery distinguish a design specification from a rendered or deployed product?
• Every material claim is traceable to an input, decision, executable check, or evidence item.
• Required fields are complete and machine-readable.
• The producing agent is not the approving reviewer.
• Open uncertainty and residual risk are explicit; critical findings are never hidden by an aggregate score.

Pass only when: All mandatory rules pass, evidence targets the current artifact hash, and no unresolved critical finding applies.

Forbidden Shortcuts

• Do not infer a material requirement that the user has not confirmed.
• Do not replace a typed artifact with a long explanation.
• Do not approve work produced by the same agent identity.
• Do not hide a critical failure behind a high aggregate score.
• Do not load unrelated project history, files, references, or skill bodies.
• Do not mark evidence complete when it targets a different artifact hash or version.

Failure Modes

• guessing a material requirement
• producing prose without the contracted artifact
• self-approving the output
• expanding scope without a decision record
• treating a static mockup as an implemented interface
• copying third-party brand assets without rights
• using color as the only status signal

Escalation and Invalidation

Stop and request a human decision when scope, risk acceptance, irreversible action, cost ceiling, privacy boundary, or product direction is materially ambiguous. When this artifact changes, invalidate only descendants named by the artifact graph; preserve unaffected verified branches.

Handoff

• Next transition: the graph router selects a real consumer of domain-blueprint, domain-evidence.
• Required evidence: contract-validation, independent-review, visual-system specification, token inventory, state and accessibility review, asset provenance register.
• Required envelope fields: artifactId, schemaVersion, sha256, producingSkill, producingAgent, consumedArtifacts, decisionIds, evidenceIds, residualRisks, validationState, invalidationTargets, stopCondition.
• Stop condition: Output contract is satisfied, a blocker is recorded, or a material human decision is required.

Token and Context Policy

Load at most 8 direct artifacts and reference depth 1. Use stable IDs, hashes, signatures, and deltas instead of repeating full history. Use established domain terminology, state each requirement once, and spend context on decisions, code, tests, or evidence rather than narration.

Reference Playbook

Load skills/references/domains/visual-design.md only when this skill needs pack-wide decision tables, evidence patterns, or cross-skill handoff rules.

See contract.json for the machine-readable contract.