Design Studio

Role boundaries

• Visual Director never receives HTML, CSS, JSX, selectors, implementation diffs, document source/renderer metadata or the unattended assignment index.
• Evaluator never receives source, implementation effort, full design description or prior scores. Document evaluation also excludes renderer identity/build metadata.
• Builder implements the selected direction; it may not quietly replace it with a safer one.
• Orchestrator is the sole decision owner. Evaluators/reviewers provide evidence, not workflow decisions.

Load and route

For Studio, Review and Document requests:

1. Load invocation.md, design-intent-contract.json, references/design-intent.md, runtime-contract.md, references/context.md and references/runtime-integrity.md. These are the universal input, authority, source/evidence, recovery, degradation and acceptance guards, not lane procedures.
2. Map host input and current authority evidence to one Design Intent and validate it before loading workflow.yaml, a Review/Document procedure or any specialist leaf. Invalid classification blocks lane loading as well as execution.
3. Map the validated result to the existing task, surface, interaction and evidence signals, then read method-router.json. Keep task signals within the selected lane and current stage; supplementary copy or evidence signals do not change that lane.
4. Resolve the canonical selectedProcedures even when no specialist route matches. Every populated signal dimension on a route is required. Before loading, check that every matched route's procedure agrees with Design Intent; conflicting signals block until corrected. Then load the selected procedure and the union of matching leaves, deduplicating paths.
5. Execute the selected procedure after its required context is loaded. It discloses stage-specific role instructions and references when needed. Never load the full specialist catalog by default.

method-router.json is routing data, not method authority. Its coreAuthorities is the universal set shared by every lane. Repository ADR/authority-map paths are provenance metadata only; installed runs do not depend on repository docs. Host adapters use this loading contract, not a second loading graph.

Required references

• invocation.md
• design-intent-contract.json
• references/design-intent.md
• runtime-contract.md
• method-router.json
• references/context.md
• references/runtime-integrity.md
• Conditional Studio procedure: workflow.yaml
• Conditional Review procedure: references/review/polish.md
• Conditional Document procedure: references/document/document.md
• Conditional accepted-system boundary: references/design-authority/lifecycle.md

The first seven entries plus this index form the universal hot path. Lane procedures and methods are conditional; naming their paths does not load them.

Lanes

Design Intent owns Studio/Review/Document disambiguation. Meta maintenance uses the existing meta/method-intake routes directly; codification consumes an accepted lane result, not a new intent. An interactive report remains Studio/Review even if it can export PDF. A narrow component/CSS correction does not require Studio.

Studio

For a validated Studio intent, execute workflow.yaml end to end. It owns planning, precommitted unattended assignment, source-blind direction, source-aware building, mechanical evidence, blind evaluation, immutable iteration and final-tree acceptance before codification. Its specialist leaves load by current stage, not all at activation. For extend, use the routed references/extend.md: inherit accepted authority and explore only the local addition. Local completion preserves authority; reusable deltas enter separately accepted system codification through references/design-authority/lifecycle.md. Create and overhaul retain divergent direction work.

Document

For a validated Document intent, execute references/document/document.md without loading the Studio workflow. It owns physical page-system direction, complete ordered rendered-page evaluation, pagination/table/furniture/print lenses and accepted document-visual-contract.json publication. Load those lenses at page evaluation, not for an interactive request.

Design Studio owns visual page-system intent and rendered-page judgement. It does not own transcript interpretation, business voice, accounting truth, binding commercial/legal terms or the renderer/generator.

Review

Review does not run the Studio create loop or load its workflow. Execute the selected references/review/polish.md, then add only matching lenses. Reviewers report evidence first; implementation receives one bounded fix plan. Missing rendered evidence is unverified, not a clean verdict.

Evidence and degradation

• roots.json/capabilities.json are operational truth; events.jsonl is append-only recovery truth.
• PRODUCT.md stores confirmed product truth; COPY.md durable language rules; DESIGN.md only proven accepted visual authority.
• Mechanical snapshots are complete current-state evidence. Missing evidence is explicit, never a pass.
• Acceptance, not directory existence or a high score, proves authority.

All create lanes need file I/O, shell and isolated roles. Interactive visual decisions additionally need a runnable target/browser; Document decisions need complete rendered page evidence from an existing artifact or host-supplied renderer.

• Missing browser in Studio: one build + mechanical evidence, then halt without winner.
• Missing interactive viewport in Review: partial evidence, visual status unverified.
• Missing complete pages in Document: never infer quality from source; follow the Document failure contract.
• No user-answer mechanism: use precommitted deterministic assignment.
• No image generation: use equally specified text directions.
• Any failed/missing operation is recorded with exact reason.

Method ownership

Design Studio has no upstream design-method runtime dependency. Adopted external ideas live as routed local methods with provenance; observation/rejection records are research evidence only. Do not import another command taxonomy, prompt library or fallback runtime.

Growth Arsenal remains outside this method kernel and may provide approved role-scoped offer/copy artifacts through the composition boundary. A new method must name a reusable gap, fit or justify authority, pin external source/licence when relevant, adapt the smallest coherent slice and prove benefit with an eval/contract/dogfood result.