Comic Author

comic-author — the Pipeline-A Orchestrator (Phase 1)

The left third of Figure 1, as an agent-run workflow: a fuzzy idea → a comic.json + its locked asset library, so [comic-director](../comic-director/SKILL.md) (Phase 2/3) bakes + adversarially verifies it. This skill is thin — it owns the ORDER, the BARRIERS, and the HAND-OFF; each step's real procedure lives in its own detailed skill.

> End-to-end in one slash-command? [movie-pipeline](../movie-pipeline/SKILL.md) is the single entry that > drives THIS skill (Phase 1) → the p0_proof gate → comic-director (Phase 2/3 bake) → viewer. comic-author is > the Phase-1 half it calls; use it directly when you only want to author + lock the comic.json. The contract boundary to Phase 2/3 is comic.json + the assets it references (content-SVG blueprints, identity refs, ART_BIBLE.md).

> How you "run" this — it is an AGENT workflow, not a shell CLI. You point your coding agent (Claude, > Codex, …) at this skill; the agent FOLLOWS the steps below — authoring the wiki nodes and calling the few > deterministic helper scripts that ARE real CLIs: [comic-director/scripts/run_comic.py](../comic-director/scripts/runcomic.py), > [cli/validate_wiki.py](../../cli/validatewiki.py), [comic-panel-prompt-builder/scripts/build_prompt.py](../comic-panel-prompt-builder/scripts/build_prompt.py). > The --gate notations below are the agent PROCEDURE in > [comic-cross-layer-gate](../comic-cross-layer-gate/SKILL.md) (fan out the cross-model reviewers → fuse → flip > status) — not a binary you exec. This mirrors every ARIS skill: the SOP is the product, a coding agent is the runtime.

> Two hard human gates (never auto-proceed): the intent and the outline are story decisions — the > user must approve each before the next layer starts (the story-first rule; the gate is > [acceptance-gate](../../protocols/acceptance-gate.md)). Everything downstream is agent-driven + cross-model gated.

The pipeline (run in order; each step = a detailed skill + its gate)

Dependencies are the node_schema source_* fields, not invented — each step consumes the prior locked node.

| # | Step → skill | Produces (locked node) | Gate (via [comic-cross-layer-gate](../comic-cross-layer-gate/SKILL.md)) | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | [comic-intent-parser](../comic-intent-parser/SKILL.md) | intent_spec | USER approves → --gate intent | | 2 | [comic-style-bible-lock](../comic-style-bible-lock/SKILL.md) | style_anchor×N + ART_BIBLE.md | style lock (design-aware) | | 3 | [comic-outline-creator](../comic-outline-creator/SKILL.md) | outline_spec (3-lens → synth) | USER approves → --gate outline | | 4 | [comic-storyboard-creator](../comic-storyboard-creator/SKILL.md) | storyboard_spec + panel_spec×N + motif_ledger + consolidated asset_requests | --gate storyboard | | 5 | [comic-asset-ref-generator](../comic-asset-ref-generator/SKILL.md) | asset×N (single-source, from the requests) | — | | 6 | [comic-asset-review-loop](../comic-asset-review-loop/SKILL.md) | each asset → status: locked (准×3) | --gate asset · ASSET-LOCK BARRIER ↓ | | 7 | [comic-blueprint-author](../comic-blueprint-author/SKILL.md) | blueprint×N (content-SVG, no baked bubbles) | --gate blueprint | | 8 | [comic-panel-prompt-builder](../comic-panel-prompt-builder/SKILL.md) | prompt_bundle×N (搬运工原則) | build asserts: literal / zero-text / ref-count | | 9 | [comic-json-compiler](../comic-json-compiler/SKILL.md) | comic.json (authored fields only) | --gate compile (run_comic --dry-run + validate_wiki) |

Two services woven across the pipeline (not sequential steps):

• [comic-cross-layer-gate](../comic-cross-layer-gate/SKILL.md) — the ONE score-fuser every --gate

above calls. Never invoked cold: each step first fans out its cross-model reviewers (writes review:* nodes + reviews edges), THEN calls the gate to fuse + flip status (locked on advance, rejected on a terminal fail; revise/regenerate/fallback are verdicts, never statuses). Reviewer routing: Codex gpt-5.5 xhigh ‖ (Gemini auto-gemini-3 when available) — a different model family from this Claude author, paths only.

• [comic-continuity-audit](../comic-continuity-audit/SKILL.md) — authors the motif_ledger invariants in

step 4 and runs as --gate continuity against that ledger (and at bake time inside the engine): DDL monotonic-down, bounce-single-max, metric-columns-disjoint, design-aware (absence ≠ drift).

The barriers (fail-closed — do not cross early)

1. Story approval — do NOT author the outline before the user approves the intent; do NOT author the

storyboard before the user approves the outline.

1. ASSET-LOCK BARRIER (after step 6) — every asset a panel references must be status: locked

before blueprint authoring (step 7) starts. A blueprint/panel referencing a draft asset is a hard veto. (This is why the single-source asset library + 准×3 finish before any per-panel blueprint.) Ordering note for the storyboard gate: step 4 produces the storyboard_spec + the consolidated asset_requests, but --gate storyboard's panel_assets_referenceable dim (assets resolve AND are locked) is only satisfiable AFTER this barrier — so run the storyboard's STRUCTURAL pass at step 4, then its asset-resolution pass + the final locked flip once steps 5–6 have locked every requested asset (re-run --gate storyboard then).

1. ZERO-CREDIT P0 GATE (after step 9, before ANY bake) — run

comic-cross-layer-gate --gate p0_proof: a text-only cross-model adversarial review of the compiled comic.json + the pipeline machinery. It must clear blockers.length == 0 BEFORE a single metered codex image_gen credit is spent in Phase 2/3.

Hand-off to Phase 2/3

When comic.json validates, --gate compile passes, and --gate p0_proof is clean, Phase 1 is done. Then [comic-director](../comic-director/SKILL.md) bakes + verifies:

python3 skills/comic-director/scripts/run_comic.py --project examples/ --page  --panels S01,S02 --dry-run

--dry-run first (it prints concrete bake prompts + literals, no image_gen — also how this skill confirms Phase 1 is correct); then drop --dry-run to bake the audited spiral. After ship, optionally [comic-blind-comparison-review](../comic-blind-comparison-review/SKILL.md) runs a double-blind A/B vs a naive one-shot baseline to prove the pipeline earned its cost.

Two engine contracts to author to (fail-closed)

1. Every panel needs a condition.content_svg (a deterministic blueprint SVG — figure or scene-anchor

layout). condition.content_svg: null is rejected by the engine.

1. A text_mode:"baked" figure-panel must declare condition.expected_literals (exact numbers/keys,

verbatim, ascii-tokenizable) — or the run is refused. A scene panel with no audited numbers → text_mode:"html".

Worked examples (the copy targets)

• The author-node fixture — [examples/comic_min_author/](../../examples/comicminauthor/): ONE valid node

of each of the 10 author types (intentspec → … → blueprint + promptbundle + motifledger + continuityconstraint) + the author-layer wiki/edges.jsonl + a real content_svg / identity .png / ART_BIBLE.md with STYLE_PREFIX. This is what you copy when authoring — python3 cli/validate_wiki.py examples/comic_min_author PASSES and build_prompt.py … panel:demo_s01 RUNS against it.

• The full reference run — [examples/comic_m3_audit/](../../examples/comicm3audit/) is the real authored

source of truth this pipeline produced: story/OUTLINE_DRAFT.md (3-lens → codex synth → user-approved) · story/STORYBOARD_DRAFT.md (page order + the MOTIF STATE TABLE) · ART_BIBLE.md · gen/ (the asset + blueprint generator scripts) · comic.json · wiki/ (the full runtime node/edge trace). The detailed layer→skill index is [references/authored_source_of_truth.md](references/authoredsourceoftruth.md); field mapping is [references/comic_authoring.md](references/comicauthoring.md). Your authoring agent can be any coding agent (e.g. the ARIS main project) — this skill is self-contained and does not depend on it at runtime.

Protocols (governance contracts this orchestrator honors)

• [acceptance-gate](../../protocols/acceptance-gate.md) — each layer's gate can DRIVE but can't ACQUIT; the

user is the hard gate for intent + outline; a different model family (the gate's Codex adjudicator) acquits the rest.

• [artifact-integrity](../../protocols/artifact-integrity.md) — the agent that authors a layer never judges its

own layer's correctness; the cross-layer gate (a different family) does.

• [reviewer-independence](../../protocols/reviewer-independence.md) — every gate's reviewer gets file paths +

an === EXTERNAL CONTEXT (advisory) === fence, never the author's interpretation.

• [reviewer-routing](../../protocols/reviewer-routing.md) — Codex gpt-5.5 xhigh; Gemini auto-gemini-3

when available; never downgrade the tier.

• [review-tracing](../../protocols/review-tracing.md) · [output-versioning](../../protocols/output-versioning.md)

· [resumable-runs](../../protocols/resumable-runs.md) · [external-cadence](../../protocols/external-cadence.md) — trace every gate; version asset refs (_v{NNN} + supersedes); the orchestrator is resumable + its scheduled runs are fenced.

Source & license

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

• Author: wanshuiyin
• Source: wanshuiyin/ARIS-Movie-Director
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://wanshuiyin.github.io/ARIS-Movie-Director/comic/

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