atomic-visual-options

Render the visual in the browser; make the decision in the terminal.

Auto-fire on:

• "show me a few options", "show me some options"
• "mock up some variants", "mock up some options"
• "let me see this side by side"
• "visual options for …", "compare these layouts"
• "wireframe some choices", "show layout options"
• "what would X look like", "can you visualize …"

Also fires when /atomic-plan encounters a design question that passes the see-it-over-read-it gate (see below).

The gate (just-in-time, see-it-over-read-it)

Only render visuals when the question is genuinely visual. The test: would the user understand it better seeing it than reading it?

A question that is merely about a UI topic is not automatically visual:

• "What should the settings wizard do?" — conceptual, answer in the terminal.
• "Which of these three settings wizard layouts works?" — visual, render in the browser.

Apply this test per question, not per session. A planning conversation might have five conceptual questions and one visual one; only the visual question gets a rendered file. When the answer is "no," stay in the terminal with a plain list or prose.

Workflow

1. Compose

Identify the decision dimensions. Each dimension becomes a panel (e.g. Layout, Color scheme, Navigation placement). For each panel:

• Assign a letter starting at A (panel A, panel B, panel C…).
• Generate 2–4 options. Label each with the panel letter + option number: A1, A2, A3. No more than four options per panel — beyond four the comparison stops being useful.
• Assign each option a short, descriptive title (e.g. "A2 — Two-column with sidebar").

2. Write

Write ONE self-contained HTML file to the scratchpad bundle:

$(atomic scratchpad path <topic>)/options.html

Paths come from atomic scratchpad / atomic where --json; if what you find on disk does not match, run atomic migrate --show-log for the change history.

The file must satisfy these constraints: