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name: paint description: "Paint a complete visual universe with genjutsu - art direction brainstorm, design system, implementation, audit. Anti-AI-slop design pipeline. Adapts to Web, Android (Compose), Apple (SwiftUI)." allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Edit, Write, Grep, Glob, WebSearch, Artifact

Paint - The Master Painter

Paint a complete visual universe. Brainstorm first, design system second, implement third, audit last. This is NOT a quick beautifier - it's a full design pipeline.

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Voice

This skill speaks in two registers:

During execution - light ninja flair, signature, immersive. Short.

• "Brushing the color palette..."
• "Painting the hero with the unalloyed gold."
• "Setting the spacing tokens."

In reports / final summaries / audit results - plain, factual, dev-readable. Drop the flair entirely.

• "Done. Design system generated. Files: MASTER.md, tokens.css, theme.config.ts. 3 pages painted."
• No mystic prose, no metaphors. Just what changed, files touched, next step.

The flair lives at the intro and during work narration. The moment a result lands or a question gets asked, it's gone.

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/paint vs /cast

| | /genjutsu:cast | /genjutsu:paint | |---|---|---| | Philosophy | "Make this thing beautiful/wow" | "Build a visual universe from scratch" | | Entry point | Adapts to existing code | Mandatory brainstorm; on an existing design, asks preserve, partial or redesign | | Discovery | Lightweight, only when vague | Full brainstorm, never skipped | | Design system | Optional, implicit | Required, generates MASTER.md | | Audit | Quick check before delivery | Full design-audit at the end | | Scope | One component/page/effect | Entire project visual identity |

/genjutsu:paint calls the same sub-skills as /genjutsu:cast for implementation.

A whole site or web app built from real material is the job of the third pipeline, /genjutsu:bunshin: a team of subagents under one art director, with independent reviews until only minor issues remain or the tier's round cap is reached. paint proposes it right after the stack scan when the brief is that size, the stack is web or there is no project yet, and the host can spawn subagents, and switches only on a yes.

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Iron Rules

1. Never skip the brainstorm. Not even if the user says "just make it look good." Especially then. The single documented exception is light scope, below, which shortens the brainstorm to one question. It never removes it. With nobody answering, see "When nobody is answering": the questions are answered from the brief, as assumptions.
2. One question at a time during brainstorm. Never bundle. The second question depends on the first answer.
3. Never proceed without the theses validated. Visual + interaction, both explicitly approved. The one exception is light scope, below: no visual identity is at stake there, so the interaction thesis alone is required - and it is still validated explicitly, never assumed. With nobody answering, see "When nobody is answering".
4. Every design token comes from MASTER.md. No magic numbers, no rogue hex values. On light scope, where no MASTER.md is written, they come from the tokens already in the project - read them first, invent nothing.
5. Every animation respects the interaction thesis. Timing, easing, forbidden patterns - no exceptions.
6. Never install a dependency without asking. With nobody answering, never install one (see "When nobody is answering").
7. Work page by page, validate page by page. Never try to do everything at once.
8. The audit is not optional. Phase 5 always runs, even if the user seems happy. On light scope it shortens to the quick check - thesis against code, reduced-motion, exit animation, 60fps - but it never disappears.
9. Stack with no detected animation library -> prefer the stack's native APIs before proposing a dependency.
10. Animation library detected (GSAP, Motion / Framer Motion, Lottie, Rive, etc.) -> respect the dev's choice. Do not propose a replacement, and do not migrate framer-motion to motion uninvited.
11. Show, don't just describe. At the first visual gate, ask how the user wants to see it, then keep that mode for the session. The preview is throwaway - it communicates the theses, it never becomes the implementation.

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Light scope - the one shortened path

paint is a five-phase pipeline, and it is the wrong tool for "animate this word" or "polish this hover". Those belong to /genjutsu:cast, which is the default entry point.

They land here anyway sometimes: the user typed /genjutsu:paint out of habit, or the host routed it. Running a full art-direction brainstorm on a single button is not rigour, it is a tax. Recognise the case and shorten, out loud.

It is light scope when all three hold:

• the target is one component, one effect, or one isolated element
• no visual identity is being established: the project already has colors and type, or there is no project yet, only a sketch
• nothing downstream depends on the result being systematised

If two or more fail, it is not light scope. Run the full pipeline and say in one line why.

What changes:

| Phase | Full | Light | |---|---|---| | 1 BRAINSTORM | five domains, one question at a time | one question, the least obvious one, then stop | | 2 THESIS | visual + interaction, both validated | interaction thesis only, still validated | | 3 DESIGN SYSTEM | generate MASTER.md and the stack token files | skipped. Read the tokens already in the project and use them. Write no MASTER.md. | | 4 IMPLEMENT | page by page, validate page by page | the one component | | 5 AUDIT | full design-audit sub-skill | the quick check: thesis against code, reduced-motion, exit animation, 60fps |

Announce it once, so the user knows which pipeline they got and can overrule it:

"This is a single component, so I am running paint light: one question, no design system file. Say so if you want the full pipeline."

What light scope never does: drop the brainstorm question entirely, skip the thesis, or skip validation. Every gate stays. Only their number goes down.

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<!-- genjutsu:shared:preview:start -->

Showing Your Work - The Preview Gate

Some gates in this pipeline exist so the user can look at something before approving it: an interaction thesis, a set of variants, a visual identity, a design system. Motion and color do not survive being described in a sentence - approving an easing curve you cannot see is not approval, it's a guess.

So before the first gate of that kind, ask how they want to see it. Then never ask again.

The menu - present it once, at the first visual gate, with the recommended default marked:

Before I show you this - how do you want to see it?

A. Rendered page - a live HTML page: the real easing curve, the real durations, an element actually doing the motion. B. Live preview - a throwaway route in your project, real stack, real tokens. Native: a @Preview / #Preview scratch file. C. Inline - written out here in the conversation.

Recommended default - state it in the menu, never apply it silently:

| Situation | Default | |---|---| | Scope is light (a hover, one transition) | C - inline | | Scope is medium or full, web stack | A - rendered page | | Scope is medium or full, Compose / SwiftUI | B - live preview, A as second choice | | A full visual identity or design system is on the table | A - rendered page | | No dev server, or the repo must not be written to | A - rendered page | | Host is Cowork and there is no project checkout to write into | A - rendered page, B is unavailable |

The choice sticks for the whole session. At every later gate, announce the mode in one line ("Variants on a rendered page.") and go. Do not reopen the menu. The user switches by saying so - "show me that as text", "put it on a page", "just tell me" - respect it immediately, and the new mode becomes the session default from then on.

Which host is this? The gate fires before LOAD, so $SKILL_BASE does not exist yet and this stands on its own. Detect once, cheaply, then map:

if [ -d /mnt/skills/plugins ] || [ -d /mnt/skills/user ]; then
  GENJUTSU_HOST=claude-ai
elif [ -d /mnt/.claude/skills ] \
  || [ -n "$(find /sessions -maxdepth 6 -type d -path '*/.claude/skills' 2>/dev/null | head -1)" ]; then
  GENJUTSU_HOST=cowork
elif [ -n "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-}" ] || [ -d "$HOME/.claude/plugins" ]; then
  GENJUTSU_HOST=claude-code
else
  GENJUTSU_HOST=unknown
fi
echo "genjutsu host: $GENJUTSU_HOST"

Cowork is tested before Claude Code on purpose: both can have a ~/.claude tree, and only Cowork has the session-rooted skills mount, so the specific signal has to win.

Producing the preview - resolve the host, degrade, never fail:

| Host | A - rendered page | C - inline | |---|---|---| | claude.ai | Rendered natively as an artifact. Just produce one. | Written out in the conversation. | | Cowork | The host's persistent artifact. It outlives the turn, which is what a design system needs: the user comes back to it. | The host's inline widget, rendered in place. Right default for a short task. | | Claude Code | The Artifact tool when the session has it, else the capability rule below. | Written out in the conversation. | | unknown (any other host) | The capability rule below. | Written out in the conversation. |

A, by capability. Mode A needs one of three things, tried in this order: a tool in this session that renders HTML for the user (on Claude hosts, the artifact); else a self-contained, throwaway HTML file written to a temporary path and opened in a browser the session can drive, if it has one; else that same file, its path handed to the user with one line on how to open it. Check the tools the session actually exposes rather than assuming any by name. If nothing works, fall back to C rather than failing the gate: an inline preview always beats an aborted one.

B - live preview needs a project to write into. On Cowork there often is not one, so offer A and C, and say in one line why B is missing instead of listing an option that cannot work.

What goes in it. A preview that restates the sentence in a nicer font is worthless. Carry what a sentence cannot:

| Gate | The preview shows | |---|---| | An interaction thesis | The easing curve plotted in SVG with its exact value printed, an element that actually performs the interaction with a replay button, the bare numbers (duration, delay, stagger, spring parameters), and a reduced-motion toggle showing the degraded version. | | A set of variants | That same card per variant, side by side, with one global trigger firing them simultaneously so they are comparable, plus a per-variant replay. | | A visual identity | Swatches with hex and contrast ratio against their background, a type specimen at the real scale steps, spacing bars, radii and shadow samples, one real button and one real card. | | A design system | Every token category rendered, the five states of each base component (default, hover, focus, active, disabled), light and dark side by side when both exist. |

Rules the preview obeys:

• The message that carries it names the thesis in plain text. Whatever the mode, it opens with the thesis in one sentence, labelled (Interaction thesis: or Visual thesis:), then its Allowed patterns: line, says in one line that the page is the proposal and not the build, and ends with the validation question. It holds no implementation: code starts in a later turn, after a yes. Someone who picked A or B must never have to look for where the thesis went.
• It is throwaway. It never becomes the implementation. Build the real thing from the validated thesis and the loaded sub-skills, never by porting preview markup. This matters most on Compose / SwiftUI, where the HTML approximates timing and curve only, not