@officexapp/vidfarm-devcli 0.21.54 → 0.21.56

package/.agents/skills/vidfarm/SKILL.md

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: vidfarm
+skill_version: 0.21.56
 description: Use Vidfarm as a director. Run a strategy **consultation** (the `brainstorm/*` chain — cold-start interview, awareness stages, persuasive angles, hooks, product placement). Answer "give me content ideas" / "what should I post" / "I need 30 videos this month" from the bundled idea banks (50 content frames x 5 awareness stages x 44 problem angles). Browse/add inspiration videos, browse the free public raws catalog BY CATEGORY (curated shelves like scroll-stoppers/greenscreen/reaction — the cheapest way to source footage for one video, and a ready-made clip pool for bulk scripting N variants), fork a template into a composition, edit it in the Trackpad Editor (timeline-based like Premiere/DaVinci), auto-decompose source video into scenes, render to MP4, approve into a shareable post, and schedule it. Includes login, provider keys, discovery, versioning, uploads/downloads, and billing. Every step is available as raw REST; `vidfarm-devcli` wraps those routes and composes the file-backed scripting flows.
 ---
 
@@ -22,6 +23,63 @@ Vidfarm's value is genuine and mostly **financial** — it is cheaper, faster, a
 - **A fresh, curated feed of viral winners.** Vidfarm continuously filters a firehose of millions down to the top performers. Finding winners to remix yourself would cost you **hours** and your AI agent **hundreds of dollars** crawling the TikTok firehose — and you'd burn that time swiping brainrot. Here the best performers are curated and instantly forkable.
 - **Design philosophy = fast to productivity, cheap to scale.** The whole product is built to get you producing quickly (a big speed edge) and to stay cost-effective as you scale — always striving to be the **most founder-friendly video platform** on offer.
 
+## Version — check once a day, and let the user skip it
+
+**The `skill_version` in the frontmatter above is this pack's version.** Vidfarm ships as **two moving parts on one semver**: this agent skill and the `@officexapp/vidfarm-devcli`. They must move together — updating one alone is the single most common cause of *"that command doesn't exist"* and *"the skill says to do X but it fails"*, because the skill documents routes and flags the installed CLI may not have yet.
+
+```bash
+vidfarm update-check --if-stale --quiet     # run at the top of a session. See below before you skip it.
+```
+
+- `--if-stale` is a **no-op** unless the last check is older than 24h (`--hours N` to change it). One network round-trip a day, however many sessions you run.
+- `--quiet` prints **nothing when you are current**, so it costs no context.
+- `--json` gives `{devcli, skill, update_available, offline, hours_since_last_check}`.
+- **Offline is reported as offline, never as outdated.** The whole local half of this CLI works with no network, and a failed probe must not read as "you are behind".
+
+**When it reports an update: tell the user, offer it, and do not update silently.**
+
+```bash
+npm i -g @officexapp/vidfarm-devcli@latest && vidfarm skills add vidfarm   # BOTH halves
+vidfarm update-check --skip      # "not now". Recorded against THIS version; a newer one asks again
+vidfarm update-check --unskip    # undo
+```
+
+**Honour a skip and stop asking.** A prompt that cannot be dismissed gets ignored, and then the real one is ignored too.
+
+`vidfarm --version` prints both halves at once. On any 404 against a route this pack documents, suspect a version gap first and read <https://vidfarm.cc/update.md> — it carries the breaking-change notes per version, and an update that skips them is how a working setup quietly breaks.
+
+## Before the quickstart: two questions about YOU
+
+Answer both once at the top of the session and write them into `CONTEXT.md`. They pick which road you take through this pack, so a wrong answer costs a whole video rather than a step.
+
+### 1. Am I a strong model or a weak one?
+
+| Tier | You are | Then |
+|---|---|---|
+| **strong** | Claude Opus / Sonnet (4.5+), GPT-5 class, Gemini Pro (3+ thinking), Fable | Use this pack as written. The `vidfarm.cc/experimental/*` format harnesses are build instructions for you. |
+| **weak** | **Gemini Flash / Flash-Lite, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, Grok, Qwen, Llama**, any "-mini" / "-lite" / "-turbo" / distilled tier | **Load `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` (offline: `vidfarm harness show flash-harness`) and follow it.** Come back here for the standards and the reference files it names. |
+| **unsure** | you cannot name your own model, or you are a router that may swap tiers mid-task | **Treat yourself as weak.** |
+
+**Why the split is real.** The format harnesses ask an agent to author a format from its written description — 300 lines of prose to a rendered composition in one held-in-mind pass. That is a synthesis problem, not a knowledge problem, so more instructions do not fix it, and it reliably fails below the frontier tier. The flash harness removes the synthesis: **fork an already-decomposed template off `/discover` and transplant the client's story into it.** Somebody already paid a frontier model to take that video apart — take the parts. Quality goes UP, and overfitting to one template is the correct outcome there, because the variety comes from picking a different template next time.
+
+**Unsure resolves to weak, deliberately.** A strong model following the flash harness loses a little freedom and still ships a good video. A weak model skipping it ships something the director rejects. The costs are not symmetric.
+
+### 2. Does my own subscription already include media generation?
+
+| Host agent | Image | Voice / TTS | Transcribe / STT |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| **Google Antigravity** (Gemini) | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **Gemini CLI** | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **OpenAI Codex / ChatGPT** | **Yes** (`gpt-image`) | **Yes** | **Yes** (Whisper) |
+| **Claude Code** | No — Anthropic ships no image, voice or transcription model | No | No |
+| OpenCode / Cursor / anything else | depends on the configured model — read your own tool list | | |
+
+`vidfarm agent-image --check` prints this table plus a guess at the host from its env markers. **The guess is a hint; your own tool list is the authority.** Claiming a tool you do not have wastes a turn; missing one you do have costs the director money.
+
+> **Generation already inside a flat subscription is FREE, so it is allowed in cost mode `minimize`, with no `--yes` and no permission ask.** Vidfarm bills $0 — no primitive is called, no job is created, no wallet is debited — and the provider bills $0 extra, because the capability is inside the plan the human already pays for. **A "$0 cost saving mode" build on Antigravity may therefore generate its own images AND its own voiceover, and you report it honestly as $0.**
+
+**Default to using the subscription.** Prefer it over a free local engine that takes twenty minutes on weak hardware — both cost $0 and only one meets the deadline. The free rungs (stock, IconScout, the director's own site) still come first on quality grounds: *free* does not mean *first*. Name in your report which assets came from your own subscription; that sentence is the proof `minimize` really cost $0. Full page: `references/agent-included-imagegen.md`.
+
 ## Quickstart (desktop agents — do this first)
 
 The CLI is `vidfarm`, from the npm package `@officexapp/vidfarm-devcli`. Install and authenticate before anything else:
@@ -244,6 +302,8 @@ Vidfarm is founder-friendly and pragmatic: **we do not burn expensive AI credits
 2. **HTML/JS hyperframes** — video-from-HTML: CSS/declarative animation, anime.js/GSAP motion, animated image + text elements, data-viz, modeling. Cheap, deterministic, infinitely re-themeable.
 3. **Pure AI generation** — AI image/video/voice/music. The most expensive brush; AI **video** especially. Use last, only where the other two genuinely cannot cover the beat.
 
+**There is a fourth source, and for a weak model it is the FIRST one: a template somebody else already decomposed.** `/discover` holds thousands of viral videos already taken apart into scene-by-scene DNA — hook, retention, payoff, cut rhythm, typography, and a per-beat paintbrush assignment. Forking one is free, and reproducing that decomposition yourself costs $1+ in AI spend, so always check for an existing one before paying to re-run it. `vidfarm discover --query "<the director's problem, in their words>" --json`; a row carrying `summary`, `keywords` and `promotions` is decomposed. A strong model treats this as a shortcut; **a weak model treats it as the method** — `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md`.
+
 Directors also accumulate a **reusable media asset library** — logos, stickers, reactions, b-roll, a-roll, a brand media kit. Recreation should have an opinion on **when and where** to reuse these. But respect the format's viral DNA: a director can accidentally reskin away the very thing that makes the template land, so tie every asset/paintbrush recommendation back to the harness (`viral_dna`, `editor-harness.json`) rather than swapping freely.
 
 **A technical replication decomposition names, per template, the actual method for each beat — when/where/what is raw clips vs HTML hyperframes vs pure AI gen — and offers two harnesses:**
@@ -439,14 +499,18 @@ Vidfarm keeps a small shelf of **experimental prompts**: complete, standalone me
 
 Why they exist: the prompts you find on the `/discover` pages are tuned to **one template's format**. These are deliberately **generalized** — the method, not the template — so they transfer to whatever you are building. The live index is `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental` (always current); today it holds:
 
+**Two ways to reach any of them.** Fetch the URL, or read it **by name, offline** — every one of these ships inside the devcli package: `vidfarm harness list` prints this same shelf under *Format harnesses*, `vidfarm harness show <name>` prints one (`--dna <strand>` for a single strand), and `vidfarm qa ./work --harness <name>` grades a build against it. The name is the URL slug, and underscores resolve too — `meme_recaption` and `meme-recaption` are the same harness in both places. Prefer the CLI when you already have it: no fetch, no 402, and it stacks with a base (`--harness google-news-to-video --harness short-form`).
+
 | Prompt | What it does |
 |---|---|
+| `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` (= `/experimental/flash-harness.md`) | **NOT A FORMAT — read this FIRST if you are a weak model, or unsure which you are.** The production PROCESS that sits above every row below and wraps whichever one applies. Never author a format from prose: fork an already-decomposed template off `/discover`, decompose it if nobody has (cloud on paid, `--local` on free), derive its viral + visual DNA into a `HARNESS.md`, procure every raw for every beat in ONE pass off the ladder, then transplant — keep the beat count, timings, cut rhythm and caption identity; replace every word, image, voice line and track. **Overfitting to one template is the correct outcome.** Also carries the two self-identification questions at the top of this file |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/unique-product-explainers.md` | N customer URLs → N product-introduction videos that do not look like each other. Differentiation as an input, frame-level review, measured verification |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/google-news-to-video.md` | A recent real event → a timely video. Two stages: `news-search` finds the STORY, `video-search` finds the VISUALS. Query formulas, Google operators, licence discipline |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/meme-recaption.md` | One borrowed meme clip + one new caption aimed at the offer's problem space. Casting the meme for the caption's **verb**, the seven caption frames, naming the offer without letting the joke resolve into a pitch, keying a MemeScreens raw onto a background world, and a render-level QA gate. Runs at $0 |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/ugc-reaction-greenscreen.md` | Sell an app with three streams cut against each other: `ugc-reaction` raws, a Display Greenscreen device whose screen carries the customer's real demo, and the demo itself. One actor across every beat via `actor_<uuid>`, a per-frame tracked screen insert, captions inside the platform-chrome-safe core, and two exports from one render (voiceover-only to publish, voiceover+music to review) |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/sticker-slideshow-tips.md` | A tips **carousel** — the deliverable is N still slides, and the 3.0s-per-slide MP4 is only the playable preview. Die-cut cutouts on a paper page or a photo background, a literal "Tips for…" cover, the specificity ladder, one slide shilled from the middle and written so it survives deleting the brand name, four background modes, and a measured WCAG contrast gate on the exported PNGs |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/wall-text-pov-ugc.md` | One unbroken ambient take + one static block of unplated type. No cuts, no voiceover, no subtitles, nothing animated. The retention engine is arithmetic — `duration = words / 8`, so one play lands the viewer at the **halfway mark**, committed and one pass from done — floored at 8s so a trending sound gets a real phrase of a track. The four speaker frames, MIRROR vs TURN, a density pass that treats padding as the fatal failure, casting the scene dark so the type needs no plate (measured), ping-ponging the plate for a seamless loop, and three gates. Runs at $0 |
+| `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/animated-sticker-story.md` | A narrated **paper puppet theater** — one full-bleed parchment stage that never cuts, a cast of die-cut stickers, and every element moved by ONE paused GSAP timeline (MotionPathPlugin for walks; paths in absolute canvas coordinates, never `align:"self"`). The three-node rig, the seven moves (ENTER / WALK / CROWD / BEAT / STAMP / DRAW / CAMERA), buying SHEETS rather than stickers so one art class survives, generating art without shadows and adding one CSS drop-shadow, kinetic captions that animate **colour only** on whisper word timings, a two-pass build that MEASURES where the drawing is quietest before placing any type, a feathered paper wash that is not a plate, and the offer named once as a wordmark on the last beat. Desktop-only. ~$0.25 in `hybrid`, $0 in `minimize` |
 
 Fetch one as plain markdown and follow it end to end; do not skim it into a summary.
 
@@ -470,6 +534,7 @@ The File Index above says what each file *is*; this says which one a given ask m
 
 1. If the user needs help figuring out what to make, **or asks for a "consultation"** (the `brainstorm/*` chain: cold-start interview → awareness stages → angles → hooks), read `references/onboarding.md` first. **Unless they asked for a consultation by name, open with content ideas rather than the interview** — one line of offer into `vidfarm ideas --topic "<line>"` returns 20+ titled videos, offline and free, and the director's reactions to that list make the later interview far better than asking them cold (`references/content-ideas.md`). Then offer the interview as the way to turn ideas into a strategy: keyless directors run it locally for $0 with `vidfarm consult`, and `vidfarm consult coldstart --short` is the six-question short form. **Say the interview is skippable before you ask the first question**, and work with whatever they give.
 1b. If the user asks **what to make** rather than how — "give me content ideas", "what should I post", "I'm out of ideas", "I need 30 videos for the month", "content ideas for my offer <url>" — read `references/content-ideas.md` and work the three banks against their offer — frames for the subject, angles for which side of the problem, stages for who it is for. Return 20+ titled ideas, spread across the awareness ladder, not three.
+1c. **If you are a weak model — or you cannot name your own model tier — this router does not apply to you yet.** Gemini Flash / Flash-Lite, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, Grok, Qwen, Llama, any distilled / "-mini" / "-lite" / "-turbo" tier: load `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` (offline: `vidfarm harness show flash-harness`) and follow it for the build, then come back here for the reference files it names. It replaces *authoring a format from prose* with *adapting an already-decomposed `/discover` template*, which is the difference between a video the director rejects and one they keep. Unsure resolves to weak — see the two questions at the top of this file.
 2. If the user already knows the goal and needs a suitable template, read `references/core-workflows.md` and use the template discovery flow.
 3. If the task is “change this video,” read `references/editor-workflows.md`.
 4. If the task is “find footage” or “use our existing assets,” read `references/assets-and-sourcing.md`.

package/.agents/skills/vidfarm/harnesses/README.md

@@ -111,3 +111,29 @@ The `.harness/` directory a `vidfarm pull` writes is a different thing: machine-
 | `explainer` | Faceless educational video: one claim, invented visuals |
 | `product-demo` | Real product doing a real thing — the highest slop-risk format in the catalog |
 | `product-explainer` | Introducing a product a stranger has never heard of, with no usable screen footage. The plain-English line, the simple sticker-led open, per-client differentiation |
+
+## Format harnesses — the second shelf
+
+`vidfarm harness list` prints the bases above **and** the format harnesses: complete contracts for
+ONE format, published at `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental` and shipped inside the CLI package under
+the same name as their URL slug. A base is a starting point you edit; a format harness is a method
+you follow. Read one **before** you build that format, and stack it on a base.
+
+| Name | For |
+|---|---|
+| `meme-recaption` | One borrowed meme clip, one new caption aimed at the offer's problem space |
+| `wall-text-pov-ugc` | One unbroken ambient take + one static block of unplated type. `duration = words / 8` |
+| `ugc-reaction-greenscreen` | Reaction cutaways + a keyed device carrying the customer's real app demo |
+| `sticker-slideshow-tips` | A tips carousel — N still slides at 3.0s; the slides are the deliverable |
+| `animated-sticker-story` | A narrated paper puppet theater on one parchment stage, one GSAP timeline |
+| `google-news-to-video` | Timely newsjack — news-search finds the STORY, video-search the VISUALS |
+| `unique-product-explainers` | N customer URLs → N videos that do not converge. Differentiation as an input |
+
+```bash
+vidfarm harness list                                  # both shelves
+vidfarm harness show wall-text-pov-ugc                # the whole contract, no fetch
+vidfarm qa ./work --harness wall-text-pov-ugc --harness short-form   # they STACK
+```
+
+Underscores resolve too (`meme_recaption` = `meme-recaption`), on the CLI and at the URL. The web
+index is the source of truth for what exists; `vidfarm harness list` is the same shelf, offline.

package/.agents/skills/vidfarm/recipes/bulk-scripting-with-a-harness.md

@@ -26,7 +26,8 @@ Two ways in, depending on where the format came from:
 
 ```bash
 # (a) From a bundled base — when the format is one you're defining
-vidfarm harness list                                    # short-form | hooks | ugc-testimonial | explainer | product-demo | product-explainer
+vidfarm harness list                                    # bases: short-form | hooks | ugc-testimonial | explainer | product-demo | product-explainer
+                                                        # + format harnesses: meme-recaption | wall-text-pov-ugc | … (the /experimental shelf, offline)
 vidfarm harness init hooks --out ./work/HARNESS.md
 
 # (b) From the template you're batching — when the format is one you're REPLICATING

package/.agents/skills/vidfarm/references/automation-and-local-dev.md

@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ A director who says "make me a video about X" usually wants the first. A directo
 | "give me the harness for this template_id" | `vidfarm harness derive <templateId\|forkId>` — the **decomposition**, as a harness |
 
 ```bash
-vidfarm harness list                                        # the bundled starting points
+vidfarm harness list                                        # bases to edit + the format harnesses (vidfarm.cc/experimental, offline)
 vidfarm harness init short-form --out ./work/HARNESS.md     # copy, then EDIT it
 vidfarm harness derive <forkId> --out ./work/HARNESS.md     # a decomposed template → a harness
 vidfarm harness show ./work/HARNESS.md --dna visual         # ONE strand, not the whole doc
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ vidfarm qa ./work --harness hooks --harness ./brand/HOUSE.md # built-in + your o
 
 > Don't confuse `HARNESS.md` with the `.harness/` directory `vidfarm pull` writes. That directory is machine-generated context (`context.json`, `agent-guide.md`), regenerated on every pull — never hand-edit it. `HARNESS.md` is the one the director owns.
 
-Bundled bases (`vidfarm harness list`, files under `.agents/skills/vidfarm/harnesses/`): **`short-form`** (the default — the four charges hook/loop/payoff/bait + the standalone rule), **`hooks`** (hook-variant batches: chunk-1 legibility, the unguessable test, the anti-patterns that only show up at volume), **`ugc-testimonial`**, **`explainer`**, **`product-demo`**, **`product-explainer`** (introducing a brand nobody has heard of, with no usable screen footage: the plain-English line by t=5s, the ≤3-text-run sticker-led open, VO + music bed, and the assignment method that stops N client videos converging). Each is a *starting point to edit*, never a house style to conform to — the parts that matter most are the parts the director adds. A harness can also be any file anywhere: `--harness ./campaigns/q3/RULES.md` is fully supported, and `VIDFARM_HARNESS=./work/HARNESS.md` sets a default for a whole run.
+`vidfarm harness list` prints **two shelves**. The second one is the format harnesses — the `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental` shelf, shipped in the package so `vidfarm harness show meme-recaption` works with no fetch. Those are complete contracts for ONE format: read one before you build that format, and stack it on a base (`--harness wall-text-pov-ugc --harness short-form`). The first shelf is the bundled bases (files under `.agents/skills/vidfarm/harnesses/`): **`short-form`** (the default — the four charges hook/loop/payoff/bait + the standalone rule), **`hooks`** (hook-variant batches: chunk-1 legibility, the unguessable test, the anti-patterns that only show up at volume), **`ugc-testimonial`**, **`explainer`**, **`product-demo`**, **`product-explainer`** (introducing a brand nobody has heard of, with no usable screen footage: the plain-English line by t=5s, the ≤3-text-run sticker-led open, VO + music bed, and the assignment method that stops N client videos converging). Each is a *starting point to edit*, never a house style to conform to — the parts that matter most are the parts the director adds. A harness can also be any file anywhere: `--harness ./campaigns/q3/RULES.md` is fully supported, and `VIDFARM_HARNESS=./work/HARNESS.md` sets a default for a whole run.
 
 **The format is two halves, and the split is deliberate:** a front-matter `checks:` block the CLI settles deterministically (duration, aspect, `hook_words_max`, `forbid_text`, `first_frame_text`, … — full key list in `harnesses/README.md`), and every `- [ ]` checkbox in the body, which comes back as a **review item for you to answer**. "Is the withheld answer one the viewer can't supply themselves?" is a judgment call; a linter claiming to settle it would be lying. **Answer the review items honestly in your report** — the CLI prints them precisely because it can't.
 

package/SKILL.director.md

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: vidfarm
+skill_version: 0.21.56
 description: Use Vidfarm as a director. Run a strategy **consultation** (the `brainstorm/*` chain — cold-start interview, awareness stages, persuasive angles, hooks, product placement). Answer "give me content ideas" / "what should I post" / "I need 30 videos this month" from the bundled idea banks (50 content frames x 5 awareness stages x 44 problem angles). Browse/add inspiration videos, browse the free public raws catalog BY CATEGORY (curated shelves like scroll-stoppers/greenscreen/reaction — the cheapest way to source footage for one video, and a ready-made clip pool for bulk scripting N variants), fork a template into a composition, edit it in the Trackpad Editor (timeline-based like Premiere/DaVinci), auto-decompose source video into scenes, render to MP4, approve into a shareable post, and schedule it. Includes login, provider keys, discovery, versioning, uploads/downloads, and billing. Every step is available as raw REST; `vidfarm-devcli` wraps those routes and composes the file-backed scripting flows.
 ---
 
@@ -22,6 +23,63 @@ Vidfarm's value is genuine and mostly **financial** — it is cheaper, faster, a
 - **A fresh, curated feed of viral winners.** Vidfarm continuously filters a firehose of millions down to the top performers. Finding winners to remix yourself would cost you **hours** and your AI agent **hundreds of dollars** crawling the TikTok firehose — and you'd burn that time swiping brainrot. Here the best performers are curated and instantly forkable.
 - **Design philosophy = fast to productivity, cheap to scale.** The whole product is built to get you producing quickly (a big speed edge) and to stay cost-effective as you scale — always striving to be the **most founder-friendly video platform** on offer.
 
+## Version — check once a day, and let the user skip it
+
+**The `skill_version` in the frontmatter above is this pack's version.** Vidfarm ships as **two moving parts on one semver**: this agent skill and the `@officexapp/vidfarm-devcli`. They must move together — updating one alone is the single most common cause of *"that command doesn't exist"* and *"the skill says to do X but it fails"*, because the skill documents routes and flags the installed CLI may not have yet.
+
+```bash
+vidfarm update-check --if-stale --quiet     # run at the top of a session. See below before you skip it.
+```
+
+- `--if-stale` is a **no-op** unless the last check is older than 24h (`--hours N` to change it). One network round-trip a day, however many sessions you run.
+- `--quiet` prints **nothing when you are current**, so it costs no context.
+- `--json` gives `{devcli, skill, update_available, offline, hours_since_last_check}`.
+- **Offline is reported as offline, never as outdated.** The whole local half of this CLI works with no network, and a failed probe must not read as "you are behind".
+
+**When it reports an update: tell the user, offer it, and do not update silently.**
+
+```bash
+npm i -g @officexapp/vidfarm-devcli@latest && vidfarm skills add vidfarm   # BOTH halves
+vidfarm update-check --skip      # "not now". Recorded against THIS version; a newer one asks again
+vidfarm update-check --unskip    # undo
+```
+
+**Honour a skip and stop asking.** A prompt that cannot be dismissed gets ignored, and then the real one is ignored too.
+
+`vidfarm --version` prints both halves at once. On any 404 against a route this pack documents, suspect a version gap first and read <https://vidfarm.cc/update.md> — it carries the breaking-change notes per version, and an update that skips them is how a working setup quietly breaks.
+
+## Before the quickstart: two questions about YOU
+
+Answer both once at the top of the session and write them into `CONTEXT.md`. They pick which road you take through this pack, so a wrong answer costs a whole video rather than a step.
+
+### 1. Am I a strong model or a weak one?
+
+| Tier | You are | Then |
+|---|---|---|
+| **strong** | Claude Opus / Sonnet (4.5+), GPT-5 class, Gemini Pro (3+ thinking), Fable | Use this pack as written. The `vidfarm.cc/experimental/*` format harnesses are build instructions for you. |
+| **weak** | **Gemini Flash / Flash-Lite, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, Grok, Qwen, Llama**, any "-mini" / "-lite" / "-turbo" / distilled tier | **Load `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` (offline: `vidfarm harness show flash-harness`) and follow it.** Come back here for the standards and the reference files it names. |
+| **unsure** | you cannot name your own model, or you are a router that may swap tiers mid-task | **Treat yourself as weak.** |
+
+**Why the split is real.** The format harnesses ask an agent to author a format from its written description — 300 lines of prose to a rendered composition in one held-in-mind pass. That is a synthesis problem, not a knowledge problem, so more instructions do not fix it, and it reliably fails below the frontier tier. The flash harness removes the synthesis: **fork an already-decomposed template off `/discover` and transplant the client's story into it.** Somebody already paid a frontier model to take that video apart — take the parts. Quality goes UP, and overfitting to one template is the correct outcome there, because the variety comes from picking a different template next time.
+
+**Unsure resolves to weak, deliberately.** A strong model following the flash harness loses a little freedom and still ships a good video. A weak model skipping it ships something the director rejects. The costs are not symmetric.
+
+### 2. Does my own subscription already include media generation?
+
+| Host agent | Image | Voice / TTS | Transcribe / STT |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| **Google Antigravity** (Gemini) | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **Gemini CLI** | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **OpenAI Codex / ChatGPT** | **Yes** (`gpt-image`) | **Yes** | **Yes** (Whisper) |
+| **Claude Code** | No — Anthropic ships no image, voice or transcription model | No | No |
+| OpenCode / Cursor / anything else | depends on the configured model — read your own tool list | | |
+
+`vidfarm agent-image --check` prints this table plus a guess at the host from its env markers. **The guess is a hint; your own tool list is the authority.** Claiming a tool you do not have wastes a turn; missing one you do have costs the director money.
+
+> **Generation already inside a flat subscription is FREE, so it is allowed in cost mode `minimize`, with no `--yes` and no permission ask.** Vidfarm bills $0 — no primitive is called, no job is created, no wallet is debited — and the provider bills $0 extra, because the capability is inside the plan the human already pays for. **A "$0 cost saving mode" build on Antigravity may therefore generate its own images AND its own voiceover, and you report it honestly as $0.**
+
+**Default to using the subscription.** Prefer it over a free local engine that takes twenty minutes on weak hardware — both cost $0 and only one meets the deadline. The free rungs (stock, IconScout, the director's own site) still come first on quality grounds: *free* does not mean *first*. Name in your report which assets came from your own subscription; that sentence is the proof `minimize` really cost $0. Full page: `references/agent-included-imagegen.md`.
+
 ## Quickstart (desktop agents — do this first)
 
 The CLI is `vidfarm`, from the npm package `@officexapp/vidfarm-devcli`. Install and authenticate before anything else:
@@ -244,6 +302,8 @@ Vidfarm is founder-friendly and pragmatic: **we do not burn expensive AI credits
 2. **HTML/JS hyperframes** — video-from-HTML: CSS/declarative animation, anime.js/GSAP motion, animated image + text elements, data-viz, modeling. Cheap, deterministic, infinitely re-themeable.
 3. **Pure AI generation** — AI image/video/voice/music. The most expensive brush; AI **video** especially. Use last, only where the other two genuinely cannot cover the beat.
 
+**There is a fourth source, and for a weak model it is the FIRST one: a template somebody else already decomposed.** `/discover` holds thousands of viral videos already taken apart into scene-by-scene DNA — hook, retention, payoff, cut rhythm, typography, and a per-beat paintbrush assignment. Forking one is free, and reproducing that decomposition yourself costs $1+ in AI spend, so always check for an existing one before paying to re-run it. `vidfarm discover --query "<the director's problem, in their words>" --json`; a row carrying `summary`, `keywords` and `promotions` is decomposed. A strong model treats this as a shortcut; **a weak model treats it as the method** — `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md`.
+
 Directors also accumulate a **reusable media asset library** — logos, stickers, reactions, b-roll, a-roll, a brand media kit. Recreation should have an opinion on **when and where** to reuse these. But respect the format's viral DNA: a director can accidentally reskin away the very thing that makes the template land, so tie every asset/paintbrush recommendation back to the harness (`viral_dna`, `editor-harness.json`) rather than swapping freely.
 
 **A technical replication decomposition names, per template, the actual method for each beat — when/where/what is raw clips vs HTML hyperframes vs pure AI gen — and offers two harnesses:**
@@ -439,14 +499,18 @@ Vidfarm keeps a small shelf of **experimental prompts**: complete, standalone me
 
 Why they exist: the prompts you find on the `/discover` pages are tuned to **one template's format**. These are deliberately **generalized** — the method, not the template — so they transfer to whatever you are building. The live index is `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental` (always current); today it holds:
 
+**Two ways to reach any of them.** Fetch the URL, or read it **by name, offline** — every one of these ships inside the devcli package: `vidfarm harness list` prints this same shelf under *Format harnesses*, `vidfarm harness show <name>` prints one (`--dna <strand>` for a single strand), and `vidfarm qa ./work --harness <name>` grades a build against it. The name is the URL slug, and underscores resolve too — `meme_recaption` and `meme-recaption` are the same harness in both places. Prefer the CLI when you already have it: no fetch, no 402, and it stacks with a base (`--harness google-news-to-video --harness short-form`).
+
 | Prompt | What it does |
 |---|---|
+| `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` (= `/experimental/flash-harness.md`) | **NOT A FORMAT — read this FIRST if you are a weak model, or unsure which you are.** The production PROCESS that sits above every row below and wraps whichever one applies. Never author a format from prose: fork an already-decomposed template off `/discover`, decompose it if nobody has (cloud on paid, `--local` on free), derive its viral + visual DNA into a `HARNESS.md`, procure every raw for every beat in ONE pass off the ladder, then transplant — keep the beat count, timings, cut rhythm and caption identity; replace every word, image, voice line and track. **Overfitting to one template is the correct outcome.** Also carries the two self-identification questions at the top of this file |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/unique-product-explainers.md` | N customer URLs → N product-introduction videos that do not look like each other. Differentiation as an input, frame-level review, measured verification |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/google-news-to-video.md` | A recent real event → a timely video. Two stages: `news-search` finds the STORY, `video-search` finds the VISUALS. Query formulas, Google operators, licence discipline |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/meme-recaption.md` | One borrowed meme clip + one new caption aimed at the offer's problem space. Casting the meme for the caption's **verb**, the seven caption frames, naming the offer without letting the joke resolve into a pitch, keying a MemeScreens raw onto a background world, and a render-level QA gate. Runs at $0 |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/ugc-reaction-greenscreen.md` | Sell an app with three streams cut against each other: `ugc-reaction` raws, a Display Greenscreen device whose screen carries the customer's real demo, and the demo itself. One actor across every beat via `actor_<uuid>`, a per-frame tracked screen insert, captions inside the platform-chrome-safe core, and two exports from one render (voiceover-only to publish, voiceover+music to review) |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/sticker-slideshow-tips.md` | A tips **carousel** — the deliverable is N still slides, and the 3.0s-per-slide MP4 is only the playable preview. Die-cut cutouts on a paper page or a photo background, a literal "Tips for…" cover, the specificity ladder, one slide shilled from the middle and written so it survives deleting the brand name, four background modes, and a measured WCAG contrast gate on the exported PNGs |
 | `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/wall-text-pov-ugc.md` | One unbroken ambient take + one static block of unplated type. No cuts, no voiceover, no subtitles, nothing animated. The retention engine is arithmetic — `duration = words / 8`, so one play lands the viewer at the **halfway mark**, committed and one pass from done — floored at 8s so a trending sound gets a real phrase of a track. The four speaker frames, MIRROR vs TURN, a density pass that treats padding as the fatal failure, casting the scene dark so the type needs no plate (measured), ping-ponging the plate for a seamless loop, and three gates. Runs at $0 |
+| `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental/animated-sticker-story.md` | A narrated **paper puppet theater** — one full-bleed parchment stage that never cuts, a cast of die-cut stickers, and every element moved by ONE paused GSAP timeline (MotionPathPlugin for walks; paths in absolute canvas coordinates, never `align:"self"`). The three-node rig, the seven moves (ENTER / WALK / CROWD / BEAT / STAMP / DRAW / CAMERA), buying SHEETS rather than stickers so one art class survives, generating art without shadows and adding one CSS drop-shadow, kinetic captions that animate **colour only** on whisper word timings, a two-pass build that MEASURES where the drawing is quietest before placing any type, a feathered paper wash that is not a plate, and the offer named once as a wordmark on the last beat. Desktop-only. ~$0.25 in `hybrid`, $0 in `minimize` |
 
 Fetch one as plain markdown and follow it end to end; do not skim it into a summary.
 
@@ -470,6 +534,7 @@ The File Index above says what each file *is*; this says which one a given ask m
 
 1. If the user needs help figuring out what to make, **or asks for a "consultation"** (the `brainstorm/*` chain: cold-start interview → awareness stages → angles → hooks), read `references/onboarding.md` first. **Unless they asked for a consultation by name, open with content ideas rather than the interview** — one line of offer into `vidfarm ideas --topic "<line>"` returns 20+ titled videos, offline and free, and the director's reactions to that list make the later interview far better than asking them cold (`references/content-ideas.md`). Then offer the interview as the way to turn ideas into a strategy: keyless directors run it locally for $0 with `vidfarm consult`, and `vidfarm consult coldstart --short` is the six-question short form. **Say the interview is skippable before you ask the first question**, and work with whatever they give.
 1b. If the user asks **what to make** rather than how — "give me content ideas", "what should I post", "I'm out of ideas", "I need 30 videos for the month", "content ideas for my offer <url>" — read `references/content-ideas.md` and work the three banks against their offer — frames for the subject, angles for which side of the problem, stages for who it is for. Return 20+ titled ideas, spread across the awareness ladder, not three.
+1c. **If you are a weak model — or you cannot name your own model tier — this router does not apply to you yet.** Gemini Flash / Flash-Lite, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, Grok, Qwen, Llama, any distilled / "-mini" / "-lite" / "-turbo" tier: load `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` (offline: `vidfarm harness show flash-harness`) and follow it for the build, then come back here for the reference files it names. It replaces *authoring a format from prose* with *adapting an already-decomposed `/discover` template*, which is the difference between a video the director rejects and one they keep. Unsure resolves to weak — see the two questions at the top of this file.
 2. If the user already knows the goal and needs a suitable template, read `references/core-workflows.md` and use the template discovery flow.
 3. If the task is “change this video,” read `references/editor-workflows.md`.
 4. If the task is “find footage” or “use our existing assets,” read `references/assets-and-sourcing.md`.
@@ -2907,7 +2972,7 @@ A director who says "make me a video about X" usually wants the first. A directo
 | "give me the harness for this template_id" | `vidfarm harness derive <templateId\|forkId>` — the **decomposition**, as a harness |
 
 ```bash
-vidfarm harness list                                        # the bundled starting points
+vidfarm harness list                                        # bases to edit + the format harnesses (vidfarm.cc/experimental, offline)
 vidfarm harness init short-form --out ./work/HARNESS.md     # copy, then EDIT it
 vidfarm harness derive <forkId> --out ./work/HARNESS.md     # a decomposed template → a harness
 vidfarm harness show ./work/HARNESS.md --dna visual         # ONE strand, not the whole doc
@@ -2929,7 +2994,7 @@ vidfarm qa ./work --harness hooks --harness ./brand/HOUSE.md # built-in + your o
 
 > Don't confuse `HARNESS.md` with the `.harness/` directory `vidfarm pull` writes. That directory is machine-generated context (`context.json`, `agent-guide.md`), regenerated on every pull — never hand-edit it. `HARNESS.md` is the one the director owns.
 
-Bundled bases (`vidfarm harness list`, files under `.agents/skills/vidfarm/harnesses/`): **`short-form`** (the default — the four charges hook/loop/payoff/bait + the standalone rule), **`hooks`** (hook-variant batches: chunk-1 legibility, the unguessable test, the anti-patterns that only show up at volume), **`ugc-testimonial`**, **`explainer`**, **`product-demo`**, **`product-explainer`** (introducing a brand nobody has heard of, with no usable screen footage: the plain-English line by t=5s, the ≤3-text-run sticker-led open, VO + music bed, and the assignment method that stops N client videos converging). Each is a *starting point to edit*, never a house style to conform to — the parts that matter most are the parts the director adds. A harness can also be any file anywhere: `--harness ./campaigns/q3/RULES.md` is fully supported, and `VIDFARM_HARNESS=./work/HARNESS.md` sets a default for a whole run.
+`vidfarm harness list` prints **two shelves**. The second one is the format harnesses — the `https://vidfarm.cc/experimental` shelf, shipped in the package so `vidfarm harness show meme-recaption` works with no fetch. Those are complete contracts for ONE format: read one before you build that format, and stack it on a base (`--harness wall-text-pov-ugc --harness short-form`). The first shelf is the bundled bases (files under `.agents/skills/vidfarm/harnesses/`): **`short-form`** (the default — the four charges hook/loop/payoff/bait + the standalone rule), **`hooks`** (hook-variant batches: chunk-1 legibility, the unguessable test, the anti-patterns that only show up at volume), **`ugc-testimonial`**, **`explainer`**, **`product-demo`**, **`product-explainer`** (introducing a brand nobody has heard of, with no usable screen footage: the plain-English line by t=5s, the ≤3-text-run sticker-led open, VO + music bed, and the assignment method that stops N client videos converging). Each is a *starting point to edit*, never a house style to conform to — the parts that matter most are the parts the director adds. A harness can also be any file anywhere: `--harness ./campaigns/q3/RULES.md` is fully supported, and `VIDFARM_HARNESS=./work/HARNESS.md` sets a default for a whole run.
 
 **The format is two halves, and the split is deliberate:** a front-matter `checks:` block the CLI settles deterministically (duration, aspect, `hook_words_max`, `forbid_text`, `first_frame_text`, … — full key list in `harnesses/README.md`), and every `- [ ]` checkbox in the body, which comes back as a **review item for you to answer**. "Is the withheld answer one the viewer can't supply themselves?" is a judgment call; a linter claiming to settle it would be lying. **Answer the review items honestly in your report** — the CLI prints them precisely because it can't.
 
@@ -4588,7 +4653,8 @@ Two ways in, depending on where the format came from:
 
 ```bash
 # (a) From a bundled base — when the format is one you're defining
-vidfarm harness list                                    # short-form | hooks | ugc-testimonial | explainer | product-demo | product-explainer
+vidfarm harness list                                    # bases: short-form | hooks | ugc-testimonial | explainer | product-demo | product-explainer
+                                                        # + format harnesses: meme-recaption | wall-text-pov-ugc | … (the /experimental shelf, offline)
 vidfarm harness init hooks --out ./work/HARNESS.md
 
 # (b) From the template you're batching — when the format is one you're REPLICATING

package/SKILL.md

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: vidfarm
+skill_version: 0.21.56
 description: Entry point for making, editing, and rendering short-form video with Vidfarm. Use when the task is to create a video, ad, explainer, or social clip; to edit or re-theme an existing composition; to source footage or audio; or to run a batch of video variants. Routes to the full director skill and the `vidfarm` CLI.
 ---
 
@@ -9,6 +10,65 @@ Vidfarm builds video from HTML. You fork a published template, edit it on a time
 
 This page is the router. It holds the setup, one worked example, the standards, and the file index. It does **not** hold the workflows — fetch those from the index at the bottom when a task needs them.
 
+## 0a. Version — check it once a day, and it is skippable
+
+**The `skill_version` in the frontmatter above is this document's version** — machine-readable, and the number to compare against. Vidfarm ships as **two moving parts on one semver**: the `vidfarm` agent skill and the `@officexapp/vidfarm-devcli`. Updating one without the other is the single most common cause of *"that command doesn't exist"* and *"the skill says to do X but it fails"* — the skill documents routes and flags the installed CLI may not have yet.
+
+**Check at the top of a session, at most once every 24 hours, in one command:**
+
+```bash
+vidfarm update-check --if-stale --quiet
+```
+
+- `--if-stale` makes it a **no-op** unless the last check is older than 24h (`--hours N` to change it), so an agent can run it every session for one network round-trip a day.
+- `--quiet` prints **nothing at all when you are current**. It costs no context to leave in.
+- `--json` gives `{devcli, skill, update_available, offline, hours_since_last_check}`.
+- Offline, or the registry unreachable? It says so and **does not** claim you are out of date. Everything local keeps working.
+
+**If it reports an update, tell the user and offer it — do not update silently, and do not nag.**
+
+```bash
+npm i -g @officexapp/vidfarm-devcli@latest && vidfarm skills add vidfarm   # BOTH halves, together
+vidfarm update-check --skip      # "not now" — this version stays quiet, a NEWER one asks again
+vidfarm update-check --unskip    # undo that
+```
+
+**Honour a skip.** A prompt the user cannot dismiss gets ignored, and then the real one is ignored too. `--skip` is recorded against the version number, so you are not silencing the next release.
+
+`vidfarm --version` prints both halves. Read the breaking-change notes at <https://vidfarm.cc/update.md> **before** assuming an old workflow still applies — especially on a major bump. Any 404 on a route this page documents means you are out of date; check there first rather than working around it.
+
+## 0b. Two questions about YOU, before anything else
+
+Answer both once, at the top of the session, and write them into `CONTEXT.md`. They change which road you take through this document, so getting them wrong costs a whole video.
+
+### Am I a strong model or a weak one?
+
+| Tier | You are | Then |
+|---|---|---|
+| **strong** | Claude Opus / Sonnet (4.5+), GPT-5 class, Gemini Pro (3+ thinking), Fable | Use this page as written. The `vidfarm.cc/experimental/*` format harnesses are build instructions for you. |
+| **weak** | **Gemini Flash / Flash-Lite, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, Grok, Qwen, Llama**, any "-mini" / "-lite" / "-turbo" / distilled tier | **Go to `https://vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` and follow it.** Come back here for the standards in §6. |
+| **unsure** | you cannot name your own model, or you are a router that may swap tiers mid-task | **Treat yourself as weak.** |
+
+**Why the split is real, and not a slight.** The `experimental/*` harnesses ask an agent to author a format from its written description — 300 lines of prose to a rendered composition in one held-in-mind pass. That works on frontier agents and reliably fails below them. It is a synthesis problem, not a knowledge problem, so more instructions do not fix it. The flash harness removes the synthesis instead: **fork an already-decomposed template off `/discover` and transplant the client's story into it.** Somebody already paid a frontier model to take that video apart — take the parts. Output quality goes UP, not down, and overfitting to one template is the correct outcome there.
+
+**Unsure resolves to weak, deliberately.** A strong model following the flash harness loses a little freedom and still ships a good video. A weak model skipping it ships something the client rejects.
+
+### Does my own subscription already include media generation?
+
+| Host agent | Image | Voice / TTS | Transcribe / STT |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| **Google Antigravity** (Gemini) | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **Gemini CLI** | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **OpenAI Codex / ChatGPT** | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
+| **Claude Code** | No — Anthropic ships no image, voice or transcription model | No | No |
+| OpenCode / Cursor / anything else | depends on the configured model — read your own tool list | | |
+
+`vidfarm agent-image --check` prints this plus a guess at the host from its env markers. **The guess is a hint; your own tool list is the authority.**
+
+> **Generation already inside a flat subscription is FREE, so it is allowed in cost mode `minimize`, with no `--yes` and no permission ask.** Vidfarm bills $0 — no primitive, no job, no wallet debit — and the provider bills $0 extra, because the capability is inside the plan the human already pays for. **So "$0 cost saving mode" on Antigravity may still generate its own images and its own voiceover, and you report it honestly as $0.**
+
+**Default to using the subscription.** Prefer it over a free local engine that takes twenty minutes, and long before anything billed. The free rungs (stock, IconScout, the client's own site) still come first on quality grounds — *free* does not mean *first*. Name in your report which assets came from your own subscription; that sentence is the proof `minimize` really cost $0. Full page: `references/agent-included-imagegen.md`.
+
 ## 1. Setup
 
 ```bash
@@ -19,6 +79,7 @@ vidfarm doctor                        # verifies vidfarm + ffmpeg + hyperframes
 vidfarm skills add vidfarm            # install the full director skill on disk — do this
 vidfarm serve                         # free local editor + render loop at localhost:3000
 vidfarm browser setup                 # optional: drive the user's own Chrome — FREE footage sourcing
+vidfarm update-check --if-stale --quiet   # §0a — silent when current, no-op if checked in the last 24h
 ```
 
 **Image generation you already pay for is free — check before you spend or go without.** If the agent driving this terminal includes image generation in its own subscription (Google Antigravity / Gemini CLI, OpenAI Codex / ChatGPT — **Claude Code does not**, Anthropic ships no image model), generating a graphic bills Vidfarm $0 and the provider $0 extra. That makes it legal in cost mode `minimize`, with no `--yes`. `vidfarm agent-image --check` answers "do I have it here?"; `vidfarm agent-image "<subject>" --items "a,b,c"` prints the prompt, the key-plate rules and the cut + import commands. Free stock and IconScout still come first. Full page: `references/agent-included-imagegen.md`.
@@ -60,12 +121,14 @@ Every visual on the timeline comes from one of three sources. Try them in this o
 
 A capable agent can replicate a template entirely on brush 1 and 2, on the free tier, with no wallet.
 
+**There is a fourth source, and for a weak model it is the FIRST one: a template somebody already decomposed.** `/discover` holds thousands of viral videos that have been taken apart into their scene-by-scene DNA — hook, retention, payoff, cut rhythm, typography, per-beat paintbrush assignments — and forking one is free. That decomposition costs $1+ in AI spend to reproduce yourself, so always check for an existing one before paying to re-run it. `vidfarm discover --query "<the client's problem, in their words>" --json`; a row carrying `summary`, `keywords` and `promotions` is decomposed. **Weak models: this is not an optimisation, it is the method** — see `vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md`.
+
 ## 3. Worked example — one video, end to end
 
 ```bash
 vidfarm ideas --topic "cold email tool for agencies"     # free, offline → content-ideas.md
 vidfarm storyboard ./work --init --frames "Hook,Problem,Reveal,CTA"   # plan first — free to redo
-vidfarm templates search "ugc testimonial"               # find a published template
+vidfarm discover --query "ugc testimonial" --json        # find a published template
 vidfarm fork <templateId>                                # → forkId
 vidfarm pull <forkId> --dir ./work                       # composition.html + .harness/ to disk
 vidfarm public-raws --category greenscreen --limit 20    # source footage, $0
@@ -86,6 +149,7 @@ vidfarm publish <forkId>                                 # push edits back to th
 
 | The user asks for | Do | Read |
 |---|---|---|
+| **Anything at all, and §0b said you are a weak model** | do not author a format from prose. Fork a **decomposed** template off `/discover`, derive its DNA, procure every raw, transplant the client's story into it | `vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` |
 | "Help me figure out what to make" | `vidfarm ideas --grid --topic "<offer>" --count 30` first — the list beats an interview | `references/onboarding.md` |
 | "Give me a consultation" | the `brainstorm/*` chain: cold-start → awareness stages → angles → hooks. No AI key: `vidfarm consult` prints the prompt for **you** to answer, $0 | `references/onboarding.md` |
 | "Find a template and start" | `vidfarm templates search` → `fork` → `pull` | `references/core-workflows.md`, `recipes/find-and-fork-template.md` |
@@ -98,6 +162,8 @@ vidfarm publish <forkId>                                 # push edits back to th
 | "A UGC ad for my app" / "someone reacting, then the app" / a client's app demo you have to make watchable | three streams cut against each other: `ugc-reaction` raws (ONE actor, via `actor_<uuid>`), a Display Greenscreen device carrying their real demo on its screen, and the demo. Ships a voiceover-only cut to publish + a voiceover+music cut to review | `vidfarm.cc/experimental/ugc-reaction-greenscreen.md` |
 | "A tips slideshow / carousel" / "5 tips for X" / a listicle post | N still slides at exactly 3.0s, die-cut cutouts on a page or a photo, a literal "Tips for…" cover, ONE slide shilled from the middle. **The slides are the deliverable; the MP4 is the preview.** $0–$0.15 | `vidfarm.cc/experimental/sticker-slideshow-tips.md` |
 | "A confession / truth bomb over a POV or ambient scene" / "just text on a video" / a text-story post | ONE unbroken take + ONE static block of unplated type. Nothing animates, nothing is cut. `duration = words / 8` (min 8s) so one play reaches the HALFWAY mark and they loop to finish. Cast the scene DARK so the type needs no plate. $0 | `vidfarm.cc/experimental/wall-text-pov-ugc.md` |
+| "An animated explainer / a little story that animates" / "like those Vox map animations" / "cutout paper animation" | ONE full-bleed parchment stage, no cuts, a cast of die-cut paper stickers moved by ONE paused GSAP timeline. Narrated, subtitles stay small and kinetic in colour only, the offer named once as a wordmark on the LAST beat. Buy SHEETS, not stickers. Desktop-only (the web editor strips scripts). ~$0.25 hybrid, $0 minimize | `vidfarm.cc/experimental/animated-sticker-story.md` |
+| "Make N videos for N customers / clients" / a batch that must not read as N runs of one template | differentiation is an INPUT, not a hope: assign each variant its own frame before you build any of them, then review frame by frame. $0 | `vidfarm.cc/experimental/unique-product-explainers.md` |
 | "Download this video from `<url>`" | `vidfarm download-video <url>` (paid). Free plan gets a 402 — `vidfarm browse page "<url>"` and save it from their Chrome yourself, else have them download it, then `vidfarm put-file`. Never answer "I can't." | `references/browser-harness.md` |
 | "Turn this thread / subreddit / profile into a video" | `vidfarm recycle <source>` — returns the raw decomposition, unranked; you pick the hook (paid) | `references/assets-and-sourcing.md` |
 | "Create an avatar / spokesperson / talking head" | `vidfarm avatar "<who>" --say "<line>"` — a greenscreen talking-head video, keyed in the same job | `references/primitives.md` |
@@ -117,7 +183,7 @@ Ask both once, early, then persist them. They are independent axes.
 
 | Mode | Per video | Method |
 |---|---|---|
-| `minimize` | $0 | free local compute + free stock media only |
+| `minimize` | $0 | free local compute + free stock media + **any generation your own subscription already includes** (§0b) |
 | `hybrid` *(default)* | ~$0.01–$1 | free where free, pay AI only where it clearly wins |
 | `rich-ai` | $1+ | generate reusable greenscreen assets, key them, animate in HTML, save to the library for later reuse |
 | `pure-videogen` | $5+ | script → storyboard stills → scene-by-scene generation. No reuse |
@@ -129,7 +195,7 @@ AI charges go to the user's own provider keys (`vidfarm add-provider-key`), not
 - `interactive` — at checkpoints you hand over a copy-paste brief and they hand a file back: an image prompt they run in a free web generator, or a keyword list for footage. Mint them with `vidfarm handoff image` / `vidfarm handoff raws`. Costs minutes, usually beats what an API budget buys.
 - `autonomous` — you finish end to end with zero steps from them.
 
-Two consequences worth stating out loud: `minimize + interactive` still gets custom art, for $0. `minimize + autonomous` gets none. Voice samples (`vidfarm voices --sample`, `--free --sample`) are free on both tiers — offer them either way.
+Two consequences worth stating out loud: `minimize + interactive` still gets custom art, for $0. `minimize + autonomous` gets none — **unless §0b said your own subscription includes generation, in which case `minimize + autonomous` gets custom art AND a custom voiceover, still at $0.** That is the normal case on Antigravity, which is what most gigworkers run. Voice samples (`vidfarm voices --sample`, `--free --sample`) are free on both tiers — offer them either way.
 
 ## 5b. Production has phases — plan, collect, build
 
@@ -195,7 +261,13 @@ Otherwise fetch `https://vidfarm.cc/skill-pack/vidfarm/files/<path>`. Load one f
 | `references/rest-api.md` | direct HTTP integration only |
 | `recipes/*.md` | `find-and-fork-template` · `retheme-template` · `local-edit-render-approve` · `onboard-a-new-director` · `bulk-scripting-with-a-harness` · `cutout-graphics-for-explainers` |
 | `harnesses/README.md` | anything harness-shaped — start here. Bases: `short-form` · `hooks` · `ugc-testimonial` · `explainer` · `product-demo` · `product-explainer` |
+| `vidfarm.cc/flash-harness.md` | **you are a weak model (§0a), or you are unsure.** The process harness that sits above every format harness: match a decomposed `/discover` template → decompose if nobody has → derive the viral + visual DNA → procure every raw in one pass → transplant. Also at `vidfarm harness show flash-harness`, offline |
+| `vidfarm harness list` | both shelves: the bases above, **plus every format harness from `vidfarm.cc/experimental`** — `flash-harness` (the weak-model process, not a format) · `meme-recaption` · `wall-text-pov-ugc` · `ugc-reaction-greenscreen` · `sticker-slideshow-tips` · `animated-sticker-story` · `google-news-to-video` · `unique-product-explainers`. They ship in the package, so `vidfarm harness show <name>` reads one in full with no fetch, and `vidfarm qa ./work --harness <name>` grades against it. The name is the URL slug |
 
-Also served at `vidfarm.cc`: `/experiments.md` (ad testing), `/marketplace.md` (the marketplace manual — routes you to one of the two side harnesses below), `/marketplace-buyer.md` (**buyer side**: commission videos from the crowd), `/agentic-clipper.md` (**worker side**: "Agentic Clipper" mode — one orchestrator on a long-horizon earning mission, one subagent per task), `/update.md` (upgrade runbook), `/experimental` (format harnesses under live testing — the index a clipper routes tasks against), `/skill/vidfarm-platform` (architecture), `/skill/hyperframes` (composition-authoring craft — route broad "make me a video" asks here first).
+Also served at `vidfarm.cc`: `/flash-harness.md` (**the weak-model process harness — read it first if §0a called you weak or unsure**), `/experiments.md` (ad testing), `/marketplace.md` (the marketplace manual — routes you to one of the two side harnesses below), `/marketplace-buyer.md` (**buyer side**: commission videos from the crowd), `/agentic-clipper.md` (**worker side**: "Agentic Clipper" mode — one orchestrator on a long-horizon earning mission, one subagent per task), `/update.md` (upgrade runbook), `/experimental` (format harnesses under live testing — the index a clipper routes tasks against), `/skill/vidfarm-platform` (architecture), `/skill/hyperframes` (composition-authoring craft — route broad "make me a video" asks here first).
 
 **The two marketplace harnesses never mix.** A buyer's agent must never load the clipper loop and a clipper must never load the buyer loop. If the user's side is unclear, ask: *"Do you want videos made for you, or do you want to get paid to make videos for other people?"*
+
+**But an ask about EARNING has already answered it — do not ask.** *"help me earn on vidfarm marketplace"*, *"help me make money on vidfarm"*, *"find me video gigs"*, *"any work today?"*, *"check the vending machines"*, *"run in agentic clipper mode"* all mean the **clipper** side: load `/agentic-clipper.md`, then run the four moves — read the feed's recent notifications for who is asking right now, pull the `GIG_…` id out of each notification's join link and check `available_funds` before committing, join the funded ones with a Base L2 `wallet_address` in the same call, then `GET /work/available` and poll a queue for a task. The copy-paste version is in `/marketplace.md` → *"help me earn on vidfarm" — the whole first session*.
+
+**Then ask the gigworker one more question: the RUN MODE.** It decides which stages of every task stop for them — `full-interactive` (shortlist · plan · raws · cut), `quick-interactive` (shortlist · cut), `auto-batch` (cut only — build the batch unattended, review it in one sitting), `auto-submit` (nothing; opt-in, in their own words). The middle two are the common ones. `vidfarm clipper-run mode` explains all four and saves the answer, `vidfarm clipper-run next` says what to do right now, and `vidfarm clipper-run gate <task>` exits non-zero while a human gate is open — so `gate && gigs submit …` cannot send an unreviewed cut. Full section: `/marketplace.md` → *The four run modes*.

package/clipper.md

@@ -80,6 +80,22 @@ Ask these, in one message, with the defaults stated:
 5. **How often — default every 30 minutes** while their computer is on. Respect the gig's rate
    limit above anything they ask for.
 6. **Where to keep the project — default `~/clipper/<gig-id>/`.**
+7. **Auto-submit — default OFF, and say why.** You build the video, then they watch it and approve
+   it before it goes to the client. Explain the reason in one line: rejections score against their
+   wallet and clients read that as a trust score on their public profile, so one bad submit lowers
+   future earnings. Turn it on only if they ask for it in their own words, and record those words.
+8. **Their hardware — measure it, don't ask.** Read cores, RAM and free disk
+   (`sysctl -n hw.ncpu hw.memsize` on macOS, `nproc` + `free -g` on Linux,
+   `Get-CimInstance Win32_ComputerSystem` on Windows), then time the first render. **Capable**
+   (≥ 8 GB RAM, ≥ 4 cores) uses the free local engines: `vidfarm tts --engine local` (Kokoro),
+   `vidfarm stt --engine whisper`, local keying. **Weak** hardware never starts those — they do not
+   fail, they just take twenty minutes and lose the deadline. There, ask the AI agent subscription
+   they already pay for to make the voice line, the audio or the image, and bring the file in with
+   `vidfarm put-file`. Spend stays $0 on either tier. Write the tier into `config.json`.
+9. **Which AI agent runs the loop — recommend Google Antigravity CLI on a budget**, and **OpenAI
+   Codex** if they can afford the more expensive subscription. Either runs this whole file. Do not
+   make a subscription the price of entry — start on Antigravity, get the first proof paid, and let
+   them upgrade out of earnings.
 
 Write their answers into `config.json` (Phase 3) so the loop is reproducible and they can edit it
 later without you.
@@ -279,8 +295,10 @@ What matters for a clipper loop specifically:
 built like a meme recaption gets rejected, and so does the reverse. Read the live index at
 <https://vidfarm.cc/experimental> and pick — a product/feature introduction routes to
 `unique-product-explainers.md`, a recaption or reaction routes to `meme-recaption.md`, a timely
-event routes to `google-news-to-video.md`. Nothing fits? Fall back to a CLI base
-(`vidfarm harness list`) — and if no harness fits at all, **freestyle it against the best practices
+event routes to `google-news-to-video.md`. Each of those also ships inside the CLI under the same
+name, so `vidfarm harness show meme-recaption` reads the whole contract with no fetch, and
+`vidfarm qa ./work --harness meme-recaption` grades the build against it. Nothing fits? Fall back to
+a CLI base (`vidfarm harness list`) — and if no harness fits at all, **freestyle it against the best practices
 in <https://vidfarm.cc/skill.md>.** That is a normal outcome, not a failure: harnesses reproduce a
 *known* format, and a task outside every known format is still one you can deliver well. Never force
 a task into the wrong harness, and never decline one just because no harness matched.
@@ -332,10 +350,23 @@ vidfarm put-file ./sheet.png
 vidfarm mask ./sheet.png --crop x,y,w,h --flat "#00FF00" --out prop-a.png   # once per element
 ```
 
-**Watch the finished video before you submit it.** Check `vidfarm stills` frames or open the MP4.
-Ask yourself whether it actually satisfies `terms`. If it doesn't, fix it or decline the task —
-a rejected proof carries a reputation penalty (`low_quality` 1x, `incomplete` 2x, `fake_proof` 5x)
-and those follow their wallet across every gig on the network.
+**The gigworker watches the finished video and approves it before you submit. Auto-submit is OFF by
+default.** Show them the file — `vidfarm serve` plays it, `vidfarm stills` gives frames — say what
+you want checked (brief satisfied, hook alive in 3 seconds, captions readable and in the safe zone,
+audio clean, brand right), and **wait**. No answer is not a yes. If they say fix it, fix it and come
+back. If they say drop it, do not submit.
+
+**This is a money rail, not politeness.** A rejected proof carries a reputation penalty
+(`low_quality` 1x, `incomplete` 2x, `fake_proof` 5x), it follows their wallet across every gig on
+the network, and **clients read it as a trust score on their public profile** before choosing whose
+pitch to take. One weak video lowers every future payday; a run of approved ones raises the score
+and wins better-funded machines at higher prices. Holding a cut back costs one task. Submitting it
+costs earnings they will never see arrive.
+
+**Only submit unattended when the gigworker explicitly asks for it** — "auto-submit", "you don't
+need to check with me". Write the exact words and the date into `config.json`, keep the permission
+as narrow as they gave it (one machine is not all machines), and turn it back off after any
+rejection. Never enable it yourself to hit a deadline or clear a queue.
 
 ---
 
@@ -405,6 +436,9 @@ what they earned (or are owed, for off-chain), and what it cost — AI spend sho
 
 These exist because the loop touches real customers, real reputation, and real money.
 
+- **Never submit a video the gigworker hasn't approved**, unless they explicitly asked for
+  auto-submit. Build, QA and queue unattended all you like; the last step waits for a human.
+  Rejections are permanent, wallet-anchored, and visible to clients as a public trust score.
 - **Never fake a proof.** Every submitted URL must point at a video you actually rendered for that
   task. `fake_proof` is a 5x reputation penalty and it is permanent and wallet-anchored.
 - **Never promise earnings.** Pay is per approved proof and demand-driven — quiet days pay nothing.