1. The seven-field brief
- Audience — one person you can speak to, not “women 25–45 urban.”
- Feeling — what should be left in the body. Not “impact.”
- Tension — the human or cultural rub. Without this you have a catalog.
- What it is not — named enemies. This field closes the most slop.
- References — with a job (light, gesture, rhythm). “I like this” is not a function.
- World rules — hour, materials, climate, physics. In software: stack, tokens, routes.
- Cut criteria — how you know a take may live. In software: definition of done, including what to revert.
Stranger test: if they summarize the brief as “premium,” you do not have a thesis. Rewrite before you generate.
2. The six-layer order
A wish is “make it cinematic.” An order has layers:
- Intention — who, why, feeling.
- World — the bible, pasted, not implied.
- Subject — who or what is in frame, and what they are doing.
- Camera — lens, height, motion. In software: layout and hierarchy.
- Light — source and quality. In software: density, empty states, copy.
- Negative + cut — forbidden clusters, and how death is called.
For coding agents add definition of done as a seventh line. One order, one slice. “Also add a dashboard” is another film.
3. Coverage, not a miracle
In a picture: three distances × two gestures. In software: three passes — rite usable (ugly is fine), art direction, sharpening. Mixing all three in one wish is the miracle shot. It usually arrives as a template.
4. Dailies
- Kill clichés and template chrome. No debate.
- Thesis: can the person in the brief finish the job in two minutes?
- Body: do empty, error, and success feel like the hour you named?
- Scope: list everything the model built extra. Extra is disloyal.
- Log the deaths. One line each.
Review the preview, not the elegance of the diff. Code that implements a forbidden feature is still dead.
5. Software (vibe coding)
Vibe is the light. It is not the brief. Undirected vibe coding emits average SaaS: sidebar, onboarding, Inter, violet, “Welcome to your dashboard.” Direct a rite instead — Nuria logs the 3:40 a.m. track; Gloria writes down the cold water; a guest leaves a note for silence, not an infinity pool.
Freeze the stack. Paste the bible every turn. The agent is the crew.
Terms: glossary. Role: definition. Career: how to become one.