shared/expert-system/visual-checkpoint-policy.md

# Visual checkpoint policy

Use checkpoints before expensive or error-amplifying downstream work. Adapt the sequence to the project; do not create empty ceremony.

1. `VCP-01 COMPOSITION SHELL` — greybox scale, framing, hierarchy, balance, and negative space.
2. `VCP-02 LIGHTING / TONAL RANGE` — lighting direction and tonal structure before detail materials.
3. `VCP-03 HERO ASSET` — proof of the primary high-value asset.
4. `VCP-04 PRIMARY MATERIALS`.
5. `VCP-05 PRIMARY PROPS / COMPONENTS`.
6. `VCP-06 SECONDARY ELEMENTS`.
7. `VCP-07 FULL EXPERIENCE / SCENE`.
8. `VCP-08 MOTION`.
9. `VCP-09 RESPONSIVE`.
10. `VCP-10 FINAL POLISH / RELEASE VISUAL QA`.

At each applicable checkpoint run the real local or deployed preview, capture evidence, compare with target and prior approved state, and obtain the required owner or independent review. Keep the ratified authority checkpoint separate from the candidate: a candidate cannot silently replace its own expected truth. Stop when failure would contaminate later work. Do not demand owner review after every minor change.

Classify an early proof as `THROWAWAY_EXPLORATION` or `PRODUCTION_CANDIDATE_PROOF`. When architecture is already sufficiently known, prefer a production-candidate proof on the intended architecture so an accepted result does not need to be reinterpreted. Do not force exploratory spikes into production.

An authorized perceptual PASS may create a versioned `CALIBRATION_CHECKPOINT` containing its scope, accepted parameters, assets, real visual state, evidence, constraints, owner/reviewer and supersession rule. Within that scope it becomes Implementation Authority; downstream work must not silently drift from or rewrite it. Text specifications continue to own target and bounds, while real output supplies calibration.

For nontrivial effects, record which approved outcome they improve: perception, spatial credibility, interaction feedback, orientation, storytelling, brand authorship, materiality or product understanding. Remove effects with no evidenced purpose. Before final visual review of a complex experience, optionally run a subtraction review over effects, animation, layers, materials, runtime systems, decoration, redundant geometry and duplicate interactions. Remove only unjustified complexity; do not impose minimalism.

For differentiation-critical brand/premium work, include the shared genericity/authorship assessment no later than `VCP-07 FULL EXPERIENCE` and again at `VCP-10 FINAL POLISH / RELEASE VISUAL QA`. For material intermediate ratification, use the read-only implementation checkpoint contract; routine microchanges do not need a separate gatekeeper.