Four things the last pass left open.
Reflex findings no longer masquerade as Floor failures. They report at a new
REFLEX grade which still blocks, so nothing drifts silently, but "0 FAIL" is now
a true statement about the floor even while a build owes an argument above it.
Across every committed page that distinction turns 230 reported failures into 56
real Floor findings and 174 arguable ones, which is the number that was hiding.
The waiver cap is gone. Three-per-artifact was the restraint the tier existed to
remove: a colour-field poster that wants a black stage, achromatic neutrals, a
long measure and one face doing everything is right, and it was being blocked for
being expressive. Guards, reason quality and the log are what keep waivers honest.
Past three the build gets a NOTE saying what it now is, a house style rather than
a set of exceptions, and pointing at design.md.
The Floor has two admission criteria instead of one embarrassed exception. Door 1
is "no admired page breaks this on purpose". Door 2 is a named house rule where
admired pages do break it but a language model reaches for it unprompted on every
section. Gate 54 is the only member, listed in a table that any future addition
has to join explicitly. The apology is gone; the reasoning is in the file.
Finish findings gained a record form. `answered <check> · <reason>` parses, so a
build that reasons its way past gate 38 leaves something the next run can read
instead of prose in a comment.
Also: the skill stops mandating em and en dashes in page copy, which had it
arguing with its own house rule. The Picks block and the Step 5 preview merge into
one recital, since the same decisions were being serialised four times. The font
catalog and the per-tone voice samples become skip-unless-needed, roughly 200
lines a build. Two waiver bugs found by a cold build are fixed: "intentional
design choice" was passing the boilerplate test, and a malformed two-field waiver
was being ignored in silence.
The 18 hero captures and 14 gallery thumbnails are regenerated against the live
pages, so the README and the homepage stop advertising eyebrows the skill bans.
Hallmark was telling good models what to build. This splits it into a floor
that binds and a library that offers, and bans the eyebrow outright.
The eyebrow. Gate 54 goes from geometry to existence: short inert type before a
heading that announces it is banned in every arrangement, and no brief earns it
back. The detector inverts from CSS-first to DOM-first, so it now sees flex and
block stacks, heads declared inside a media query, class-less headings, and the
word "overline". Small type before a heading survives only when it carries a
fact, a destination, or an identifier, which keeps captions, field labels,
datelines, unit labels and linked chips legal. references/section-entry.md is the
replacement: twelve ways into a section, ten of them pointing at material the
skill already had.
Themes stay themes. A written contract in theme-axes.md says a theme carries
material and never a page plan, and all 24 are trimmed to it: 4,070 lines down to
2,861. Lumen loses a mandatory hero apparatus and a fixed section sequence; hum
loses 45 lines of global layout rules filed under a theme. Fake brands, invented
people and shippable taglines come out. Genre files stop mandating nav and footer
archetypes they disagreed with the themes about.
Tiers. All 58 gates gain one: 34 carry a Floor clause nothing ships through, 18
are Reflex gates a build with an argument can waive on the record, 6 never block.
Fifteen gates split so a real floor stops dragging a taste threshold behind it.
Gates 42 and 43 stop ordering a rotation through the catalog and instead ask that
the default be named rather than defaulted into. A waiver declares itself in the
stamp with guard evidence the linter re-derives; three per artifact, one per
gate, Floor never waivable, and an over-cap waiver lets its gate fire so waiving
twelve is worse than waiving none.
The catalogs stop being a mandatory pick. Step 2 asks for a designed page shape
stated in plain words; the named shapes are there when a starting point helps.
Anti-repetition moves from "rotate the codes" to "differ from your last three and
say how", which constrains sameness without constraining invention.
Contradictions. Display line-height had three ranges and now has one owner. The
outlier face was capped at two slots by one line and uncapped by the next. Gate
39 hard-coded 44px against finish.md's 32-40px allowance. Gate 14 banned padding
animation that floating-nav.md prescribes. Gate 57's theme list had drifted to 20
of 24. F3 and gate 51 fought over overflow-wrap; break-word settles it.
Evidence. 201 eyebrows removed across 38 example pages and 32 across the archived
test builds, each replaced with a real opening rather than deleted; aggregate
failures fell while doing it. The marketing site drops its own section labels and
moves hero labels below the lede. A cold build through the revised skill lands
0 FAIL / 0 WARN, names its own structure instead of picking a code, and argues
with a Reflex gate rather than waiving it.
Swapped the single full-page custom-04 screenshot for two hero-only shots side
by side, the Cascadia Nightjar sleeper ticket and the Ferns and Fathom
periodic-table tea menu, so the section shows the range without dumping a whole
page. Trimmed the Custom blurb down to the essentials.
Swapped in the new Open Graph image (2400x1260), keeping the OG-hallmark.png
filename so the meta tags, the README banner, and the deployed URL all stay
valid; updated the height meta to match.
Refreshed the "Different briefs, different shapes" gallery to the worked
examples we actually ship now: the four new themes (Bubble, Distil, Cold Snap,
Cinder), the Custom and newly generated pages (Mend Assembly, Hollowback Apiary,
Off-Register, Press Quaternary), and four originals (Tally, Wayfare, NAJM,
Hyperlane). Dropped the retired examples, reworded the intro, and added eight
new hero shots.
Remove the "refuses competitor pages" policy from the study verb.
Touches the verb summary in README and SKILL.md, both refusal tables
in study.md, the URL refuse list, the schema's refusal enum, the
emission-attestation parenthetical, and the worked examples plus the
test fixtures.
Paid-template refusal and the signature-work soft-refusal stay —
those carry real copyright weight.
The published install command in the README — npx skills add nutlope/hallmark — was failing for users because the skills CLI looks for SKILL.md at the repo root, not at skill/SKILL.md where Hallmark kept it. The clone succeeded but the CLI reported "No skills found." Manual cp was the only working install path.
Flattened the layout:
- skill/SKILL.md → SKILL.md
- skill/references/ → references/
- (skill/ directory removed; was empty after moves)
git mv preserved rename history for all 76+ files (SKILL.md + 28 reference files + 21 macrostructures + 46 components + 7 verb/genre subfolders).
Updated every cross-reference (36 occurrences across 9 files):
- README.md — 4 links (SKILL.md + references/ + the install snippet still reads the same)
- ROADMAP.md — 4 links to reference files
- package.json — "files" field + "skill" entry/references paths
- site/js/main.js — 3 source comments
- references/design-md.md — one broken link (was pointing skill/references/export-formats.md from inside references/ — now just export-formats.md as a sibling)
- site/_tests/verbs/study/notes.md, diagnosis.md and verbs/audit/audit-report.md, custom/README.md — test-artifact relative paths shortened by one segment (e.g. ../../../skill/SKILL.md → ../../../SKILL.md)
No skill content changes. After this lands, 'npx skills add nutlope/hallmark' should clone + install correctly without any manual cp fallback.
- docs/screenshots/hero-*.jpg: 8 fresh hero-only captures of each worked example (1440×900 via Chrome headless on the local dev server). Replaces the mid-video stills in _tests/_thumbs/*-still.jpg which had video-player overlay and cropped headlines. Each is unique — no duplicates. README "Different briefs, different shapes" section now uses these and each thumbnail is a clickable link to the live deployed example.
- site/index.html: the Study verb's brief-pill swapped from "/hallmark study this landing page" to "/hallmark study together.ai · or paste a screenshot" so URL mode is visually concrete next to the lede that already names both modes. One-line change.
- ROADMAP.md: new "Now — actively working on" section at the top. N.1 covers tightening the existing 22 themes + adding 4–6 new distinct ones + lowering the bar to route to custom. N.2 covers first-class Nanobanana image generation + a new image-led theme (working title: Plate) + token discipline for generated stills.
Orphan thumbs (referenced nowhere): 8 example PNGs, 5 hero JPGs,
4 verb-* PNGs, audit-slop.png, 2.2 MB crypto-example.mp4.
Dead pages: refine verb test (verb removed earlier), v0 example
specimens (_example-bakery, _example-cmdk), docs/img theme PNGs,
skill/_tests/nav-footer-variety. Updated verbs/README and ROADMAP
to drop the now-broken references.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Skill:
- Genres (editorial · modern-minimal · atmospheric · playful) as a top-level rule overlay; signal-based detection in Step 1, theme rotation now scoped to the genre's cluster
- `redesign` on a directory or whole project now produces design.md first and locks every page to that system; diversification rule inverts on system-managed projects
- SKILL.md slimmed 532 → ~440 lines: slop-test gates extracted to references/slop-test.md, per-verb sections to references/verbs/, output contract to references/contract.md, with explicit eager / per-build / conditional / end / verb-specific load buckets
- Worked examples (recipes.md, study-examples.md) moved out of skill/references/ into docs/ — no longer auto-loaded
- audit.md gained design.md drift checks (theme drift · macrostructure-family violation · stamp lies · missing system reference)
Site:
- Quiet theme refreshed to ElevenLabs-style polished minimal (Geist, pure white, pill CTAs, two-column hero)
- New Bloom theme — Suno-style atmospheric dark with twin warm radial blooms, Geist display, single warm accent
- Banner additions: sticky Install link, live stamp callout (hover-expands the CSS comment), genre label after the theme name
- T-key onboarding tooltip after 5s idle (localStorage-flagged so it never returns)
- Decision-trail popover on each example tile (600ms hover delay, pure CSS)
- Foundations cut from 8 cards to 5 (Type · Colour · Space · Motion · Voice)
- FAQ section added: 5 typographic Q/A pairs, editorial format, tightened spacing
- Without/With grew from 1 pair to 4 — writing app · dashboard · pricing card · personal site — with a CSS-only tab toggle
- Scroll-jump fix on the W/W tabs: radio inputs no longer position-absolute, so clicking a tab no longer yanks the page back to top
- How-it-works section folded out, content absorbed by FAQ + Install
- 17 themes (was 16); README and skill references updated everywhere
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
## What shipped (Tier 1 of the brainstorm)
1. **Visual-first README** — replaces the text-only top with a 4-up theme grid
(Specimen / Studio / Brutal / Newsprint) and an 8-cell test-page mosaic
(Tide → Cohort) using the existing thumbnails. First impression becomes
*visual* rather than a wall of bullets.
2. **Try-it prompt at the top** — the Coffeebox brief is now the canonical
first thing visitors paste to verify the skill is wired correctly.
References the new `recipes.md` directly.
3. **Comparison table vs the field** — Hallmark vs Anthropic frontend-design,
nexu-io Open Design, Dembrandt. Positions Hallmark's `study` as the
differentiator (everyone else ships preset menus or scrapers).
4. **`study` repositioned as the headline verb** — bolded in the verbs table,
has its own lead-paragraph in the hero, links to the new
`study-examples.md` for worked DNA-extractions.
5. **Canonical 2026 vocabulary** in the README opening: "tactile rebellion"
(Creative Bloq's SEO term), "anti-AI-slop" (925studios canon),
"custom-craft" (the Lottie-as-last-resort stance). Cited.
## New reference files
### `skill/references/recipes.md` (~140 lines)
Eight worked briefs + a canonical try-it prompt. Each shows: prompt verbatim,
inferred trio (audience/use/tone), picked macrostructure + theme + enrichment,
and a one-paragraph excerpt of the output. The first recipe (Coffeebox) is
the canonical try-it prompt the README points users at. Recipes 01–08 are
the existing eight test pages, normalised to the same four-line format.
### `skill/references/study-examples.md` (~210 lines)
Three worked DNA-extractions of `study`:
- **Example A** — Pentagram-style editorial portfolio: extracts Specimen
macrostructure + italic-display + warm-orange accent + sparse density.
Refuses font ID. Notes two anti-patterns to NOT carry over.
- **Example B** — Klim-Type-Foundry-style specimen: Type Specimen + display-
heavy + dark-paper + chromatic-other accent. Single-font specimen page.
Suggests hybrid (Specimen homepage + Workbench for case studies).
- **Example C** — Rauno-Freiberg-style personal site: refuse-or-proceed
check fires (competitor portfolio). After user confirms public reference,
extracts Long Document + centred demo + dark-cool paper + chromatic-other
green accent. Notes one anti-pattern to fix (no reduced-motion fallback).
Each example follows the same four-step protocol: refuse-or-proceed →
diagnose → confirm → build. Demonstrates the skill's discipline that
`study` extracts DNA, not pixels.
## SKILL.md updates
- Adds `recipes.md` and `study-examples.md` to the references list with
load-on-demand notes (when the user asks "what does Hallmark output look
like?" → load recipes; when running `study` → load study-examples).
- No version bump (no behavioural change yet).
## docs/
New `docs/img/` folder with four theme captures at 900px wide:
- theme-specimen.png — warm cream + italic Fraunces + warm-orange
- theme-studio.png — cool grey + italic Fraunces + forest-green
- theme-brutal.png — stark white-and-black + Inter Tight 900
- theme-newsprint.png — warm cream + Playfair Display + deep red
These sit in the README hero <table> for the 4-up grid.
## Skill files mirrored
cp SKILL.md, recipes.md, study-examples.md to ~/.claude/skills/hallmark/.
References dir now has 18 files (was 16).
## Plan file updated
`/Users/youssef/.claude/plans/...` rewritten with concrete Tier 2 (DTCG
tokens.json export · macrostructure rotation hints · ASCII preview block)
and Tier 3 (theme knobs · pre-flight inference · Figma MCP recipe)
implementation specs. Each item has scope, file budget, verification, and
recommended order. Ready to execute when the user wants either tier.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Youssef