Info Stories

Info-stories

Purpose

Turn source material into a structured infographic story before HTML is built. Info-stories sits above the existing artboard, caption, motion, mascot, Arabic, render, and QA skills and keeps composition decisions deterministic and inspectable.

Read helper/GUIDE.md first. The merged registry returned by scripts/info_stories.py::load_catalog() is authoritative.

Use when

Use when choosing the narrative shape, visual grammar, Story House, verified named identity handling, typography direction, motion behavior, UI mockup story, reference-informed direction, or deterministic story brief for a LinkedIn infographic.

Inputs

• evidence-safe source material
• build/asset-plan.json when named identities are present
• selected build/creative-concepts.json direction when available
• build/type-spec.json when typography has been resolved
• optional build/design-study.json
• audience, takeaway, CTA, language, and output mode
• explicit user choices for any registry axis or typography role
• optional UI, brand, mascot, or reference constraints

Outputs

Return or support creation of story, asset, and type artifacts that feed the final build/story-brief.json, including Story House, Visual Style, Story Archetype, Motion Patterns, design dials, execution bridge, structural fingerprint inputs, and rationale for every resolved axis.

Procedure

1. Validate the merged registry:

python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/info_stories.py check

1. Base options live in catalog.json; first-party extension families and curated visual mechanisms live in extensions/*.json. They are merged deterministically by filename. Retrieve ranked mechanisms with tools/story_retrieve.py.
2. For named official AI/tool identities, read references/asset-source-policy.md. Exact user-supplied official assets win, then verified Lobe assets for supported identities, then HOLD. Validate the asset plan with tools/asset_policy_check.py.
3. When a complete workflow is running, consume the selected concept from creative-director after asset resolution and before resolving the story. Preserve its visual hook, copy hook, relationship, dominant anchor, containment strategy, negative-space strategy, and aha mechanic unless evidence or compatibility gates require a change.
4. Resolve Story Archetype from the narrative job using references/story-archetypes.md.
5. Resolve Visual Style from information topology and density using references/visual-styles.md.
6. Resolve Story House from tone, brand constraints, and contrast using references/palette-houses.md.
7. Resolve Motion Patterns from what motion must communicate using references/motion-patterns.md.
8. Check combinations against references/composition-matrix.md and the merged registry. Explicit user choices win unless they violate a hard compatibility, contrast, evidence, identity, typography, or render constraint.
9. Apply creative-attractive-restrained as the palette character default and center-first as the composition default. Alignment exceptions require a real comprehension/fidelity reason.
10. Apply hooked-design-copy, creative-payoff, and clean-creative-structure. Attention-bearing copy needs a real hook, and the story should contain a useful visual relationship or payoff instead of a generic headline-plus-cards treatment.
11. Read references/typography-direction.md before copy fitting. The complete workflow uses type-curator to create build/type-spec.json; validate it with tools/type_spec_check.py. Remote render-time font loading is blocking.
12. UI Mockup Stories are first-class. Use UI Storyboard or Interface Cutaway with references/ui-mockup-rules.md. Dedicated archetypes include Screen to Outcome, Inside the Interface, and State Change Story; dedicated motion includes Cursor Focus and State Transition.
13. When visual references exist, design-study uses references/study-protocol.md to extract reusable design DNA without cloning distinctive work.
14. A named official mascot follows the verified identity path. Exact user/task SVG has priority; supported named AI/tool mascot identities may use an approved Lobe SVG copied locally. Unresolved identities HOLD.

Deterministic mechanism retrieval

Use the public retrieval tool when a stage needs focused visual reference context:

python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/tools/story_retrieve.py --query path/to/query.json

The query object accepts story_jobs, content_shape (or content_shapes for multiple shapes), output_mode, language, density, evidence_mode, optional reference_ids, top_k, byte_budget, and one stage: concept, story, palette-type, layout, motion, or review. Output mode, language, density, evidence mode, and content shape are hard filters. Ranking then uses fixed weighted overlap with slug tie-breaking; it does not use embeddings or model ranking.

The tool writes one compact JSON capsule within the measured UTF-8 byte budget. Each stage receives only its relevant mechanism fields. Reference selection is bounded to one structural primary plus at most one motion and one typography secondary, each with an explicit influence axis. Treat adopted traits as abstract guidance; rejected traits, source copy, logos, people, screenshots, and signature illustrations remain blocked unless separately verified for the current brief.

HOLD conditions

Return a HOLD when a requested registry choice is unknown or incompatible, contrast fails, UI evidence is insufficient for a real-product story, a creative payoff depends on unsupported facts, a named identity lacks a verified source, typography cannot be made render-safe, or a visual reference cannot be used without copying distinctive work.

Unknown choices should fail with valid alternatives rather than silently substituting a default.

Related components

• routing authority: helper/GUIDE.md
• local quality gates: helper/quality-gates.json
• identity assets: references/asset-source-policy.md
• typography: references/typography-direction.md
• creative copy: references/hook-driven-design-copy.md
• design defaults: references/design-taste-gates.md
• UI mockups: references/ui-mockup-rules.md
• reference study: references/study-protocol.md
• verification: references/verification-loop.md
• executable graph: architecture/plugin-graph.json
• deterministic tools: scripts/info_stories.py, tools/story_retrieve.py, tools/story_scaffold.py, tools/composition_check.py, tools/palette_preview.py, tools/contrast_check.py, tools/fingerprint_check.py, tools/copy_slop_check.py, tools/asset_policy_check.py, tools/type_spec_check.py

Capability owners include asset-curator, creative-director, evidence-checker, story-architect, palette-curator, type-curator, copy-compressor, layout-composer, caption-writer, artboard-builder, motion-director, mascot-animator, motion-engineer, render-qa, post-critic, and story-verifier through the parent workflow.

Research gates

Use design-dials, structural-originality, and contrast-discipline for normal story composition. Add reference-dna when visual references are supplied, evidence-traceability for product/proof/identity claims, prose-specificity and voice-preservation for visible copy, and bounded-verification before delivery.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: imMamdouhaboammar
• Source: imMamdouhaboammar/linkedin-animated-infographics
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.