design-compose

Design Compose

Bind a normalized brief to the pattern library and hand on a target-neutral semantic-composition@2. The validator is the authority: never alter, shorten, merge or reorder content to make a composition pass — frozen copy, unit order and source lineage are exactly what it protects. When no accepted pattern fits a unit, report that to the author and stop.

Inputs

• A normalized brief — the data of a successful publishing-validate normalize run, saved as its own JSON file. Pass the artifact itself, not the envelope around it.
• A design-system pin — {name, version} and nothing else. The name is the theme_slug from the manage-themes selection handoff. The version is the cogni-publishing version in .claude-plugin/plugin.json for a bundled theme, since bundled themes are versioned with the plugin, or the revision the user supplies for a user theme — ask when there is none. Never use the theme manifest's schema_version. The pin is recorded as data; the composition resolves no token.
• The requested targets — html, pptx, or both. Every unit's pattern must support every requested target.

Workflow

1. Run check-patterns to confirm the library is valid and to see which patterns are accepted.
2. Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/design-composition.md for each pattern's eligibility, slots, limits and variants, and for the binding rules.
3. Group consecutive frozen records into units, up to the chosen pattern's constraints.max_records, and choose one accepted pattern and variant per unit — by slide type or section role, record kind and whether the records carry data. One exception: on a unit that declares metric intent whose bound text repeats one of the brief's key figures, leave both out and let compose route it (step 5). Routing declines in three cases — no matching figure, a single match in a unit of more than four bound texts, or a candidate whose limits the draft's bindings exceed — and a unit it declines stays patternless and is rejected as unknown-pattern, so give such a unit a pattern instead. Parallel direct sections can share one comparison unit. A narrative visual_intent is a hint the choice may decline, never a requirement. A brief that carries sources needs one sources unit: the narrative source-register slide takes it, and a direct brief ends on a sources unit with no bindings.
4. Write a draft that binds content by reference only: