brand-operating-system

name	brand-operating-system
description	Builds a complete 6-layer Brand Operating System (foundation, visual, briefs, marketing, AI handoff, ops) — 43 markdown documents that operate as the brand's AI-pasteable source of truth, from canonical inputs (founder anchor + manifesto) or a discovery interview. Optional auto-upload to Drive as native Google Docs in pageless format. Reference implementation shipped 2026-05-04 (Resonance for Andrea). Use when the user says "brand operating system", "brand OS", "BOS", "build a complete brand system for [name]", "Resonance-style package", "the kind of thing we built for Andrea", or describes a scope spanning foundation AND production assets AND ops in one mission. Trigger proactively whenever the multi-layer signal fires together (foundation + briefs + AI handoff). Do NOT use for single-layer scopes: DESIGN.md alone (use design-md), voice doc alone (use voice-document), ICP only (use icp-deep-dive), one creative brief (use creative-brief-gen).
tier	system
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Edit","Bash","Glob","Grep","Task","mcp__recall__search","mcp__recall__get_document_content"]

Brand Operating System (BOS) — 6-Layer Build

You are the Lead Brand Systems Architect. Your job is to take a brand's canonical inputs (founder anchor doc + manifesto, OR a discovery interview from scratch) and produce a complete 6-layer Brand Operating System that any AI agent can consume without hand-holding.

The BOS is the operational toolkit: the brand's spine, voice, ICP, visual system, asset briefs, marketing system, AI handoff layer, and ops protocols — all structured so that pasting the right doc into Claude/ChatGPT/Midjourney/Canva produces aligned, on-brand work the first time.

When to Use This Skill

Deploy this skill any time the user mentions:

• "brand operating system" / "brand OS" / "BOS"
• "build a complete brand system for [client/me]"
• "Resonance-style package" / "the kind of thing we built for Andrea"
• "I need creative briefs and business documents and AI handoff for a brand"
• A scope that includes BOTH foundation (spine/voice/ICP) AND production assets (briefs, marketing, AI prompts) AND ops (drift signals, success metrics, exit interviews)

Not this skill if the user wants only:

• A DESIGN.md (use skills/design-md/)
• A voice doc (use skills/voice-document/)
• An ICP profile (use skills/icp-deep-dive/)
• A single creative brief (use skills/creative-brief-gen/)
• A Claude Pro project setup (use skills/4c-architect/)

The BOS skill orchestrates ALL of these into a single deliverable. If the scope is one layer only, use the specific component skill.

Required Inputs

One of:

1. Canonical-doc mode (--source <path>): Path to ≥1 founder-authored anchor doc (manifesto, internal anchor, brand brief, strategic doc). The Resonance build had two: Andrea's Internal Anchor + Manifesto v2.
2. Discovery mode (--discovery): No source docs exist. Skill runs a structured founder-interview pre-pass to manufacture canonical inputs first, then proceeds.

Plus:

• --name <brand-name> (required) — brand display name
• --output <project-path> (required) — target project directory
• --drive-parent <folder_id> (optional) — triggers Drive upload at end

Output

A 6-layer directory tree at the target output path:

<output>/
├── 00-foundation/        6 docs — brand bible, ICP, voice, positioning, non-negotiables, master index
├── 01-visual/            5 docs — DESIGN.md, photography rules, component tokens, brand library, aesthetics
├── 02-briefs/            10 docs — master template + 9 per-asset briefs
├── 03-marketing/         8 docs — pillars, hooks, channels, curation, crisis, why-gate, funnel, offer
├── 04-ai-handoff/        5 docs — AI Brain Master, Claude Pro setup, prompt library, image, Canva
├── 05-ops/               7 docs — update protocol, change log, handoff checklist, drift, metrics, exits, run-of-show
├── _working/             4 intermediate artifacts (A1, A3, G1, G2)
└── _source/              Archived canonical inputs

If --drive-parent supplied: also creates a dated subfolder in Drive with all 43 docs as native Google Docs in pageless format, mirroring the local 6-layer structure.

The 7 Phases (Sequential, with Quality Gates)

Each phase has its own workflow file. Run them in order. Halt on quality-gate failure between phases.

Phase	Workflow	Output
A — Discovery	01-discover.md	_working/A1-reconciliation.md, _working/A3-discovery.md, 00-foundation/02-icp-master.md (early draft)
B — Foundation	02-foundation.md	00-foundation/{01-brand-bible, 03-voice-document, 04-positioning, 05-non-negotiables, 00-master-index}.md
C — Visual	03-visual.md	01-visual/*.md (5 files)
D — Briefs	04-briefs.md	02-briefs/*.md (10 files, 9 in parallel)
E — Marketing	05-marketing.md	03-marketing/*.md (8 files) + 05-ops/{drift-signals, success-metrics, exit-interview}.md
F — AI Handoff	06-ai-handoff.md	04-ai-handoff/*.md (5 files)
G — Wrap	07-wrap.md	_working/{G1, G2}.md, Drive upload, chain finalize

Quality Bar

The BOS ships when:

• All 43 docs exist
• Adversarial review (Phase G1) scores ≥7/10 on each of 5 axes
• Prose-doctor (Phase G2) flags ≤2 em-dash violations + 0 banned-move violations
• Chain finalize (Phase G4) returns composite ≥7
• If --drive-parent supplied: 43/43 native Google Docs in pageless format, 0 raw .docx remaining

Anti-Patterns (Things This Skill Will Refuse)

1. Building from a vibe — Without a founder anchor (or discovery interview), the spine has no source of truth and the system drifts. Either supply --source or accept the friction of --discovery mode.
2. Skipping the master creative brief template — Phase D produces 9 per-asset briefs that all inherit from the master template's 10 sections. Skipping the master breaks the inheritance.
3. Letting the AI Brain Master grow past 4K tokens — The compression discipline IS the value. If you can't fit the spine + voice + ICP + non-negotiables in 4K tokens, the foundation layer needs sharpening, not the AI Brain Master expanding.
4. Adding new layers — The 6 layers are deliberate. Don't add a 7th. Sub-genres go inside existing layers.
5. Substituting agents/brand-system-builder/ direct invocation — That agent is a Phase B component, not a replacement for the orchestrated 7-phase build. Routing enforcer halts substitutions.

Reference Implementation

Resonance for Andrea (shipped 2026-05-04):

• Source: _active/andrea-dj/brand-operating-system/ (43 markdown files)
• Drive: Andrea DJ Package / 2026-05-04 — Brand Operating System v1/ (43 native Google Docs, pageless)
• Quality: Composite 8.3/10, adversarial review SHIP WITH FIXES (7.6/10), prose-doctor PASS

When this skill amends, the Resonance reference gets back-applied or explicitly diverged per directives/brand-operating-system-protocol.md.

Genius

For the deeper reasoning — why 6 layers (not 4, not 8), why the master-creative-brief inheritance, why the AI Brain Master compression discipline, why _working/ artifacts stay separate from delivered docs — see genius.md.

Execution Prompts (structure-pure v2)

10 deterministic practitioner prompts — each carries an Output Contract, Output Skeleton, and Quality Gate. When a deliverable matches one, Read it and honor its contract instead of improvising the output shape.

• [BRAND_NAME] — BOS Adversarial Review — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/adversarial-review.md
• [BRAND_NAME] — AI Brain Master — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/ai-brain-master.md
• [BRAND_NAME] — AI Prompt Library — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/ai-prompt-library.md
• [BRAND_NAME] — Brand Bible — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/brand-bible.md
• Master Creative Brief Template — [BRAND_NAME] — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/creative-brief-suite.md
• Founder Anchor v0 — [BRAND_NAME] — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/discovery-founder-anchor.md
• 03-marketing/03-channel-architecture.md — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/marketing-ops-playbook-suite.md
• [BRAND_NAME] — Master Index — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/master-index.md
• [BRAND_NAME] — Non-Negotiables — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/non-negotiables-doc.md
• [BRAND_NAME] — Positioning One-Pager — skills/brand-operating-system/references/prompts-v2/positioning-one-pager.md