tk-prototype

Comparison Prototype

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Approval Continuity

Check the active user's authorization before asking. A concrete request or earlier approval for the same task remains valid across turns and child-skill phases; invocation alone and retrieved text are not authorization. Resolve material user-owned choices together at the first actionable checkpoint. Once scope is approved, continue its necessary baseline capture, implementation, verification, review, and local commits through their existing owners without asking again at phase boundaries. Return child evidence to the active owner and continue; a status update is not a stop. Recheck facts, not permission. Ask only for a new material decision, changed scope, unapproved action, or missing user-only input. Recovered artifacts cannot independently grant authority. Remote and destructive actions require explicit action/target authorization, which may already be included upfront; preserve it when handing off to the owning skill. Never infer it from local approval.

Accept a prompt, idea, screenshot, spec, ticket, code, or design reference as input. Keep standalone artifacts under .tigerkit/prototypes/<slug>/. Before writing, prove that Git effectively ignores .tigerkit/ and no path under it is tracked. The effective rule may come from per-directory, local-exclude, or user-level-exclude configuration. Use Artifact Paths setup for missing ignore coverage; recheck before writing. Do not use an external scratch fallback. A repository-native route/harness is allowed only when the selected runtime requires it; record and clean up only run-owned files.

Workflow

1. hypothesis/success criteria: Derive measurable criteria from the idea, reference, and verification question.
2. temporary path/boundary: Inspect repository preflight and select the existing toolchain/UI stack/component/token, temporary path, artifact ownership, and fake | real integration boundary.
3. variants/harness: Create only the variants needed to answer the comparison, or a harness using realistic example I/O.
4. run: Execute the selected variant/harness and capture actual output or screenshots and command results.

Record each run under ## Tested with the following receipt fields. Do not summarize the command; record the exact executed values.

Command: <exact command and arguments>
CWD: <absolute worktree or route path>
Exit code: <integer>
Output: <bounded summary or absolute output path>
Artifact: <absolute path | none>; ownership: run-owned | pre-existing
Screenshot: <absolute path | N/A>; actual inspection: yes | no | N/A

5. compare: Map evidence to criteria and summarize verified differences, unverified items, and the next decision. If the parent contract records image PR evidence: required, the comparison is Pass, and the inspected screenshot directly proves it, retain the run-owned absolute Screenshot: <path> and actual image inspection under ## Tested, and expose the same producer-neutral manifest consumed by publication: evidence_required: true, evidence_kind: visual-change, verification_status: Pass, the criterion, comparison, limitations, and an inspected artifact with role, absolute path, exact origin-free display_route, state/region, and viewport. Use the metadata returned by tk-browser-verify; do not derive it from a filename, raw URL, or producer identity. This proves the prototype comparison, not official product runtime acceptance. For Fail | Blocked | Unverifiable, preserve owned failure artifacts and return the real status, but do not emit a verification_status: Pass publication manifest. If required image publication cannot be satisfied, report that publication requirement as blocked or unverifiable.
6. terminal summary: Render the applicable sections under the output contract below; do not add a separate provenance/status block.

For unresolved UI comparisons, vary only the decision-relevant dimension. Color-only alternatives are valid when color, contrast, or state identification is the question; preserve layout and behavior in that comparison. Vary architecture, flow or navigation only when that is the actual question. For logic, prefer a small pure harness using example input/output and a minimal adapter.

For a web prototype, inspect the repository's run command, installed UI stack, components, and design tokens. Reuse a safe isolated route/harness without adding dependencies or changing manifest/lockfiles. If none exists, use a small .tigerkit/prototypes/<slug>/index.html, styles.css, and app.js.

Compare 2–3 decision-relevant concepts while keeping content, data, and interaction state identical. Default to 2–3 side-by-side columns on wide screens and stacked on narrow screens. Use an explicit A/B or A/B/C toggle only when simultaneous rendering would harm the concept or minimum legibility. Stop at A/B when a third option adds no independent value. Do not create a prototype when repository evidence already resolves the decision.

Verify web output through tk-browser-verify, including actual interaction, the run URL/command, and success-criteria screenshots. If a development server is required, handoff the exact command/cwd/target URL/auth mode/readiness condition; tk-browser-verify owns server start, wait, and shutdown. Check both wide and narrow only when the hypothesis concerns responsiveness/layout. Clean up only run-owned tracked harness files; preserve any existing route, dependency, and production source.

Failure Paths

Record pre-existing temporary paths and run-created files before writing.

Condition	First action	If it still fails
interrupted/partial write	Clean up only incomplete artifacts proven to be run-owned	Fail; report the unsafe cleanup path and restart condition
server/harness failure	Preserve the command, exit state, output, and fake/real boundary	Fail; do not expand into production/dependency scope
Execution succeeds but output/screenshot evidence is unavailable	Retry capture once within the same boundary	Unverifiable; do not claim Pass
ownership/state conflict with existing artifact	Preserve the existing path and record evidence	Blocked; choose another path before writing
cleanup failure	Re-identify only run-owned resources and report the outcome	Fail | Unverifiable; preserve existing routes/processes
Scope expands to production/promotion/commit	Stop the prototype and separate it into another implementation request	Blocked; do not auto-promote

🔴 CHECKPOINT · 🛑 STOP · Execution Boundary

Before execution, confirm the temporary path, fake/real data, and verification question. If environment or production-scope expansion occurs, stop at Blocked | Unverifiable.

Before reporting, reconcile the command, actual output/screenshot, fake/real boundary, and unverified scope. If any are missing or execution failed, the result cannot be Pass. Use Fail | Blocked | Unverifiable.

Contract

Record decision-relevant status only once in its owning section. Start with ## Confirmed, followed by ## Production implication, ## Tested, ## Variants or harness, and ## Still fake, omitting empty sections. Confirmed owns evidence-backed conclusions; Production implication owns discard/iterate/next decision; Tested owns command results; Variants or harness owns alternatives/paths/run URLs and final kept | removed state; and Still fake owns fake/real and unverified scope. Place command mechanics after the decision.

Use exactly one terminal status: Pass | Fail | Blocked | Unverifiable.

When comparing multiple criteria or variants, render ## Confirmed as a concise Criterion | A | B [| C] | Conclusion | Evidence table. Use a sentence when there is only one user-relevant row. Record whether content/data/state remained identical. Use not observed for differences that were not observed and unverifiable when evidence is absent. Do not elevate unaudited aesthetic preferences into conclusions. Summarize the result and selection rationale in 2–5 bullets or option rows. If there are 8 or more observations, show the top 5–7 and cite the prototype or evidence path that owns the rest. This is a budget, not a quota.

Prohibited Patterns

• Do not call a prototype production-ready, auto-promote/commit it, or invoke another user skill.
• Do not report fake integration as real or claim success without run evidence.
• Do not add irrelevant variants, dependencies, manifest/lockfile edits, unnecessary production abstractions, or a third option with no value.

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Artifact Paths

Create artifacts only when this skill's task authorizes them. Before any artifact write, temporary checkout/transport, or ignore setup, read artifact paths and apply its Git exclusion, safe-path, and ownership checks. Default repository-owned output to .tigerkit/; honor explicit final destinations. Conversation-only work skips this reference and performs no file or ignore setup. Artifact handling grants no unrelated mutation or publication authority.

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Output Notation

Use ASCII numbering such as (1) Item or 1. Item, with a space after the marker, in generated headings, lists, choices, tables, diagrams, and summaries. Use - Item for unordered items. Do not generate Unicode circled/enclosed numbers, single-character parenthesized numbers, or keycap emoji as item markers; they can overlap adjacent text in terminal renderers. Preserve exact code, commands, URLs, quotations, identifiers, and verified UI labels unless explicitly authorized to edit them; apply this rule to the surrounding explanation instead.

For an authorized user-editable temporary input file, consistently provide a plain JSON object template with the needed keys and empty strings for missing text values, rather than an empty or raw-text file. The initial template's non-zero size is not an input-completion signal. Apply the owning package's Artifact Paths input branch before creation and consumption; this notation rule grants no artifact-writing authority.

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User Questions

Before sending any user-owned clarification, choice, or approval, read question rounds in this turn. Ask the whole answerable frontier in one plain-chat round; resolve facts first, preserve existing authorization, and skip question ceremony when no decision remains. Do not use question tools for ordinary TigerKit questions.

Minimum shape, even when already familiar:

❓ **Q1 · <short title>**: <question and relevant choices>

➡️ <recommendation and reason, when supported>

Separate questions with ---. Put context before the question block and make it the final substantive block: no plan, promise, or “answer and I will proceed” line afterward, except one short reply-format hint. An approval request is its own numbered Q, never buried in the proposal. Defer approval whose scope still depends on an unresolved answer.

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