{
  "$contract": "quailpages.style-guide-intake",
  "version": "1.2",
  "purpose": "Gather, interpret, and normalize enough human-approved brand understanding to produce or improve a durable Quail Pages style guide. This is intake and working state, not the finished style guide.",
  "principles": [
    "Do not require the human to know design vocabulary; show representative options and learn from reactions.",
    "Treat existing authoritative brand materials as higher authority than inspiration or model preference.",
    "Preserve both positive and negative feedback when it will help future reasoning.",
    "Separate what is known, preferred, approved, locked, undecided, and unknown.",
    "Do not force completion. Normalize useful progress so another reasoning agent can resume later.",
    "The human approves identity decisions; AI may explain, propose, compare, pressure-test, and record.",
    "Pressure-test promising choices before treating them as durable brand truth.",
    "Do not confuse a customer's inability to articulate design terminology with an inability to judge their own brand.",
    "Observe applied brand behavior, not only explicit brand rules. When approved or current applications show repeated visual or verbal patterns that could materially help downstream design, preserve those patterns even when authoritative standards are silent.",
    "Preserve useful observational specificity. Record how a repeated pattern is expressed—such as relative rounding, spacing, density, surface treatment, color proportion, image framing, typography behavior, borders, shadows, control geometry, composition, pattern usage, or motion—when that evidence can guide later work.",
    "Specificity does not imply authority. Clearly distinguish authoritative rules, observed application patterns, discovery interpretations, and open decisions.",
    "When authoritative guidance conflicts with an existing application, preserve the conflict and let the higher-authority source control; the lower-authority implementation may represent drift rather than a new brand rule.",
    "Begin with available brand evidence before asking or creating. Inspect authoritative brand standards, supplied assets, existing approved applications, and other relevant sources first. Determine what is already established, what is repeatedly demonstrated but undocumented, what conflicts, and what genuinely remains unresolved.",
    "Do not ask the human to recreate knowledge already sufficiently established by appropriate evidence, and do not begin creative exploration in areas already governed by authoritative brand truth.",
    "Adapt intake to brand state. For an established brand, intake may primarily consist of ingestion, observation, conflict resolution, gap identification, and normalization, with little or no creative interview. For a partial brand, preserve established truth and explore only consequential gaps. For a brand with no established identity, intake may become an interactive creative process in which options are proposed, evaluated, pressure-tested, and approved by the human.",
    "Stop when the style guide can faithfully represent the brand for the intended downstream work. Do not continue interviewing or exploring merely to fill every intake field; preserve genuine unknowns and open decisions rather than inventing or forcing unnecessary decisions."
  ],
  "statusVocabulary": {
    "unknown": "The topic has not been meaningfully explored.",
    "exploring": "Options are actively being considered.",
    "preferred": "A direction is currently favored but has not been approved.",
    "approved": "The human has explicitly accepted the decision for normal use.",
    "locked": "The decision is authoritative and should not be changed without explicit reconsideration.",
    "undecided": "The topic has been explored but no choice has been made.",
    "not-applicable": "The topic does not apply to this brand."
  },
  "entry": {
    "brandState": {
      "value": null,
      "allowed": [
        "established",
        "partial",
        "none"
      ],
      "status": "unknown",
      "notes": [
        "Brand state changes the discovery method: established brands emphasize evidence ingestion and normalization; partial brands preserve established truth and explore consequential gaps; brands with no established identity may require interactive creative exploration."
      ]
    },
    "goal": {
      "value": null,
      "examples": [
        "Normalize an existing brand",
        "Fill gaps in a partial brand",
        "Establish a new visual identity",
        "Prepare a brand for website/theme generation"
      ],
      "status": "unknown"
    },
    "timeExpectation": {
      "guidance": "If substantial brand work is needed, set the expectation that this may be a focused working session rather than a short form. The user may stop and resume at any time. Established brands with sufficient authoritative evidence may require little or no interview or creative exploration; do not manufacture a working session when normalization is sufficient."
    }
  },
  "authority": {
    "sources": [],
    "sourceShape": {
      "id": "unique-source-id",
      "type": "style-guide | logo | font | palette | website | collateral | reference | interview | other",
      "description": null,
      "authority": "authoritative | approved | supporting | inspiration-only | historical | unknown",
      "permission": "cleared | restricted | unknown",
      "notes": []
    },
    "precedence": [
      "authoritative style guide / brand standards",
      "authoritative supplied brand assets",
      "explicit human-approved discovery decisions",
      "approved existing brand usage",
      "visual references and inspiration",
      "model interpretation"
    ]
  },
  "organization": {
    "name": {
      "value": null,
      "status": "unknown",
      "notes": []
    },
    "nameUsage": {
      "value": null,
      "status": "unknown",
      "notes": []
    },
    "description": {
      "value": null,
      "status": "unknown",
      "notes": []
    },
    "audiences": [],
    "positioning": {
      "value": null,
      "status": "unknown",
      "notes": []
    },
    "context": []
  },
  "character": {
    "desiredTraits": [],
    "undesiredTraits": [],
    "tensionsToBalance": [],
    "status": "unknown",
    "notes": [],
    "guidance": "Prefer concrete contrasts and examples over abstract adjective collection. Record why reactions matter."
  },
  "existingIdentity": {
    "logos": [],
    "colors": [],
    "typography": [],
    "visualLanguage": [],
    "materials": [],
    "knownRules": [],
    "knownProblems": [],
    "status": "unknown",
    "notes": [
      "Capture repeated behavior in existing approved applications with enough specificity to be useful later. Silence in an authoritative guide does not make observed application behavior irrelevant; label its authority accurately."
    ]
  },
  "exploration": {
    "visualReferences": [],
    "color": {
      "status": "unknown",
      "likes": [],
      "dislikes": [],
      "constraints": [],
      "optionsReviewed": [],
      "preferredDirections": [],
      "notes": [],
      "guidance": "Show accessible color systems in representative compositions. Do not require hex codes from the human."
    },
    "typography": {
      "status": "unknown",
      "likes": [],
      "dislikes": [],
      "constraints": [],
      "optionsReviewed": [],
      "preferredDirections": [],
      "notes": [],
      "guidance": "Render the organization's own name, headline, and body copy in plausible families. Reactions such as 'too corporate' or 'too playful' are valid discovery data."
    },
    "logo": {
      "status": "unknown",
      "existingAssets": [],
      "desiredRecognition": [],
      "symbolIdeas": [],
      "wordmarkPreferences": [],
      "conceptsReviewed": [],
      "preferredDirections": [],
      "notes": [],
      "guidance": "Explore directions rather than silently converging. Preserve authoritative supplied assets and do not redraw approved marks without explicit permission."
    },
    "imagery": {
      "status": "unknown",
      "photography": [],
      "illustration": [],
      "iconography": [],
      "textureAndPattern": [],
      "likes": [],
      "dislikes": [],
      "notes": []
    },
    "compositionAndSurface": {
      "status": "unknown",
      "density": null,
      "shapeLanguage": [],
      "surfaceLanguage": [],
      "lightDarkPreference": null,
      "motionPreference": null,
      "notes": []
    }
  },
  "applications": {
    "required": [],
    "possible": [
      "web",
      "mobile",
      "social",
      "presentation",
      "print",
      "apparel",
      "embroidery",
      "engraving",
      "signage",
      "packaging",
      "favicon/avatar"
    ],
    "notes": []
  },
  "pressureTests": {
    "guidance": "Before locking a visual choice, try to break it in the applications that matter. A brand does not need to excel in every medium, but it should degrade intentionally when capabilities are removed.",
    "tests": {
      "lightBackground": {
        "required": true,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "darkBackground": {
        "required": true,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "monochrome": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "solidColor": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "smallScale": {
        "required": true,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "largeScale": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "noEffects": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      },
      "embroidery": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "not-applicable",
        "notes": []
      },
      "engraving": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "not-applicable",
        "notes": []
      },
      "vinylOrCut": {
        "required": false,
        "status": "not-applicable",
        "notes": []
      },
      "accessibility": {
        "required": true,
        "status": "unknown",
        "notes": []
      }
    },
    "failures": [],
    "approvedVariantsNeeded": []
  },
  "decisions": [],
  "decisionShape": {
    "id": "unique-decision-id",
    "path": "/relevant/contract/path",
    "subject": null,
    "value": null,
    "status": "preferred | approved | locked | undecided",
    "rationale": null,
    "humanFeedback": [],
    "sourceIds": [],
    "notes": []
  },
  "openDecisions": [],
  "openDecisionShape": {
    "id": "unique-open-decision-id",
    "path": "/relevant/contract/path",
    "question": null,
    "status": "unknown | exploring | undecided",
    "context": null,
    "optionsConsidered": [],
    "currentLean": null,
    "suggestedNextStep": null,
    "notes": []
  },
  "sessionContinuity": {
    "state": "in-progress",
    "lastReviewed": null,
    "summary": null,
    "recommendedResumePoint": null,
    "notesForNextAgent": []
  },
  "normalization": {
    "targetContract": "quailpages.style-guide",
    "instructions": [
      "Normalize current approved truth even if discovery is incomplete.",
      "Carry unresolved topics into style-guide metadata/openDecisions rather than inventing answers.",
      "Do not carry discarded exploration into normative style rules unless it remains useful as an explicit prohibition or continuation note.",
      "Preserve provenance and authority for important decisions and assets.",
      "A different capable reasoning agent should be able to resume from the normalized result without requiring the original transcript.",
      "Carry forward concrete observed application patterns when they materially constrain or inform downstream creative work; do not flatten them into vague adjectives merely because they are not authoritative rules.",
      "For consequential observed patterns, preserve source, authority, the behavior actually observed, the interpretation it supports, and the freedom that remains for the downstream designer.",
      "Treat specificity and authority as independent dimensions: a pattern may be described precisely while remaining preferred, inferred, or observational rather than locked.",
      "Handoff test: a capable downstream designer who cannot access the original website, brand guide, or discovery conversation should still have the important evidence needed to make brand-faithful choices.",
      "Normalize from the strongest available evidence before requesting new human decisions.",
      "Do not treat discovery-field completeness as the goal; the goal is a faithful, sufficiently useful style-guide handoff for the intended downstream work."
    ]
  }
}