# Build a brand Human Guide

## What This Is For
Use when the user asks for build a brand or a task matching the examples below. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for brand and messaging: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Build a brand agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for build a brand.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Build a brand guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- `references/brand-directions.md` — strategy angle structure and differentiated positioning boards.
- `references/brand-identity.md` — logo pipeline, symbol rules, concept lanes, and board-copy budgets.
- `references/brand-guidelines.md` — full guidelines layout, render contract, page structure, and QA rules.
- `references/brand-md-template.md` — required machine-readable `brand.md` structure.
- **Cloud:** paid generation only (`gpt-image-2` for symbols, mood images, photography, illustration, and ambient textures) and URL/source research when the brief requires it.
- `--config <path>` points to a JSON file that pre-bakes intake answers:
- `--quick` means quick brand mode. Use model judgment for all confirmation gates.
- `--full` means full brand book mode. Still use model judgment for confirmation
- For `--quick` or `--config`, do not stop for confirmation at the deliverable
- If a required asset is unavailable and cannot be inferred from the input,
- In quick mode, deliver the quick brand package defined below; do not describe
- In full mode, do not deliver a condensed or partial brand output just because

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Reference files, Execution Model — Local First, Cloud Only Where Needed, Cost transparency gate, Depth Modes, Mode Selection, Stage 0 — Intake (empty-args menu), Stage 0.5 — Quick brand and non-interactive fast lane, Quick Brand Workflow (Default), Quick Step 1 — One-pass intake, Quick Step 2 — Choose one strongest direction.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- `references/brand-md-template.md` — required machine-readable `brand.md` structure.
- When quick mode applies, use the quick brand workflow below and do not fall
- through to the multi-turn full-workflow intake unless a required input is truly
- gates in non-interactive runs, but do not cut the required 14-16-page guidelines.
- For `--quick` or `--config`, do not stop for confirmation at the deliverable
- If a required asset is unavailable and cannot be inferred from the input,
- In quick mode, deliver the quick brand package defined below; do not describe
- In full mode, do not deliver a condensed or partial brand output just because

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Build a brand human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the pika-labs/pika-plugins skill entry for `build-a-brand`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Build a Brand

> Tools below are **Pika MCP** tools, named bare — call each under whatever prefix your session exposes for the Pika MCP.

Take any input — an idea, a website, a list of reference brands, product photos, or an existing brand to refresh — and produce a usable brand identity.

This is a standalone brand-building workflow focused on strategy, identity, design, and copy. The default output is a **quick brand deliverable** that can be finished in minutes. The full 14-16-page brand guidelines PDF is still available, but only when the user explicitly asks for full depth or chooses to go deeper after the quick pass.

## Reference files

Load these only when the relevant phase starts:
- `references/brand-directions.md` — strategy angle structure and differentiated positioning boards.
- `references/brand-identity.md` — logo pipeline, symbol rules, concept lanes, and board-copy budgets.
- `references/brand-guidelines.md` — full guidelines layout, render contract, page structure, and QA rules.
- `references/brand-md-template.md` — required machine-readable `brand.md` structure.

## Execution Model — Local First, Cloud Only Where Needed

This skill is local-first. Keep deterministic production work on the user's machine:
- **Local:** workspace setup, downloaded fonts, generated image files after download, image compression, transparent-background cleanup, 16x16 favicon tests, HTML/CSS page builds, PDF rendering, PNG/JPG QA screenshots, logo asset assembly, token/prompt files, and final zip packaging.
- **Cloud:** paid generation only (`gpt-image-2` for symbols, mood images, photography, illustration, and ambient textures) and URL/source research when the brief requires it.

Do not use a cloud PDF renderer or upload PDFs by default. Save quick PDFs, board PDFs, guidelines PDFs, and brand-kit zips to `~/Desktop` on Mac, or the project working directory when Desktop is unavailable. Only upload/share via CDN if the user explicitly asks for a hosted file.

**PDF asset hygiene:** never embed full-size gpt-image-2 PNGs directly in board or guidelines PDFs. This previously produced huge PDFs and `ASSET_FETCH_TIMEOUT` failures when renderers tried to fetch multi-MB CDN images. Download every generated image, down-raster/downsample it to the slot size, and save a local JPEG target of about 85-180KB before using it in render HTML. Keep transparent PNG only for logo/symbol source assets and favicon/logo export, not for photographic page imagery. **Never put a CSS `filter:`/`backdrop-filter:` (warm grade, sepia, saturate, brightness, blur) on a photo or `background-image` in the render HTML** — it forces Chromium to rasterize that element to a full-resolution *lossless* bitmap in the PDF, which cancels out the JPEG step above and re-bloats the file (a warm-graded mood-board page alone took a deck to 70 MB). Bake any color grade into the JPEG itself (in the gpt-image-2 prompt or when you `img.save(..., 'JPEG', ...)`); `drop-shadow()` on a transparent logo PNG is the only filter that's safe.

## Cost transparency gate

Before any paid MCP call, call `identity_balance({verbose: true})` once. Surface the current balance, recent burn rate, and remaining runway, then gate the selected depth with this exact message:

> Estimated cost: about 100-300 credits (~$1-$3) for quick brand, or about 900-1,500 credits (~$9-$15) for full brand book. These ranges cover gpt-image-2 symbol / mood / touchpoint generation plus one targeted regeneration for failed image QA. Quick brand is usually below $5; full brand book exceeds $5, so Reply `proceed` to continue or `cancel` to stop.

Do not call any paid MCP tool until the user replies `proceed`. If the user replies `cancel`, stop without generating. For non-interactive `--quick`, `--full`, or `--config` callers, require `cost_ack=proceed` in the config or invocation metadata; if it is absent, stop with the estimate instead of spending credits.

## Depth Modes

Choose the depth before any long-running generation or render work:

1. **Quick brand (default)** — use for first-time founder-kit runs, `--quick`, creator tutorial flows, batch/subagent calls, or any user who asks for a brand without explicitly asking for a full brand book. Target: 8-12 minutes after usable input, excluding user reply time; no more than 4 generated images unless QA fails; one quick PDF render plus one QA rerender when needed.
2. **Full brand book (opt-in)** — use only when the user asks for "full", "brand book", "brand guidelines", "14-16-page", "15-page", `--full`, or when they approve the quick path's "go deeper" upgrade. Target: 25-45 minutes after choices are locked, excluding user reply time.

The quick brand is not a partial or failed full guidelines deck. It is a deliberately smaller deliverable with its own completion criteria. If the selected mode is full, all full-guidelines completion gates still apply.

## Mode Selection

### Stage 0 — Intake (empty-args menu)

If invoked with no input (no idea, no URL, no photos, no reference brands, and no relevant prior context in the conversation), print this menu verbatim as your full response and stop. Do not call any tool. Wait for the user's next message.

> **What are we branding?** Paste any of:
>
> - **An idea / description** — e.g. "a streetwear label for cat people"
> - **A website URL** — e.g. "rebrand my existing site at example.com"
> - **Product photos** — drop them in the chat
> - **Reference brands** — e.g. "I want something that feels like Aesop + Patagonia"
> - **An existing brand to refresh** — name + what's working / what isn't
>
> I'll start with a quick brand by default. Say **full brand book** if you want the deeper 14-16-page guidelines path.

If the user already dropped one of the above, skip the menu and proceed to the selected mode: Quick Step 1 for the default quick brand path, or Step 1 below when full brand book mode is selected.

### Stage 0.5 — Quick brand and non-interactive fast lane

Use quick brand mode when the caller passes `--quick`, omits an explicit full-depth request, or states they are running from CI, a subagent, a batch job, a tutorial recording, or any other non-interactive harness.

Use full brand book mode only when the caller passes `--full`, sets `mode: "full"` in config, explicitly asks for full guidelines / brand book depth, or approves the post-quick "go deeper" upgrade.

This section has precedence over the interactive ask/wait instructions below.
When quick mode applies, use the quick brand workflow below and do not fall
through to the multi-turn full-workflow intake unless a required input is truly
missing.

- `--config <path>` points to a JSON file that pre-bakes intake answers:
  `input`, `photos`, `reference_brands`, `audience`, `positioning`, `assets_to_keep`,
  `references`, `mode`, `chosen_direction`, `chosen_identity`, and `export_kit`.
- `--quick` means quick brand mode. Use model judgment for all confirmation gates.
  Ask only if the original input is missing entirely; otherwise infer reasonable
  defaults, choose the strongest strategy direction and identity option, and
  continue.
- `--full` means full brand book mode. Still use model judgment for confirmation