@slatesvideo/shared 0.5.7 → 0.5.9

package/dist/operations/index.js

@@ -1593,7 +1593,7 @@ export const generateVideo = {
         projectId: z.string().uuid().optional().describe('Save into this Slates project. Strongly recommended — the desktop UI shows a progress card live and the asset appears when complete.'),
         aspectRatio: z.enum(['1:1', '16:9', '9:16', '4:3', '3:4', '21:9', '9:21', '4:5', '5:4', '2:3', '3:2']).optional().describe('Veo locks to 16:9 — passing anything else will be ignored or fail. Kling/Seedance support all.'),
         duration: z.number().int().min(3).max(30).optional().describe('Seconds. Kling: 5-15. Veo: 4, 6, or 8 only (4K only at 8s). Seedance 2: 4-15. Seedance 2.5: 4-30 (the only model that reaches 30). Omni Flash: 3-10. Default 5 if omitted but always be explicit — cost scales linearly, and a 30s seedance-2.5 take is several hundred credits.'),
-        videoResolution: z.enum(['480p', '720p', '1080p', '4k']).optional().describe('Veo + Seedance. Seedance 2: 480p/720p/1080p/4K (default 1080p; 4K is native, the most expensive, and Pro-only). Seedance 2.5: 480p/720p ONLY (default 720p) — it has no 1080p and no 4K on any provider, so asking for one is rejected, not downgraded. Veo: 720p/1080p same price, 4K more (8s only).'),
+        videoResolution: z.enum(['480p', '720p', '1080p', '4k']).optional().describe('Veo + Seedance. Seedance 2: 480p/720p/1080p/4K (default 1080p; 4K is native, the most expensive, and Pro-only). Seedance 2.5: 480p/720p ONLY (default 720p) — no 1080p and no 4K on any route Slates offers, so asking for one is rejected, not downgraded. Veo: 720p/1080p same price, 4K more (8s only).'),
         firstFrameAssetId: z.string().optional().describe('Starting frame for image-to-video: asset UUID or badge code ("IMG-A8") — codes resolve against the project at call time, so a code the user just spoke is always safe to pass.'),
         lastFrameAssetId: z.string().optional().describe('Ending frame (UUID or badge code). Veo and Seedance only. Pairs with firstFrameAssetId for guided transitions.'),
         ingredientAssetIds: z.array(z.string()).max(30).optional().describe('Visual reference / ingredient assets (UUIDs or badge codes) for Kling Omni, Seedance, or Omni Flash. Up to 30 (Seedance 2.5), 9 (Seedance 2), 4 (Kling), or 7 (Omni Flash, combined across all ref params). More is not better: 2-4 strong references beat both extremes, and past 4 reference PEOPLE output stability drops on Seedance regardless of the cap.'),

package/dist/prompts/model-facts.d.ts

@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ export declare function multimodalRefSummary(id: string): string;
  * change the other in the same pass. Both sides match on a WORD BOUNDARY, so
  * "added" and "readdress" are not hits.
  */
-export declare const SEEDANCE_TASK_INTENT_WORDS: readonly ["add", "remove", "replace", "change", "edit the video", "extend", "continue", "continue the story"];
+export declare const SEEDANCE_TASK_INTENT_WORDS: readonly ["add", "insert", "remove", "delete", "modify", "replace", "change", "edit the video", "extend", "continue", "continue the story"];
 /** Which trigger words a prompt actually contains, so a warning can name them.
  *  Mirrors `seedanceTaskIntentWords()` in slate/src/shared/pricing.ts. */
 export declare function seedanceTaskIntentWords(prompt: string): string[];

package/dist/prompts/model-facts.js

@@ -3,6 +3,12 @@
 // RUNTIME source of truth for limits is slate/src/shared/pricing.ts
 // (MODEL_REGISTRY.maxRefImages / maxIngredientImages); these mirror it for
 // documentation. Code-verified 2026-06-25.
+//
+// Prose that ALSO appears in a skill or the tips card comes from
+// skills/_partials/*.md via PARTIALS — never restated here. A `notes` string is
+// a third rendering of a fact, and a third rendering is a third thing that can
+// survive a doctrine reversal the other two got.
+import { PARTIALS } from './partials.generated.js';
 /**
  * One sentence of multimodal-reference capacity for a model, derived. Returns
  * an empty string for a model that takes none, so a caller can append it
@@ -46,7 +52,12 @@ export function multimodalRefSummary(id) {
  * "added" and "readdress" are not hits.
  */
 export const SEEDANCE_TASK_INTENT_WORDS = [
-    'add', 'remove', 'replace', 'change', 'edit the video',
+    // The edit half and the extension half of ByteDance's own trigger lists
+    // (Seedance 2.5 prompt guide → "Trigger keywords in prompt"). 'insert',
+    // 'delete' and 'modify' are named there and were missing here; 'change to',
+    // 'extend forward/backward', 'continue from' and 'extend the story' are all
+    // caught by the shorter word already in the list.
+    'add', 'insert', 'remove', 'delete', 'modify', 'replace', 'change', 'edit the video',
     'extend', 'continue', 'continue the story',
 ];
 /** Which trigger words a prompt actually contains, so a warning can name them.
@@ -139,7 +150,7 @@ export const MODEL_FACTS = [
         maxReferenceFilesTotal: 50,
         // No companion requirement — audio-only references are one of the things
         // the second seat actually buys.
-        notes: 'A SECOND SEAT NEXT TO 2.0, NOT AN UPGRADE OF IT — and the single most important fact is that it is 480p/720p ONLY. No 1080p, no 4K, on any provider. Pick 2.5 over 2.0 when the shot needs LENGTH (one 30s take vs 15s), MANY REFERENCES (30 images, plus video and audio references — 50 total), an AUDIO-ONLY reference (2.0 requires an image or video alongside audio; 2.5 does not), or tighter prompt adherence. Pick 2.0 when resolution matters at all. VIDEO-ONLY. 🚨 COST DISCIPLINE: 720p STOPS READING AS "THE CHEAP ONE" HERE. A 30s 720p clip on the real-face route is 710 credits and on the AI-face route 484 — more than a 15s 1080p Seedance 2.0 face generation (411), against a 1,000-credit welcome grant. Always quote with slates_estimate_generation_cost before a long take, and draft at 480p/4-8s. 🚨 PROMPT INTENT IS A TASK-TYPE TRIGGER: when a request carries reference images/video/audio, the words "add", "remove", "replace", "change", "edit the video", "extend" or "continue" make the provider reclassify it as a video EDIT or EXTEND and fail it AFTER the job queues (credits are refunded, but the run stalls). If you mean to edit an existing clip, use slates_edit_video with model seedance-2.5-edit. If you mean a fresh shot, describe the finished frame rather than an instruction to change one.',
+        notes: `A SECOND SEAT NEXT TO 2.0, NOT AN UPGRADE OF IT — and the single most important fact is that it is 480p or 720p on every route Slates offers: no 1080p, no 4K. Pick 2.5 over 2.0 when the shot needs LENGTH (one 30s take vs 15s), MANY REFERENCES (30 images, plus video and audio references — 50 total), an AUDIO-ONLY reference (2.0 requires an image or video alongside audio; 2.5 does not), TIMED BEATS, or tighter prompt adherence. Pick 2.0 when resolution matters at all. VIDEO-ONLY. TIMESTAMPS: ${PARTIALS['seedance-25-timestamps-short']} Multi-view subject reference images are also supported on 2.5 (up to 5 subjects) where 2.0 wanted one view per subject. 🚨 COST DISCIPLINE: 720p STOPS READING AS "THE CHEAP ONE" HERE. A 30s 720p clip on the real-face route is 710 credits and on the AI-face route 484 — more than a 15s 1080p Seedance 2.0 face generation (411), against a 1,000-credit welcome grant. Always quote with slates_estimate_generation_cost before a long take, and explore at SHORT LENGTH (4-8s) rather than at low resolution — a 480p pass does not de-risk a 720p render, because generation is stochastic and the 720p run is a different take, not the same shot rendered better. 🚨 PROMPT INTENT IS A TASK-TYPE TRIGGER: when a request carries reference images/video/audio, the words "add", "remove", "replace", "change", "edit the video", "extend" or "continue" make the provider reclassify it as a video EDIT or EXTEND and fail it AFTER the job queues (credits are refunded, but the run stalls). If you mean to edit an existing clip, use slates_edit_video with model seedance-2.5-edit. If you mean a fresh shot, describe the finished frame rather than an instruction to change one.`,
     },
     {
         id: 'seedance-2.5-edit',
@@ -147,7 +158,7 @@ export const MODEL_FACTS = [
         kind: 'video',
         maxRefImages: null,
         maxIngredients: 0, // prompt + source clip only on slates_edit_video
-        notes: 'VIDEO-TO-VIDEO EDIT via slates_edit_video — the ONLY edit engine that accepts a clip LONGER THAN 15 SECONDS (4-30s vs Kling O3 edit 3-15s and Omni Flash edit 3-10s). That length is the whole reason to route here; for a clip inside the others\' range compare on fidelity instead (Omni Flash edit won the 7/09 prompt-only head-to-head; Kling edit is the one that takes element/style reference images). 480p/720p output, native audio. Prompt + source clip only on this op — no reference images. Output length follows the SOURCE clip and is billed as the ceiled source length, on the video-reference rate tier: an edit costs roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length, because every provider bills an edit on input + output seconds. Set seedanceFace:true when a character face is visible in the clip — the faceless provider blocks faces outright. There is no consented-real-face route for editing.',
+        notes: 'VIDEO-TO-VIDEO EDIT via slates_edit_video — the ONLY edit engine that accepts a clip LONGER THAN 15 SECONDS (4-30s vs Kling O3 edit 3-15s and Omni Flash edit 3-10s), though ByteDance recommends staying inside 20s for quality. That length is the whole reason to route here; for a clip inside the others\' range compare on fidelity instead (Omni Flash edit won the 7/09 prompt-only head-to-head; Kling edit is the one that takes element/style reference images). 480p/720p output, native audio. Prompt + source clip only on this op — no reference images (the MODEL takes 1-5 reference images on an edit; Slates has not wired that path). Phrase the change as "from A to B", and TIMESTAMP a partial edit ("…from 4-6 seconds…") — 2.5 reads whole-second timestamps on edits, and without a range the instruction applies to the whole clip. AUDIO is editable on this same row: change a line, change an accent, translate dialogue with re-fitted lips, strip or replace BGM and sound effects. Output length follows the SOURCE clip and is billed as the ceiled source length, on the video-reference rate tier: an edit costs roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length, because every provider bills an edit on input + output seconds. Set seedanceFace:true when a character face is visible in the clip — the faceless provider blocks faces outright. There is no consented-real-face route for editing.',
     },
     {
         id: 'kling-v3',

package/dist/prompts/partials.generated.js

@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ export const PARTIALS = {
     "reference-rules-core": "Identity = a few flat-lit neutral angles; one reference per role, named inline; 2-4 refs not 12; describe environments instead of feeding a grid.\n\n1. **2-4 strong references beat both extremes.** Not 1 (warps toward itself), not 12 (averages worse). Start with 2-3 focused refs — each one adds context AND another variable to balance.\n2. **One reference per ROLE, named in the prompt** — identity / style-grade / environment. The model does **not** infer a reference's role from its position in the list; the inline name carries it. Same-role competitors drift (two \"identity\" refs of different people blend into a third face). Slates composes the naming for you from your `@mentions` / `#tags` — you never hand-write role labels.\n3. **One identity sheet per character, named inline.** A character's identity is a single asset (dominant portrait + body panels), so attach that one asset rather than a pile of views: **fewer competing renderings of a face is better, because the model cannot tell which one is authoritative and averages them.** Slates cites it as `Marcus (image 1)`. **Do NOT hand-write a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block or role essays** (\"use for identity, ignore the outfit, render a neutral expression\") — that drags the sheet's studio lighting and wardrobe into a scene that asked for neither. The prompt leads; the user's words own wardrobe, expression, lighting, and action.\n4. **Flat-light identity refs.** Prep identity references with flat, even, shadowless lighting on a plain neutral background. A studio-lit or scene-lit character sheet bleeds its lighting into every generation — the failure looks like the subject was green-screen-pasted in front of the location. Reference prep beats prompting here.\n5. **Environment: describe it, don't feed a grid.** Default to describing the location in words and let the model build a space that fits the shot. Reserve an environment reference for a mandatory exact-match, and then use ONE clean establishing image with natural ambient light that reads as the location's real light — never a multi-panel grid fed whole.\n6. **Grids: explore, don't input.** Use grids to explore compositions cheaply, then pick a cell. Never feed a grid back in as a reference — the cells share a split detail budget and were generated jointly, so their flaws propagate.\n7. **Reuse the same refs across every shot** in a sequence. Lock a set and keep it; swapping references mid-sequence causes drift, because the model adapts each reference to the current prompt rather than copying it.\n8. **Legible in-shot text → bake it into a still start frame, never trust text-to-video.** Have an image model render the text, then animate from that locked frame. Video models smear type.\n9. **Working from existing media — describe ONLY what changes.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing, and performance; re-describing them fights the model. Narrate the delta. (Video lane: restyle your own clip while keeping the performance; delayed-VFX on \"video one\"; marker-object insertion; video-as-reference for a series.)\n10. **Style transforms happen in natural language.** By default the source's artistic medium and visual style are inherited. To change it, add a plain-text instruction (\"anime → real person\"). There are no preset pickers, and there is no style slider.",
     "reference-tips-short": "Name each reference inline; never write role essays. Slates does this for you: `@mention` a subject or environment and it composes `Marcus (image 1) in the cafe (image 2)`, citing them in the exact order it sends them. One canonical identity image avoids competing facial renderings; a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block drags reference lighting into your scene. Start with 2-3 focused refs.",
     "references-read-literally": "> **The general law: the model reads a reference literally.**\n> A reference image is not a suggestion. Whatever is baked into it — lighting, medium, texture, symmetry, competing identities — is read as a **property of the subject** and reproduced downstream. A baked rim light tints every shot made from that sheet. A sheet that looks like a 3D game render gets animated like game footage. Two competing renderings of one face get averaged into a third face.\n\nEvery reference rule below is a corollary of that one sentence, which is why \"prep the reference\" beats \"prompt around the reference\" every time:\n\n- **Flat, plain identity refs** — because scene lighting in the sheet becomes scene lighting in the output (Slates' own receipt: a studio-lit sheet produced a subject that looked green-screen-pasted in front of mountains).\n- **One authoritative rendering per subject** — because the model cannot tell which panel is the real one. ByteDance documents this failure directly: multi-view character assets \"confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"\n- **No 3D-game-render look in a reference** — the model recognizes the render mood and inherits its motion character, so the *animation* comes out looking like game footage. This is not a taste rule; it is the same literal-reading mechanism applied to the temporal layer.\n- **Break perfect symmetry** — mirrored faces and dead-square framing read as synthetic, and the model preserves that reading rather than correcting it.\n\n**What this means in practice:** when output is wrong in a way that tracks the *subject* rather than the *scene* — the lighting is wrong the same way in every shot, the face drifts, the material looks synthetic everywhere — fix the reference, not the prompt. Prompting around a baked-in property is the expensive way to lose.",
+    "seedance-25-timestamps": "**2.0 does not respond to timestamps and answers only to shot numbers. 2.5 responds to\ninteger-second timestamps.** That is ByteDance's own first line under \"Differences from Seedance\n2.0\", and it is why a 30-second take is usable at all: the length is only worth buying if you can\nsay *when* things happen inside it.\n\nBoth formats are valid on 2.5, and you can mix them — `Shot N` blocks for a storyboard whose\npacing you are happy to leave to the model, timestamps when a beat has to land at a moment.\n\n**Three ways to control time, all first-party:**\n\n| Form | Write it like |\n|---|---|\n| **Interval** | `0-3 seconds… 3-7 seconds… 7-15 seconds` or `[1s-4s]… [4s-8s]… [8s-12s]` |\n| **Time point** | *\"Quick left sideways transition at the 5-second mark.\"* |\n| **Relative** | *\"After 3 seconds, everyone around him shakes their head.\"* · *\"The frame freezes for 1 second after he presses the shutter.\"* |\n\n**The rules that come with them:**\n\n- **One second is the smallest unit.** Integers only — no `2.5s`, no frames.\n- **No gaps in the timeline.** `0-3s… 5-6s…` leaves 3-5s unspecified and the model fills it however\n  it likes. Intervals must abut: `0-3s`, `3-7s`, `7-15s`.\n- **Budget the plot to the seconds.** Too little content in a range and the model improvises to\n  fill it; too much and you get extra cuts or dropped beats. This is the actual craft of a 30s take.\n- **Never time-code a high-frequency action.** *\"Shake your head three times per second\"* is\n  explicitly called out as a misuse — timestamps schedule beats, they don't choreograph frames.\n- **Transitions want both halves:** the moment AND the method — *\"At the 5-second mark, the camera\n  transitions leftward with a left wipe into a natural dissolve.\"*\n- **Timestamps work on an EDIT too**, and that is where they earn the most: they scope a change in\n  time as well as in content — *\"Change the man's action from drinking coffee to mopping the floor\n  from 4-6 seconds in Video 1, and leave the rest of the content unchanged.\"* Without a range, a\n  whole-clip instruction is applied to the whole clip.\n\nDo **not** carry this back to 2.0, and do not carry Veo's `[00:00-00:02]` bracket syntax into\neither — 2.0 ignores time entirely, and the cross-model syntax swap is its own known failure.",
+    "seedance-25-timestamps-short": "Seedance 2.0 ignores timing and answers only to \"Shot 1 / Shot 2\"; 2.5 acts on whole-second timestamps, and that is what makes a 30-second take controllable rather than just long. Three forms work: intervals (\"0-3 seconds…3-7 seconds\"), a point (\"at the 5-second mark\"), or relative (\"after 3 seconds\"). Whole seconds only, no gaps between intervals, and never to choreograph fast repeated motion. They work on edits too, where a range scopes the change: \"…from 4-6 seconds…\".",
     "still-gate": "**A visible defect in the still is already a STOP.** Do not animate it. Fix the frame first, then move to motion — and go to motion only when the crop passes the still scan and you genuinely need movement to confirm an uncertain edge, reflection, or object.\n\nThis is a **cost** rule as much as a craft rule: a 1080p/10s premium video generation costs many multiples of an image re-roll, and video is where a defect stops being fixable. Anything wrong in the still gets worse in motion — soft geometry mushes, broken-but-plausible objects fall apart, oily textures start crawling. **Animating a known-bad frame is the single most expensive mistake in the pipeline.** Re-rolling the image is the cheap move; re-rolling the video is not.",
 };
 //# sourceMappingURL=partials.generated.js.map

package/dist/prompts/prompting-tips.js

@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ const SEEDANCE = {
             {
                 heading: 'Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3 — never time stamps',
                 example: 'Shot 1: Side shot of the alley; the man slowly starts running.\nShot 2: He knocks over a fruit stand; the camera shakes and cuts to his face.\nShot 3: He climbs a low wall; the camera pulls back onto the empty street.',
-                note: 'ByteDance: write a "Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3" storyboard in the order events occur, then merge it into one prompt. Do NOT write "At 4 seconds" or "0:00–0:03" and do not set per-shot durations — official docs say precise timing is unstable and forcing it "may lead to abnormal generation results." Let the plot set the pacing.',
+                note: 'ByteDance: write a "Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3" storyboard in the order events occur, then merge it into one prompt. Do NOT write "At 4 seconds" or "0:00–0:03" and do not set per-shot durations — Seedance 2.0 does not respond to timestamps at all, and forcing them "may lead to abnormal generation results." Let the plot set the pacing. (Seedance 2.5 is the exception: it does read integer-second timestamps.)',
                 critical: true,
             },
             {
@@ -102,11 +102,14 @@ const SEEDANCE = {
         'Don\'t cross-pollinate image-model syntax: named lenses, apertures and film stocks ("85mm f/1.4", "Kodak Portra 400") are a Nano Banana lever and a Seedance anti-pattern. Translate them into shot size, depth of field and colour tone instead.',
     ],
 };
+/** The 2.0 tip that 2.5 REVERSES — 2.0 ignores timestamps, 2.5 acts on them.
+ *  Matched by heading so the 2.5 entry drops it rather than contradicting it. */
+const SEEDANCE_NO_TIMESTAMPS_HEADING = 'Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3 — never time stamps';
 const SEEDANCE_25 = {
     ...SEEDANCE,
     label: 'Seedance 2.5',
     intro: [
-        'Seedance 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT next to 2.0, not an upgrade of it. It buys one 30-second take instead of 15, up to 30 image references (plus 10 video and 10 audio), and audio-only references — and it gives up 1080p and 4K entirely. It is 480p or 720p, on every route. Everything below about writing the prompt is the same as 2.0.',
+        'Seedance 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT next to 2.0, not an upgrade of it. It buys one 30-second take instead of 15, up to 30 image references (plus 10 video and 10 audio), audio-only references and integer-second timestamps — and it gives up 1080p and 4K. It is 480p or 720p on every route Slates offers.',
         "ByteDance's official advanced formula has 8 slots: precise subject + action details + scene/environment + lighting & color tone + camera movement + visual style + image quality + constraints. Sweet spot 60-150 words for a single shot, longer for multi-shot.",
     ],
     columns: [
@@ -114,16 +117,22 @@ const SEEDANCE_25 = {
             {
                 heading: 'Do not write edit instructions here',
                 example: '\u274c a wide shot of the workshop, remove the tripod\n\u2705 the workshop bench, clear and uncluttered',
-                note: 'With references attached, "add", "remove", "replace", "change", "extend" and "continue" make Seedance 2.5 treat the request as a video EDIT, and it then fails on constraints it never set — after the job has queued. Describe the finished frame instead. To actually edit a clip, attach it and pick Seedance 2.5 Edit.',
+                note: 'With references attached, "add", "insert", "remove", "delete", "modify", "replace", "change", "extend" and "continue" make Seedance 2.5 treat the request as a video EDIT, and it then fails on constraints it never set — after the job has queued. Describe the finished frame instead. To actually edit a clip, attach it and pick Seedance 2.5 Edit.',
                 critical: true,
             },
-            ...SEEDANCE.columns[0],
+            {
+                heading: 'Timestamps work here — they do not on 2.0',
+                example: '0-3 seconds: he steps off the curb, rain starting.\n3-7 seconds: headlights sweep across him; he turns.\n7-15 seconds: he runs; the camera falls behind.',
+                note: PARTIALS['seedance-25-timestamps-short'],
+                critical: true,
+            },
+            ...SEEDANCE.columns[0].filter((t) => t.heading !== SEEDANCE_NO_TIMESTAMPS_HEADING),
         ],
         [
             {
                 heading: '720p is not the cheap one here',
                 example: '30s \u00b7 720p \u00b7 Face route = 484 credits\n15s \u00b7 1080p \u00b7 Seedance 2.0 Face = 411 credits',
-                note: 'Length is what moves the price, and 2.5 doubles the length ceiling — so a 30-second 720p clip can cost more than a 15-second 1080p one, against a 1,000-credit starting balance. Draft at 480p and 4-8 seconds; spend the length only on a take you already know works. The Generate button always shows the exact number first.',
+                note: 'Length is what moves the price, and 2.5 doubles the length ceiling — so a 30-second 720p clip can cost more than a 15-second 1080p one, against a 1,000-credit starting balance. Explore at short LENGTH rather than low resolution: cut the seconds to 4-8 while you are finding the shot, and stay at the resolution you actually want. A 480p pass does not de-risk a 720p render — generation is stochastic, so the 720p run is a different take, not the same shot rendered better. The Generate button always shows the exact number first.',
                 critical: true,
             },
             {
@@ -135,7 +144,7 @@ const SEEDANCE_25 = {
         ],
     ],
     footer: [
-        '30 image references is a budget, not a target. Every reference rule still holds: 2-4 strong references beat both extremes, one reference per role, one authoritative rendering per subject — and past 4 reference PEOPLE, output stability drops regardless of the cap. The larger budget is for long multi-shot takes and for video plus audio references alongside images.',
+        '30 image references is a budget, not a target — 2-4 strong references still beat both extremes, one per role. ByteDance\'s own ceilings for 2.5: 1-8 subjects bound by image reference stay stable (9-12 works but needs re-rolls), 1-5 subjects bound by video or audio reference, and 5-10 seconds is the sweet spot for a reference clip. Unlike 2.0, a multi-view turnaround sheet can be a single subject reference here — past 5 subjects, go back to one view per image. The larger budget is for long multi-shot takes and for video plus audio references alongside images.',
         'A reference VIDEO bills input seconds PLUS output seconds, and 2.5 accepts references up to 30s combined — so a 20-second reference driving a 20-second output bills 40 seconds. The Generate button shows the total.',
         ...(SEEDANCE.footer ?? []).slice(0, 2),
         'Frames and reference images stay mutually exclusive, and on a first/last-frame generation Seedance 2.5 chooses the aspect ratio itself — the ratio control shows "Adaptive" because the start frame decides the shape.',
@@ -152,8 +161,14 @@ const SEEDANCE_25_EDIT = {
         [
             {
                 heading: 'Name the change, keep the rest',
-                example: 'Strictly edit the clip, and change the blue jacket to a red one.',
-                note: 'The clip already carries its composition, motion, timing and performance — re-describing them fights the model. One change per pass; chain passes for compound edits. Never write "reference the video" in an edit: that phrasing gets the request re-read as a fresh generation inspired by your clip instead of an edit of it.',
+                example: 'Strictly edit the clip, and change the blue jacket from navy to red.',
+                note: 'The clip already carries its composition, motion, timing and performance — re-describing them fights the model. Say the change as "from A to B" rather than as an outcome: naming what it currently is tells the model what to overwrite. One change per pass; chain passes for compound edits. Never write "reference the video" in an edit: that phrasing gets the request re-read as a fresh generation inspired by your clip instead of an edit of it.',
+                critical: true,
+            },
+            {
+                heading: 'Scope the edit in time',
+                example: 'Change the man\'s action from drinking coffee to mopping the floor from 4-6 seconds, and leave the rest of the clip unchanged.',
+                note: PARTIALS['seedance-25-timestamps-short'],
                 critical: true,
             },
             {
@@ -171,14 +186,20 @@ const SEEDANCE_25_EDIT = {
                 heading: 'When to use it instead of the others',
                 note: 'Length is the reason: it is the only engine that accepts a clip over 15 seconds. Inside the others\' range, choose on fidelity — Omni Flash Edit is the prompt-only fidelity winner and the cheapest seat, and Kling O3 Edit is the one that takes subject and style reference images.',
             },
+            {
+                heading: 'It edits the audio too',
+                example: 'Only edit the man\'s dialogue: change it to "Don\'t come over here," in an American accent. Keep everything else unchanged.',
+                note: 'The same engine rewrites what is heard while the picture stays put — change a line, change an accent, translate the dialogue and re-fit the lip movement, or strip and replace music and sound effects. Priced like any other edit, on the source clip\'s length.',
+            },
             {
                 heading: 'Prompt and clip only',
-                note: 'No character or style reference images on this engine. If the edit needs a reference image to lock an identity, that is Kling O3 Edit\'s job.',
+                note: 'No character or style reference images on this engine in Slates today. If the edit needs a reference image to lock an identity, that is Kling O3 Edit\'s job.',
             },
         ],
     ],
     footer: [
         'Trim before you edit, not after: the bill is the source clip\'s length rounded up, so a 30-second clip you only needed 8 seconds of costs nearly four times what it had to.',
+        'Clips under 20 seconds edit most reliably. Up to 30 is accepted, and the returned clip can land within about a third of a second of the source length — only transition frames are compressed, nothing is cut.',
     ],
 };
 const KLING = {

package/dist/skills/content.js

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ export const SKILLS = {
     "slates-cost-discipline": "---\nname: slates-cost-discipline\ndescription: Mandatory pre-flight discipline before ANY generation call (image or video) — estimate cost, announce in credits, get confirmation, aggregate batches. Read this every time before calling slates_generate_image or any future slates_generate_* op. Skipping this risks burning the user's credits on guesses.\n---\n\n# Slates cost discipline — read before every generation\n\nGeneration costs real money. Every call is on the user's credits. The user can't see what you're about to spend until you tell them. **Tell them first, generate second.**\n\n## The 4 rules\n\n### 1. Pre-flight estimate — never call generate without one\n\nBefore ANY `slates_generate_*` call, run `slates_estimate_generation_cost` first. Inputs you must lock before estimating:\n\n- **Model** — derived from the op (`slates_generate_image` → `nano-banana-2-{resolution}`)\n- **Resolution** — never let the op default. Pick deliberately. Drafts → 1k. Hero → 2k. Print → 4k.\n- **Aspect ratio** — never let the op default to 1:1. Pick from the use case (cinematic → 16:9, mobile vertical → 9:16, square feed → 1:1).\n- **Count** — explicit. Don't generate 4 when 1 will tell you if the prompt works.\n\nIf aspect ratio or resolution isn't obvious from the user's request, **ask before estimating**. Don't guess.\n\n### 2. Announce in credits, plainly, before spending\n\nSlates bills abstract **credits** (they never expire). Announce the credit total the estimate returns — never dollars.\n\nFormat: `About to spend N credits on M image(s) at [resolution] [aspect ratio]. Proceed?`\n\nExamples:\n- `About to spend 4 credits on 1 image at 1k 16:9. Proceed?`\n- `About to spend 24 credits on 4 images at 2k 9:16 (variants). Proceed?`\n\nBelow ~7 credits you can proceed silently after announcing once. Above ~7 credits wait for explicit confirmation. Above ~17 credits the server itself will gate with `requires_confirm` — pass `confirm: true` only after the user explicitly OKs.\n\n### 3. Aggregate batches into ONE upfront announcement\n\nIf you're planning a multi-call workflow (5 storyboard frames, 3 character variants, a grid of options), **announce the total before the first call**, not five small announcements after the fact.\n\nFormat: `Plan: N generations totaling C credits. [Brief description of the sequence.] Proceed with the batch?`\n\nExample: `Plan: 6 frame generations at 1k 16:9 totaling 24 credits — establishing wide, push-in, two-shot, reverse, OTS, insert. Proceed?`\n\n### 3b. Batch authorization — one approval covers the enumerated batch\n\nWhen the user approves a batch plan with one aggregated cost total up front (\"8 scenes, ~$X total — go\"), that single approval authorizes `confirm=true` on **each enumerated call in that batch** — and nothing beyond it. You do not need to re-ask per call; that's the point of the upfront announcement. Hands-off multi-scene runs depend on this.\n\nBoundaries that re-trigger confirmation:\n\n- Any call's actual estimate exceeds what the announced plan implied for it by **>25%** → stop, surface the delta, get a fresh OK.\n- New calls are added that weren't in the enumerated plan (extra variants, retries beyond the plan, a new scene) → those are NOT covered. Announce and confirm separately.\n- The batch scope changes (different model, resolution, or duration than announced) → re-announce, re-confirm.\n\nOne approval = that plan, as enumerated, at those prices. Nothing else.\n\n### 4. Track the running total\n\nAfter each generation completes, the response includes `cost_credits` (when available). Keep a running tally in your context. Surface it every 3 generations or whenever the user asks \"how much have we spent?\"\n\n## Resolution decision rules\n\n| Use case | Resolution |\n|---|---|\n| First draft of a new prompt | 1k |\n| Storyboard frame (will likely regenerate) | 1k |\n| Hero shot, locked composition | 2k |\n| Print, marketing asset, final delivery | 4k |\n| Iterating to refine | match the previous resolution |\n\nResolution is a price lever, not a free choice: on Nano Banana 2 and FLUX.2 Max, 4k costs roughly 2x 1k (Seedream 5 Lite is flat-priced regardless of resolution). Prices change — call `slates_estimate_generation_cost` or `slates_list_available_models` for current numbers instead of assuming. Pick the cheapest resolution that serves the use case.\n\n**4K VIDEO is Pro-only (2026-07-07).** The ladder above is for IMAGES (open at every tier). For VIDEO — Kling, Seedance, Veo — 4K requires a Slates Pro account; a base-tier 4K video gen is rejected server-side with `PRO_REQUIRED`. Default video to 1080p or lower and only reach for 4K when the user is on Pro and explicitly asks. 4K *images* are never gated.\n\n## Aspect ratio decision rules\n\nAsk the user when ambiguous. Otherwise:\n\n| Context cue | Aspect ratio |\n|---|---|\n| \"cinematic\", \"film\", \"movie\", \"wide\" | 16:9 |\n| \"TikTok\", \"Reels\", \"Story\", \"mobile vertical\", \"phone\" | 9:16 |\n| \"square\", \"Instagram feed\", \"thumbnail\" | 1:1 |\n| \"ultra-wide\", \"anamorphic\", \"cinemascope\" | 21:9 |\n| \"portrait\", \"magazine cover\", \"vertical\" | 4:5 or 2:3 |\n| \"landscape photo\", \"horizontal\" | 3:2 or 4:3 |\n\nIf the user prompt mixes signals (e.g. \"cinematic Instagram post\"), ask. Don't guess.\n\n## When the gate fires\n\nThe server returns `requires_clarification` when aspect ratio or resolution is missing. The server returns `requires_confirm` when total spend exceeds ~17 credits. In both cases:\n\n1. Surface the gate response to the user\n2. Get a clean answer\n3. Re-call with the explicit values + `confirm: true` if applicable\n\nDon't bypass the gate by silently filling in defaults. The gates exist because defaults waste money.\n\n## Video is slow + async — a timeout is NOT a failure\n\nVideo gens take minutes (Seedance 4K can run far longer). A client/CLI timeout or a slow, empty-looking response is **not** a failed generation — the job is still running on the provider.\n\n- **Never re-submit a video gen because it \"timed out.\"** That double-charges the user for one video. Re-rolling a slow gen is the single most expensive mistake here.\n- **Poll, don't re-roll.** Use `background: true` on `slates_generate_video`, then poll `slates_get_generation_status` (free, read-only) until it reports `completed` or `failed`. In-flight jobs survive app restarts and are recovered.\n- A gen has only failed when the status comes back `failed` — and a provider *rejection* **refunds** the credits, so failed isolation tests are ~free. Until you see a terminal status, the job is in flight. Wait.\n\n## 🔴 The still-gate — the most expensive mistake in the pipeline\n\n<!-- @inject:still-gate -->\n**A visible defect in the still is already a STOP.** Do not animate it. Fix the frame first, then move to motion — and go to motion only when the crop passes the still scan and you genuinely need movement to confirm an uncertain edge, reflection, or object.\n\nThis is a **cost** rule as much as a craft rule: a 1080p/10s premium video generation costs many multiples of an image re-roll, and video is where a defect stops being fixable. Anything wrong in the still gets worse in motion — soft geometry mushes, broken-but-plausible objects fall apart, oily textures start crawling. **Animating a known-bad frame is the single most expensive mistake in the pipeline.** Re-rolling the image is the cheap move; re-rolling the video is not.\n<!-- @end:still-gate -->\n\nThe check itself lives in `slates-vision-feedback-loop` (the four slop tells and the per-model accents). The **stop** is a cost rule and belongs here: before every image→video call, confirm the source frame passed the still scan. If it didn't, spending video credits on it is not iteration — it is buying a more expensive copy of a defect you already found.\n\n## The 3-strike rule\n\nStop after 3 iterations on the same prompt. Hand back to the user with what you tried and what's not working. The slot machine doesn't converge — if it's not landing, the prompt structure is wrong, not the seed.\n",
     "slates-direct-response-ad": "---\nname: slates-direct-response-ad\ndescription: Build a 30-second hyper-motion direct-response ad in Slates from a product image and brief. Composes upload → storyboard → frame gen → motion gen → timeline → export. Use when the user drops a product image and asks for \"an ad\", \"a promo video\", \"a TikTok ad\", \"an Instagram ad\", a launch video, or any short-form direct-response video built around a product.\n---\n\n# Direct-response ad — Slates workflow\n\nYou are building a 30-second hyper-motion direct-response ad. The user has handed you a product image (or product URL) and a short brief. Slates desktop is open on the second monitor; the user watches it populate as you work.\n\n**Hard rules**\n\n- Always estimate cost before generating. Use `slates_estimate_generation_cost` and surface the total.\n- All Slates generation routes through Slates Credits, period (BYOK is retired) — don't suggest \"use your own keys\" workarounds.\n- Default model: `nano-banana-2-2k`. For close-up product hero frames step up to `4k` only if the user asks.\n- Hyper-motion = punchy cuts, 4 frames in 30 seconds, ~7s each. Don't over-storyboard.\n\n## Workflow\n\n### 1. Set up the project\n- Create a project named for the product (`slates_create_project`).\n- If the user gave a product image as a file path, upload it (`slates_upload_reference_image`).\n- If they pasted base64 / a data URL, use the same op with `dataUrl`.\n\n### 2. Generate the storyboard frames\nBuild exactly 4 frames in this order:\n\n| # | Beat | Visual goal |\n|---|------|-------------|\n| 1 | Hook | Hyper-close-up of the product, dramatic light, motion blur edge |\n| 2 | Lifestyle | Real person using/wearing/holding the product, eye contact |\n| 3 | Problem→solution | The before/after moment that justifies the buy |\n| 4 | CTA | Clean product hero with mental room for an overlaid CTA in editing |\n\nFor each frame:\n1. Draft a tight 1-2 sentence prompt (visual only — no copy text in the image).\n2. Reference the product upload's URL or asset ID for visual fidelity.\n3. Call `slates_generate_image` with that prompt + reference. **You see the result inline — evaluate it.**\n4. If it's wrong: refine prompt, regenerate. If it's right: bind it as a frame in the storyboard (`slates_add_frame`).\n\n### 3. Build the storyboard\n- `slates_create_storyboard` named \"30s ad — v1\".\n- Default scene already exists. Add 3 more scenes (\"Hook\", \"Lifestyle\", \"Problem-Solution\", \"CTA\") via `slates_add_scene`, or just add all 4 frames to the default scene.\n- For each generated image, add a frame referencing the asset id (`slates_add_frame`).\n\n### 4. Hand back to the user\n- Surface estimated total credits spent.\n- Tell the user the storyboard is ready and they can either:\n  - **In Slates desktop:** click each frame to generate motion (the existing UI handles motion generation).\n  - **Continue here:** ask you to keep going.\n\n### 5. If they say keep going — motion, assembly, export\n- Generate motion per frame with `slates_generate_video` (`firstFrameAssetId` = the frame's asset, `background: true`), routed per `slates-model-selection` (Kling 3.0 std 8s by default; Seedance 2 for any physics-heavy beat like the hook). Submit all four, then poll `slates_get_generation_status` until each completes (1-5 min).\n- Assemble: `slates_add_clip_to_timeline` for each completed clip in beat order (Hook → Lifestyle → Problem-Solution → CTA). Verify with `slates_get_timeline`; fix order with `slates_reorder_clips`.\n- Export: `slates_export_video` to an absolute `.mp4` path (default `<slates_get_project_directory>/exports/<product>-ad.mp4`), then `slates_reveal_file` so the user sees the file.\n- Full pipeline doctrine (batch cost authorization, model mixing, multi-take selection): `slates-one-prompt-film`.\n\n## Anti-patterns\n\n- **Don't** generate text overlays in the image. Slates renders captions/CTAs at the editor stage.\n- **Don't** burn credits on slot-machine prompting. If the first generation is off, refine the prompt; don't just regenerate.\n- **Don't** skip the cost estimate. Confirm with the user above ~17 credits.\n- **Don't** invent visual specifics about the product (colors, textures, angles) that aren't in the reference image. Reference-anchored prompts only.\n\n## Voice\n\nThe ad lives or dies on the hook frame. Tight, sensory, no fluff. Match the user's brand. Default tone is \"scroll-stopping\" not \"informative.\"\n",
     "slates-edit-and-iterate": "---\nname: slates-edit-and-iterate\ndescription: Iterate on an existing Slates asset — re-evaluate, refine prompt, regenerate or edit. Use when the user has an existing generated image in Slates and wants to \"tweak it\", \"change one thing\", \"make it warmer\", \"remove the second person\", or any other surgical refinement instead of full regeneration.\n---\n\n# Edit and iterate — Slates workflow\n\nThe user already has a generated image in Slates and wants to refine it. The vision-feedback-loop skill defines the general pattern; this skill is the specific recipe for \"I have asset X, here's what's wrong with it.\"\n\n## 🔴 The master rule — an edit is a LEAF, not a node\n\n**Never re-edit an edit. Always go back and re-edit the master.**\n\nEvery edit model silently re-renders the **whole frame**, not just the region you named. So the parts you didn't ask to change come back slightly different every pass — softer texture, drifted colour, mushier fine detail. It is barely visible after one edit and obvious by the second. Chaining edits compounds the damage and there is no way to undo it, because each generation *is* the new source.\n\nThe fix is structural, not a matter of care:\n\n- **Want two changes?** Make them in ONE edit off the master, or make them as two separate edits **both taken from the master**, then keep whichever you prefer.\n- **An edit came back wrong?** Do NOT edit the result to fix it. Discard it and re-edit the master with a better instruction.\n- **Only the changed region is worth keeping?** That is a compositing job — the edit supplies the new region, the untouched master supplies everything else.\n\nSlates records this: an edit result carries `sourceAssetIds` pointing at the asset it was made from, so **you can tell whether the thing you are about to edit is itself an edit.** Check before you edit — `[Edit]`-prefixed prompts and a populated source lineage both say \"this is a leaf; go back to its parent.\"\n\n## Workflow\n\n### 1. Pull the current asset back into context\n- The user references an asset by id, frame number, or \"the latest one.\"\n- Resolve to an asset id (`slates_list_assets` if needed).\n- `slates_get_asset_image` with that id to load it inline. **You see the image.**\n\n### 2. Identify the delta\nThe user's request is one of:\n- **Surgical** — \"remove the second figure\", \"make the sword red\", \"swap the background to a bamboo forest\".\n- **Aesthetic** — \"warmer light\", \"more dramatic\", \"softer focus\".\n- **Compositional** — \"wider shot\", \"lower angle\", \"centered subject\".\n- **Wholesale** — \"actually let's try a totally different look.\"\n\n### 3. Pick the right tool\n| Delta type | Approach |\n|---|---|\n| Surgical | `slates_edit_image` — `sourceAssetId` = the original, `prompt` = the change only (\"remove the second figure\"), not a re-description of the whole image. |\n| Aesthetic / compositional | `slates_generate_image` with the original in `referenceAssetIds` + a refined prompt. Don't re-roll from scratch. |\n| Wholesale | New prompt, no reference, fresh generation. Treat as a new brief. |\n\n**`slates_edit_image` shape:** `projectId` + `sourceAssetId` + `prompt` (the edit instruction). Default model `nano-banana-2` — the only edit model that also takes extra `referenceAssetIds`; `flux-2-max` / `seedream-5-lite` use their own edit endpoints and ignore references. The result lands as a NEW asset (prompt prefixed `[Edit]`); the source is untouched. Cost above ~17 credits gates on `confirm=true`.\n\n### 4. Generate, evaluate, decide\n- Estimate cost first.\n- After generation, the result is inline. Compare side-by-side with the original (`slates_get_asset_image` again).\n- If the delta is correct: bind to the same role (frame, character identity, etc.) the original was bound to.\n- If the delta missed: one focused refinement, then regenerate. Cap at 3 tries.\n\n### 5. Hand back\n- \"Asset updated. Frame 3 now uses {new_asset_id}.\"\n- Always note what changed and what didn't, so the user can see the surgery worked: \"Lighting shifted to warmer, composition unchanged.\"\n\n## Anti-patterns\n\n- **Don't** delete the original asset until the user confirms the new one. Slates keeps both; the user picks.\n- **Don't** mix surgical and wholesale changes in one regeneration. The user said \"make it warmer\" — don't also reframe the shot.\n- **Don't** re-generate when `slates_edit_image` would work. Edits preserve composition and identity; full regen rolls the dice.\n- **Don't** edit an edit — ever. Not once, not \"just a small one.\" Go back to the master (see the master rule above). Every attempt re-renders the full frame and the degradation is cumulative and permanent.\n- **Don't** keep re-rolling the same failed edit. If three tries off the master didn't land, the brief is wrong, not the model — check in with the user.\n",
-    "slates-model-selection": "---\nname: slates-model-selection\ndescription: Which model to pick for a given job — the routing doctrine. Read BEFORE choosing any video or image model, before quoting a plan, and before defaulting anywhere. Kling 3.0 is the general-purpose video default; Seedance 2.0 is the premium tier for anything where physics, effects, or scale remotely matter; Seedance 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT beside 2.0 (30s takes and 30 references, but 480p/720p only — never an upgrade); Veo 3.1 is a narrow niche (native synced audio in one gen, 16:9 only) and never the default.\n---\n\n# Model selection — the routing doctrine\n\nPick the model FIRST, deliberately, before writing a prompt or quoting a plan. Model routing is a core part of the intelligence users are paying for: the agent knows what each model is good at and which ones underperform for a job — defaulting to the wrong model burns the user's credits on a weaker result.\n\n## 🔑 The meta-rule — above the table\n\nThe tables below are a snapshot. This roster churns constantly (NB2 Lite, Omni Flash, Seedream 5 Lite, GPT Image 2 all landed recently) — **a table rots; a rule doesn't.** When the tables and this rule disagree, or when a model appears that the tables don't cover, run the rule:\n\n> **Name ONE must-preserve requirement for the shot.** Not a vibe — the single thing that, if it breaks, makes the shot unusable: this face stays this face · the fluid behaves like fluid · the text stays legible · the take stays one unbroken move.\n>\n> **Inspect the output at its intended crop.** A frame that holds up as a thumbnail can fall apart at the size it will actually be watched. For a location, look at atmosphere, material texture, and anchor objects; for a character, identity, skin, pose, and gradients.\n>\n> **Choose the model that PROVES that requirement** and leaves only failures you can afford to rerun or mask.\n>\n> **When the roster changes, repeat the evidence test.** Do not carry today's ranking forward on reputation.\n\n## Video routing\n\n| Job | Model | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| **General-purpose — the default for most shots** | **Kling 3.0 std** | Cost-effective workhorse. Strong image-to-video: preserves identity, layout, and text from the start frame. Any aspect ratio, 5–15s. |\n| Higher visual polish, no physics demands | Kling 3.0 pro | Mid-price fidelity bump on the same strengths. |\n| Multi-character dialogue / audio co-generation | Kling 3.0 omni | Dialogue syntax, voice direction, language codes, `@element` refs. |\n| **Anything with remotely important physics** — effects, destruction, water/fire/smoke/cloth, creature motion, scale, complex simultaneous action | **Seedance 2.0** | The premium tier. Physics and effects are its whole edge; up to 9 ingredient refs, first+last frame, native 4K (4K video is Pro-only). |\n| The premium hero shot a piece hangs on | Seedance 2.0 | Spend where it shows. |\n| **One take longer than 15 seconds**, or a shot needing more than 9 image references, or an AUDIO-ONLY reference | **Seedance 2.5** | A SECOND SEAT beside 2.0, never an upgrade: 4–30s in one take, 30 image + 10 video + 10 audio references, audio-only refs — and **480p/720p ONLY, no 1080p and no 4K on any provider**. If resolution matters at all, stay on 2.0. 🚨 Two live hazards: (a) with references attached, the words *add / remove / replace / change / extend / continue* make it reclassify the request as a video EDIT and fail AFTER the job queues — describe the finished frame, or use `seedance-2.5-edit`; (b) 720p is NOT the cheap seat here — a 30s 720p face gen is 484 credits, more than a 15s 1080p Seedance 2.0 face gen (411), against a 1,000-credit welcome grant. Quote before any take over ~10s. |\n\n### Named Seedance escalation triggers\n\n\"Physics matter\" is an abstract category and it under-fires. These are the beats Seedance is **observably** good at — if the shot contains one, escalate without deliberating:\n\n- **Real-time → slow-motion contrast.** The signature beat; nearly every strong clip rides it.\n- **The camera moving while debris, meteors, sparks or particles crash around the subject.** Distinctly a feature of this model, not just a thing it survives.\n- **Massive scale that has to read as genuinely huge** — not \"a big thing\", a thing whose size is the point of the shot.\n- **One continuous unbroken take.**\n\nConcrete beats route better than an abstract category. Cost stays a tiebreaker, never the router (see below).\n| Native synchronized audio (dialogue + SFX generated WITH the video in one gen), 16:9, ≤8s | Veo 3.1 | The only job Veo wins. |\n\n## Video EDIT routing (changing an existing clip)\n\n| Job | Tool | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Footage-synced VFX on real footage** — add/remove an effect, prop, or lighting change while the take stays the take (incl. talking heads) | **Omni Flash Edit** (`slates_edit_video`, `omni-flash-edit`) | **The edit-fidelity winner** (head-to-head receipt 2026-07-09, WITH a short prompt): lip movement held perfectly, audio near-identical, effect landed and released on cue — where Kling missed an action beat and drifted lips. Prompt-only, 3–10s clips, 720p out, ~6.4 cr/s (cheapest). Quirk: occasional tail jitter / doubled final speech beat — trim the tail on the timeline. Fidelity is EARNED by prompt discipline: one short line + \"Keep everything else the same\"; long prompts destroy it (see below). |\n| **Identity swap needing reference images** — put @marcus into the clip, lock a style from refs | **Kling O3 Edit** (`slates_edit_video`) | The only edit engine that takes element/style reference images (frontal + angles lock identity). ~19¢/s. |\n| **Spoken words must be bit-exact** (VO, legal copy, music) | **Kling O3 Edit** with `keepAudio` (default true) — or segment-splice | Kling keeps the ORIGINAL audio track verbatim — but re-synthesizes the video, so lips can drift slightly against it (7/09 receipt). Omni Flash regenerates audio (voice editing unsupported): on the 7/09 receipt it came back near-identical with perfect lips, but \"near-identical\" is not a guarantee. Zero-risk path for critical audio: segment-splice — edit only the non-talking seconds and keep the original track under the cut. |\n| Style-transfer-heavy re-imagining, full relocate of the scene, or edit quality worth a premium at 1080p+ | Seedance edit/relocate (`videoReferenceAssetId` on `slates_generate_video`) | Seedance's strength is transfer intensity; it re-generates rather than surgically edits. Head-to-head receipt 2026-07-09 (photoreal-insert job, same clip): at 720p it LOST to Omni Flash edit on result while costing ~3× (vref bills input+output seconds; face-lane rates when people are in frame). Route here for its strengths or at 1080p/4K where its ceiling is higher — never as the cheap default. Takes long descriptive prompts fine (no Omni-style hard-fail on timing phrasing). |\n| **A clip LONGER THAN 15 SECONDS** | **Seedance 2.5 Edit** (`slates_edit_video`, `seedance-2.5-edit`) | The only edit engine that takes a 4–30s clip — length is the whole reason to route here. 480p/720p out, native audio, prompt + clip only (no reference images). Output length AND aspect ratio follow the source, so the billed key is the ceiled source length; an edit bills roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length because every provider charges an edit on input + output seconds. Set `seedanceFace: true` when a face is visible — the faceless provider blocks faces outright. No consented-real-face route for editing. Inside 15s, choose on fidelity instead. |\n| AI-edit the user's OWN footage | Omni Flash Edit (3–10s), Kling O3 Edit (3–15s, 720–3840px) or Seedance 2.5 Edit (4–30s) | Both take any MP4/MOV — not just Slates gens. Phone footage MUST be rotation-normalized first (players honor the rotation flag; models don't — raw portrait phone clips come back SIDEWAYS). |\n\n- **Edit before re-roll.** A re-roll gambles away the parts the user already likes; an edit changes only what the prompt names. Quote the edit first when a clip is mostly right.\n- **Ship via segment-splice.** Every edit model re-synthesizes the whole clip, so fidelity risk scales with clip length. For real deliverables: trim out ONLY the seconds where the change happens, edit that segment, splice it back over the original on the timeline with the ORIGINAL audio underneath. Most of the final video stays the untouched original — that's how the polished split-screen demos going around actually work, plus gesture-only beats with voiceover laid over in post.\n- **One change per pass, short prompts.** On Omni Flash this is documented law (\"overly descriptive prompts can lead to unintended changes\" — long identity-lock preambles make drift WORSE, receipt 7/09); on Kling multi-beat instructions get dropped. Chain passes instead.\n- Edited clips are themselves editable clips — chain passes; lineage links each output to its parent.\n\n## Motion Transfer & Lip Sync routing (Kling-only tools)\n\nBoth tools are **Kling-only**. Every entry in them is a real Kling endpoint that bolts motion or lip movement onto a finished source as a dedicated post-process.\n\n| Job | Tool | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| Motion retarget onto a still character | Kling MC std/pro (`slates_generate_motion_transfer`) | Structured skeleton/depth retarget, ~32–42 credits / 5s, takes up to 30s driving clips. |\n| Re-voice a clip, or animate a still portrait | Kling lip-sync / avatar (`slates_generate_lip_sync`) | ~4–29 credits / 5s blocks. |\n\n**Want the Seedance version of either?** It is not a switch on these tools — it is a normal `slates_generate_video` on `seedance-2` with the clip attached as a **video reference** and the motion or dialogue written into the prompt (\"the character from image 1 performs the exact motion from video 1\"). That routes to the same endpoint the tool would have called, with the prompt visible and editable instead of ghost-written. Single-pass conditioning genuinely beats post-hoc retargeting on fast choreography, contact, cloth and hair — and it carries native audio — so escalate there whenever fidelity matters.\n\n- Seedance video-reference gens bill COMBINED input+output seconds (`seedance-2*-vref-*` keys) — pass the clip duration and quote before confirming. Driving clips must be 2–15s on Seedance 2.0 and up to 30s on 2.5; past that it is Kling MC's lane.\n- Faces on that route go through the normal cascade: `seedanceFace` for a character, `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]` → `seedanceRealFace` + `realFaceConsent` for a real person (premium realface pricing).\n\n**Rules:**\n\n- **Default video = Kling 3.0 std.** Escalate to Seedance the moment the shot has physics/effects weight or is the hero moment — and say why in the plan (\"physics-heavy, routing to Seedance\").\n- **Veo is never the default.** 16:9 only, 4/6/8s only, and it is not the quality pick — treat it as a single-purpose tool for native-synced-audio shots. If audio can be added after (Kling lip-sync, edit stage), prefer Kling or Seedance + audio in post.\n- **9:16 vertical → Kling or Seedance.** Veo can't.\n- **Image-to-video from an NB2 start frame** (the standard pipeline) → Kling by default, Seedance when the motion is physics-heavy. Not Veo.\n- **User names a model explicitly → use it.** But if it's a mismatch for the job (crazy physics on Kling std, vertical on Veo), say so in one line and offer the right route before generating.\n\n## Image routing\n\n**Video models (Kling, Seedance, Veo) cannot generate standalone images — ever.** A \"premium hero reference image\" is still an image job: it routes to an image model below, never to Seedance.\n\n- **Default: Nano Banana 2** — best reference handling (14 refs), best legible text, the standard start-frame generator.\n- **NB2 Lite** — the fast/draft seat: ~half NB2's price, ~2.7× faster, 1K only. Route iteration volume and drafts here; finals go back to NB2 full (2K/4K).\n- **Nano Banana Pro** — the hero-frame/typography ceiling (~2× NB2). NB2 ≈ 95% of Pro; escalate only when spatial composition, cinematic lighting/skin, fine typography-in-scene, or deep multi-element frames must be perfect. Up to 14 refs — feed it a full subject library.\n- **GPT Image 2** — readable text / panels / UI king: character sheets, shot grids, diagrams, text-bearing panels. Medium quality is the default (half NB2's price at 1080p); high (~4×) only when text precision is the whole job. 4K at both tiers is API-only — even paid ChatGPT can't render it.\n- **FLUX.2 Max** — photoreal texture, hex-color binding, typography, less censored.\n- **Seedream 5 Lite** — uncensored + any-resolution flat price; volume exploration when the Gemini filter is in the way.\n\n**Split rule of thumb:** readable text / panels / UI → GPT Image 2; photoreal, character-locked, widescreen, or edit-heavy → the Banana line; drafts → NB2 Lite; uncensored or odd resolutions → Seedream/FLUX.\n\n## Audio routing\n\n**Image and video models cannot generate standalone audio, and neither audio model can generate images or video.** A shot that needs synced audio generated WITH the picture is still a video job (Kling omni / Veo / Omni Flash / Seedance all carry native audio); the models below produce audio *as its own asset*, to lay on the timeline.\n\n| Job | Model | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Default — a whole audio scene in one pass**: room tone, ambience beds, crowds, nature, layered dialogue + effects, spoken lines | **Seed Audio 1.0** (`seed-audio`) | One plain sentence in, a complete scene out. 1–120s. The continuity-bed workhorse and the only speech surface. |\n| **One effect that lands on a known frame**, or a seamless loop | **Sound Effects v2** (`eleven-sfx`) | The only surface with an exact duration control (0.5–22s) and a real loop mode. |\n\n**There is no music model and no cast-voiceover model.** A song is imported (Slates reads audio files and puts them on the timeline), not generated. A line that has to be spoken is generated on Seed Audio and lip-synced against.\n\n### Named audio escalation triggers\n\n- **\"It needs to sound like a place\"** → Seed Audio. Three separate SFX generations layered on the timeline is the wrong shape and costs more.\n- **\"Read this line\"** → Seed Audio, with the line in quotes inside the scene sentence. Re-roll until the take is right, then lip-sync against it.\n- **\"That needs a thump right there\"** → Sound Effects, with the duration set to roughly the length of the event.\n- **\"Give it a track\"** → there is no music generation. Say so and offer to lay an imported track on an audio track.\n\n**Rules:**\n\n- **🚨 Seed Audio has NO duration parameter.** Length comes from the prompt text, so Slates writes the requested duration into the prompt and **bills what you asked for**. Choose the duration deliberately and never write a second, different length into the sentence. Full doctrine: `slates-prompting-seed-audio`.\n- **Kling's audio syntax does not transfer.** `SFX:` / `Ambient noise:` / `Background music:` prefixes are Kling 3.0 *video* prompt syntax. Seed Audio reads them as literal words and the result degrades.\n- **Beds outlast the cut.** Always ask for more seconds than the clip needs so the edit has fade handles — and remember those extra seconds are billed on both surfaces.\n- **Audio inside the video vs audio as an asset.** If the sound must be locked to what happens on screen, generate it with the video (Kling omni / Seedance / Omni Flash / Veo). If it needs to be moved, trimmed, re-used, or layered, generate it here and drop it on an audio track.\n- Per-model prompting: `slates-prompting-seed-audio`, `slates-prompting-elevenlabs`.\n\n## Cost is a tiebreaker, not the router\n\nRoute by capability first, then pick the cheapest tier that serves the job (per `slates-cost-discipline`). Never pick a model because its per-second price looked lowest — a cheap clip that has to be regenerated on the right model costs more than routing correctly once.\n",
+    "slates-model-selection": "---\nname: slates-model-selection\ndescription: Which model to pick for a given job — the routing doctrine. Read BEFORE choosing any video or image model, before quoting a plan, and before defaulting anywhere. Kling 3.0 is the general-purpose video default; Seedance 2.0 is the premium tier for anything where physics, effects, or scale remotely matter; Seedance 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT beside 2.0 (30s takes, 30 references and timestamp control, but 480p/720p only — never an upgrade); Veo 3.1 is a narrow niche (native synced audio in one gen, 16:9 only) and never the default.\n---\n\n# Model selection — the routing doctrine\n\nPick the model FIRST, deliberately, before writing a prompt or quoting a plan. Model routing is a core part of the intelligence users are paying for: the agent knows what each model is good at and which ones underperform for a job — defaulting to the wrong model burns the user's credits on a weaker result.\n\n## 🔑 The meta-rule — above the table\n\nThe tables below are a snapshot. This roster churns constantly (NB2 Lite, Omni Flash, Seedream 5 Lite, GPT Image 2 all landed recently) — **a table rots; a rule doesn't.** When the tables and this rule disagree, or when a model appears that the tables don't cover, run the rule:\n\n> **Name ONE must-preserve requirement for the shot.** Not a vibe — the single thing that, if it breaks, makes the shot unusable: this face stays this face · the fluid behaves like fluid · the text stays legible · the take stays one unbroken move.\n>\n> **Inspect the output at its intended crop.** A frame that holds up as a thumbnail can fall apart at the size it will actually be watched. For a location, look at atmosphere, material texture, and anchor objects; for a character, identity, skin, pose, and gradients.\n>\n> **Choose the model that PROVES that requirement** and leaves only failures you can afford to rerun or mask.\n>\n> **When the roster changes, repeat the evidence test.** Do not carry today's ranking forward on reputation.\n\n## Video routing\n\n| Job | Model | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| **General-purpose — the default for most shots** | **Kling 3.0 std** | Cost-effective workhorse. Strong image-to-video: preserves identity, layout, and text from the start frame. Any aspect ratio, 5–15s. |\n| Higher visual polish, no physics demands | Kling 3.0 pro | Mid-price fidelity bump on the same strengths. |\n| Multi-character dialogue / audio co-generation | Kling 3.0 omni | Dialogue syntax, voice direction, language codes, `@element` refs. |\n| **Anything with remotely important physics** — effects, destruction, water/fire/smoke/cloth, creature motion, scale, complex simultaneous action | **Seedance 2.0** | The premium tier. Physics and effects are its whole edge; up to 9 ingredient refs, first+last frame, native 4K (4K video is Pro-only). |\n| The premium hero shot a piece hangs on | Seedance 2.0 | Spend where it shows. |\n| **One take longer than 15 seconds**, or a shot needing more than 9 image references, or an AUDIO-ONLY reference, or **beats that have to land at a named second** | **Seedance 2.5** | A SECOND SEAT beside 2.0, never an upgrade: 4–30s in one take, 30 image + 10 video + 10 audio references, audio-only refs, and the only Seedance seat that **acts on timestamps** (rules in `slates-prompting-seedance-2-5` § Timestamps) — and **480p or 720p on every route Slates offers, no 1080p and no 4K**. If resolution matters at all, stay on 2.0. 🚨 Two live hazards: (a) with references attached, the words *add / remove / replace / change / extend / continue* make it reclassify the request as a video EDIT and fail AFTER the job queues — describe the finished frame, or use `seedance-2.5-edit`; (b) 720p is NOT the cheap seat here — a 30s 720p face gen is 484 credits, more than a 15s 1080p Seedance 2.0 face gen (411), against a 1,000-credit welcome grant. Quote before any take over ~10s. |\n\n### Named Seedance escalation triggers\n\n\"Physics matter\" is an abstract category and it under-fires. These are the beats Seedance is **observably** good at — if the shot contains one, escalate without deliberating:\n\n- **Real-time → slow-motion contrast.** The signature beat; nearly every strong clip rides it.\n- **The camera moving while debris, meteors, sparks or particles crash around the subject.** Distinctly a feature of this model, not just a thing it survives.\n- **Massive scale that has to read as genuinely huge** — not \"a big thing\", a thing whose size is the point of the shot.\n- **One continuous unbroken take.**\n\nConcrete beats route better than an abstract category. Cost stays a tiebreaker, never the router (see below).\n| Native synchronized audio (dialogue + SFX generated WITH the video in one gen), 16:9, ≤8s | Veo 3.1 | The only job Veo wins. |\n\n## Video EDIT routing (changing an existing clip)\n\n| Job | Tool | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Footage-synced VFX on real footage** — add/remove an effect, prop, or lighting change while the take stays the take (incl. talking heads) | **Omni Flash Edit** (`slates_edit_video`, `omni-flash-edit`) | **The edit-fidelity winner** (head-to-head receipt 2026-07-09, WITH a short prompt): lip movement held perfectly, audio near-identical, effect landed and released on cue — where Kling missed an action beat and drifted lips. Prompt-only, 3–10s clips, 720p out, ~6.4 cr/s (cheapest). Quirk: occasional tail jitter / doubled final speech beat — trim the tail on the timeline. Fidelity is EARNED by prompt discipline: one short line + \"Keep everything else the same\"; long prompts destroy it (see below). |\n| **Identity swap needing reference images** — put @marcus into the clip, lock a style from refs | **Kling O3 Edit** (`slates_edit_video`) | The only edit engine that takes element/style reference images (frontal + angles lock identity). ~19¢/s. |\n| **Spoken words must be bit-exact** (VO, legal copy, music) | **Kling O3 Edit** with `keepAudio` (default true) — or segment-splice | Kling keeps the ORIGINAL audio track verbatim — but re-synthesizes the video, so lips can drift slightly against it (7/09 receipt). Omni Flash regenerates audio (voice editing unsupported): on the 7/09 receipt it came back near-identical with perfect lips, but \"near-identical\" is not a guarantee. Zero-risk path for critical audio: segment-splice — edit only the non-talking seconds and keep the original track under the cut. |\n| Style-transfer-heavy re-imagining, full relocate of the scene, or edit quality worth a premium at 1080p+ | Seedance edit/relocate (`videoReferenceAssetId` on `slates_generate_video`) | Seedance's strength is transfer intensity; it re-generates rather than surgically edits. Head-to-head receipt 2026-07-09 (photoreal-insert job, same clip): at 720p it LOST to Omni Flash edit on result while costing ~3× (vref bills input+output seconds; face-lane rates when people are in frame). Route here for its strengths or at 1080p/4K where its ceiling is higher — never as the cheap default. Takes long descriptive prompts fine (no Omni-style hard-fail on timing phrasing). |\n| **A clip LONGER THAN 15 SECONDS** | **Seedance 2.5 Edit** (`slates_edit_video`, `seedance-2.5-edit`) | The only edit engine that takes a 4–30s clip — length is the whole reason to route here. 480p/720p out, native audio, prompt + clip only (no reference images). Output length AND aspect ratio follow the source, so the billed key is the ceiled source length; an edit bills roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length because every provider charges an edit on input + output seconds. Set `seedanceFace: true` when a face is visible — the faceless provider blocks faces outright. No consented-real-face route for editing. Inside 15s, choose on fidelity instead. |\n| AI-edit the user's OWN footage | Omni Flash Edit (3–10s), Kling O3 Edit (3–15s, 720–3840px) or Seedance 2.5 Edit (4–30s) | Both take any MP4/MOV — not just Slates gens. Phone footage MUST be rotation-normalized first (players honor the rotation flag; models don't — raw portrait phone clips come back SIDEWAYS). |\n\n- **Edit before re-roll.** A re-roll gambles away the parts the user already likes; an edit changes only what the prompt names. Quote the edit first when a clip is mostly right.\n- **Ship via segment-splice.** Every edit model re-synthesizes the whole clip, so fidelity risk scales with clip length. For real deliverables: trim out ONLY the seconds where the change happens, edit that segment, splice it back over the original on the timeline with the ORIGINAL audio underneath. Most of the final video stays the untouched original — that's how the polished split-screen demos going around actually work, plus gesture-only beats with voiceover laid over in post.\n- **One change per pass, short prompts.** On Omni Flash this is documented law (\"overly descriptive prompts can lead to unintended changes\" — long identity-lock preambles make drift WORSE, receipt 7/09); on Kling multi-beat instructions get dropped. Chain passes instead.\n- Edited clips are themselves editable clips — chain passes; lineage links each output to its parent.\n\n## Motion Transfer & Lip Sync routing (Kling-only tools)\n\nBoth tools are **Kling-only**. Every entry in them is a real Kling endpoint that bolts motion or lip movement onto a finished source as a dedicated post-process.\n\n| Job | Tool | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| Motion retarget onto a still character | Kling MC std/pro (`slates_generate_motion_transfer`) | Structured skeleton/depth retarget, ~32–42 credits / 5s, takes up to 30s driving clips. |\n| Re-voice a clip, or animate a still portrait | Kling lip-sync / avatar (`slates_generate_lip_sync`) | ~4–29 credits / 5s blocks. |\n\n**Want the Seedance version of either?** It is not a switch on these tools — it is a normal `slates_generate_video` on `seedance-2` with the clip attached as a **video reference** and the motion or dialogue written into the prompt (\"the character from image 1 performs the exact motion from video 1\"). That routes to the same endpoint the tool would have called, with the prompt visible and editable instead of ghost-written. Single-pass conditioning genuinely beats post-hoc retargeting on fast choreography, contact, cloth and hair — and it carries native audio — so escalate there whenever fidelity matters.\n\n- Seedance video-reference gens bill COMBINED input+output seconds (`seedance-2*-vref-*` keys) — pass the clip duration and quote before confirming. Driving clips must be 2–15s on Seedance 2.0 and up to 30s on 2.5; past that it is Kling MC's lane.\n- Faces on that route go through the normal cascade: `seedanceFace` for a character, `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]` → `seedanceRealFace` + `realFaceConsent` for a real person (premium realface pricing).\n\n**Rules:**\n\n- **Default video = Kling 3.0 std.** Escalate to Seedance the moment the shot has physics/effects weight or is the hero moment — and say why in the plan (\"physics-heavy, routing to Seedance\").\n- **Veo is never the default.** 16:9 only, 4/6/8s only, and it is not the quality pick — treat it as a single-purpose tool for native-synced-audio shots. If audio can be added after (Kling lip-sync, edit stage), prefer Kling or Seedance + audio in post.\n- **9:16 vertical → Kling or Seedance.** Veo can't.\n- **Image-to-video from an NB2 start frame** (the standard pipeline) → Kling by default, Seedance when the motion is physics-heavy. Not Veo.\n- **User names a model explicitly → use it.** But if it's a mismatch for the job (crazy physics on Kling std, vertical on Veo), say so in one line and offer the right route before generating.\n\n## Image routing\n\n**Video models (Kling, Seedance, Veo) cannot generate standalone images — ever.** A \"premium hero reference image\" is still an image job: it routes to an image model below, never to Seedance.\n\n- **Default: Nano Banana 2** — best reference handling (14 refs), best legible text, the standard start-frame generator.\n- **NB2 Lite** — the fast/draft seat: ~half NB2's price, ~2.7× faster, 1K only. Route iteration volume and drafts here; finals go back to NB2 full (2K/4K).\n- **Nano Banana Pro** — the hero-frame/typography ceiling (~2× NB2). NB2 ≈ 95% of Pro; escalate only when spatial composition, cinematic lighting/skin, fine typography-in-scene, or deep multi-element frames must be perfect. Up to 14 refs — feed it a full subject library.\n- **GPT Image 2** — readable text / panels / UI king: character sheets, shot grids, diagrams, text-bearing panels. Medium quality is the default (half NB2's price at 1080p); high (~4×) only when text precision is the whole job. 4K at both tiers is API-only — even paid ChatGPT can't render it.\n- **FLUX.2 Max** — photoreal texture, hex-color binding, typography, less censored.\n- **Seedream 5 Lite** — uncensored + any-resolution flat price; volume exploration when the Gemini filter is in the way.\n\n**Split rule of thumb:** readable text / panels / UI → GPT Image 2; photoreal, character-locked, widescreen, or edit-heavy → the Banana line; drafts → NB2 Lite; uncensored or odd resolutions → Seedream/FLUX.\n\n## Audio routing\n\n**Image and video models cannot generate standalone audio, and neither audio model can generate images or video.** A shot that needs synced audio generated WITH the picture is still a video job (Kling omni / Veo / Omni Flash / Seedance all carry native audio); the models below produce audio *as its own asset*, to lay on the timeline.\n\n| Job | Model | Why |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Default — a whole audio scene in one pass**: room tone, ambience beds, crowds, nature, layered dialogue + effects, spoken lines | **Seed Audio 1.0** (`seed-audio`) | One plain sentence in, a complete scene out. 1–120s. The continuity-bed workhorse and the only speech surface. |\n| **One effect that lands on a known frame**, or a seamless loop | **Sound Effects v2** (`eleven-sfx`) | The only surface with an exact duration control (0.5–22s) and a real loop mode. |\n\n**There is no music model and no cast-voiceover model.** A song is imported (Slates reads audio files and puts them on the timeline), not generated. A line that has to be spoken is generated on Seed Audio and lip-synced against.\n\n### Named audio escalation triggers\n\n- **\"It needs to sound like a place\"** → Seed Audio. Three separate SFX generations layered on the timeline is the wrong shape and costs more.\n- **\"Read this line\"** → Seed Audio, with the line in quotes inside the scene sentence. Re-roll until the take is right, then lip-sync against it.\n- **\"That needs a thump right there\"** → Sound Effects, with the duration set to roughly the length of the event.\n- **\"Give it a track\"** → there is no music generation. Say so and offer to lay an imported track on an audio track.\n\n**Rules:**\n\n- **🚨 Seed Audio has NO duration parameter.** Length comes from the prompt text, so Slates writes the requested duration into the prompt and **bills what you asked for**. Choose the duration deliberately and never write a second, different length into the sentence. Full doctrine: `slates-prompting-seed-audio`.\n- **Kling's audio syntax does not transfer.** `SFX:` / `Ambient noise:` / `Background music:` prefixes are Kling 3.0 *video* prompt syntax. Seed Audio reads them as literal words and the result degrades.\n- **Beds outlast the cut.** Always ask for more seconds than the clip needs so the edit has fade handles — and remember those extra seconds are billed on both surfaces.\n- **Audio inside the video vs audio as an asset.** If the sound must be locked to what happens on screen, generate it with the video (Kling omni / Seedance / Omni Flash / Veo). If it needs to be moved, trimmed, re-used, or layered, generate it here and drop it on an audio track.\n- Per-model prompting: `slates-prompting-seed-audio`, `slates-prompting-elevenlabs`.\n\n## Cost is a tiebreaker, not the router\n\nRoute by capability first, then pick the cheapest tier that serves the job (per `slates-cost-discipline`). Never pick a model because its per-second price looked lowest — a cheap clip that has to be regenerated on the right model costs more than routing correctly once.\n",
     "slates-one-prompt-film": "---\nname: slates-one-prompt-film\ndescription: The full one-prompt-to-finished-film pipeline in Slates — script, project, characters, storyboard, frame images, video generation, timeline assembly, MP4 export. Use when the user gives one idea and wants a finished video out the other end - \"make me a video about X\", \"turn this idea into an ad\", \"make a short film from this\", \"one prompt, finished film\". This is the master recipe; other Slates skills are its sub-steps.\n---\n\n# One prompt → finished film — Slates master pipeline\n\nThe user gives an idea. You hand back an MP4 on disk. Everything in between is yours, with exactly TWO mandatory user checkpoints: the creative plan, and ONE aggregated cost approval.\n\n## The pipeline\n\n### 1. Script the beats\nTurn the idea into a beat-level script: 4-10 shots, each with subject, action, setting, camera, and duration (4-8s per shot). Surface it as a tight table. Get the user's nod on the plan, format (aspect ratio — 16:9 vs 9:16 decides everything downstream), and rough budget appetite before touching any op.\n\n**Surface a decision log with the plan.**\n\n<!-- @inject:decision-log -->\nWhen you surface the plan, include a short **decision log** — one line per decision *you* made that the user did not specify:\n\n```\nsource phrase or declared default → what you wrote → what it resolves\n\"in a diner\"        → chrome-and-vinyl booth, 3/4 on the counter   → fixes the anchor so blocking is repeatable\n(no time of day)    → late afternoon, low warm key                 → default; say the word and it changes\n(no camera)         → slow push-in, single move                    → one move per shot; stacking increases instability\n```\n\n**Hard rule: never silently add weather, props, style, or camera movement.** If it wasn't in the brief and you added it, it goes in the log. This is the \"why did you add that?\" affordance — for an agent that writes prompts on the user's behalf and spends their credits, it is what keeps the model in assembly and the user in the director's chair.\n\n> ❌ **Do NOT turn this into a question gate.** Clarifying questions before optimizing directly fight the locked fast-path rule: *if intent is clear, generate immediately with sane defaults, don't ask questions; only ask for production intent, and batch every question into one message.* Log the decisions, then go. The log is an **output**, not an interrogation — surfaced alongside the plan, never as a separate ceremony, and never as a reason to wait.\n<!-- @end:decision-log -->\n\nA 4-10 shot script is where you invent the most on the user's behalf — time of day, wardrobe, weather, lens feel, camera moves the brief never mentioned. The log is what makes those visible while they are still free to change.\n\n### 2. Set up the project\n- `slates_create_project` named for the piece.\n- Recurring character? Build it properly — `slates_create_character` + the `slates-character-identity` recipe — so every frame references the same identity.\n- Recurring location? `slates_create_environment`.\n- One-off shots don't need character/environment records; skip the ceremony.\n\n### 3. Storyboard skeleton (no generation yet)\n- `slates_create_storyboard`, `slates_add_scene` per script scene.\n- Structure first, spend second — the user catches script problems on the free skeleton, not on burned credits.\n\n### 4. ONE aggregated cost approval — then hands-off\nPrice the whole batch before the first generation: frame images (count × model — `slates_estimate_generation_cost`) + video gens (count × model × duration). Present a single total:\n\n> Plan: 6 frames at 1k 16:9 + 5 × 8s Kling 3.0 std + 1 × 8s Seedance 2 hero shot ≈ $X.XX total. Proceed with the batch?\n\nPer `slates-cost-discipline` 3b: that single OK authorizes `confirm=true` for **every enumerated call in the batch** — no per-call re-asking. Re-confirm only if a call's price overruns the plan >25% or new calls get added (extra retakes, new shots).\n\n### 5. Generate frame images\nPer shot: `slates_generate_image` with `referenceAssetIds` pointing at the character identity / environment / prior frames for consistency (Slates names each reference inline as \"image N\" — you don't hand-write role labels; reuse the same subject name across shots). Evaluate every result inline against the beat. Bind keepers via `slates_add_frame`.\n\n**Multi-take where it matters:** for the hook shot and any shot the whole film hangs on, generate 2-4 variants (cheap model or 1k), pull them back with `slates_get_assets_batch`, pick the strongest on composition + identity, discard the rest. Don't multi-take filler shots.\n\n### 6. Generate video per frame — background mode\n`slates_generate_video` with `firstFrameAssetId` = the bound frame, `background: true`. Submit ALL shots, collect the generationIds, then poll `slates_get_generation_status` every 10-15s (1-5 min per gen; they survive app restarts). This parallelizes a 6-shot film into one wait instead of six.\n\n**Model mixing — route per `slates-model-selection`** (details in the per-model guides):\n- **Kling V3** (`slates-prompting-kling-v3`): the DEFAULT for most shots — any aspect ratio, 5-15s, strong start-frame adherence; std is the workhorse, Omni for multi-character dialogue.\n- **Seedance 2** (`slates-prompting-seedance`): the PREMIUM tier — any shot where physics/effects/scale remotely matter, plus the hero shot; audio included, first+last frame guidance, native 4K (4K video is Pro-only).\n- **Veo 3.1** (`slates-prompting-veo-3`): niche, never the default — only when native synced audio must generate WITH the video in one gen; 16:9 only, 4/6/8s.\n\nFailed gen? Check the error via `slates_get_generation_status`, fix the prompt, resubmit that one shot (a retry beyond the plan = announce the delta cost).\n\n### 7. Assemble the timeline\n- `slates_get_timeline` once to get the lay of the land.\n- `slates_add_clip_to_timeline` for each completed video asset **in story order** — defaults append back-to-back on the first video track, which is exactly an assembly cut.\n- Order wrong? `slates_reorder_clips` with the full clip-id list. Dropped a shot? `slates_remove_clip`, then reorder to close the gap.\n\n### 8. Export + deliver\n- Output path: ask the user, or default to `<slates_get_project_directory>/exports/<name>.mp4`.\n- `slates_export_video` (absolute path, `.mp4`; blocks while ffmpeg renders — minutes for long timelines).\n- `slates_reveal_file` so the file is literally in front of them.\n- Offer the finishing path: `slates_export_timeline_xml` → DaVinci Resolve (File → Import → Timeline) for grading, sound, and titles.\n\n### 9. Report\nShots delivered, total spent vs. approved plan, the export path, and the single best next lever (\"re-take shot 3 with a tighter prompt\" / \"add a CTA end-card\").\n\n## Hard rules\n\n- **Two checkpoints only.** Creative plan (step 1) and total cost (step 4). Everything else runs without asking — that's the product promise.\n- **Skeleton before spend.** Project + storyboard structure are free; generation isn't.\n- **Look at everything.** Every image inline, every video via `slates_get_asset_video_frames` if a clip seems off. Never assemble a timeline from clips you haven't evaluated.\n- **3-strike rule per shot.** Three failed takes on one shot = stop, show the user what you tried, ask.\n- **Consistency comes from references, not luck.** Same identity asset on every character frame; same environment refs across a location's shots.\n",
     "slates-project-organization": "---\nname: slates-project-organization\ndescription: How a Slates project's assets are organized AND named — the asset short-code system (IMG-A12 / VID-V3 / AUD-S1 badges on every gallery card), folders for film STRUCTURE, the typed tabs for reusable references. Read when the user refers to an asset by code, asks what a code like IMG-A36 means, or when organizing/navigating a project.\n---\n\n# Organizing a Slates project\n\nSlates already gives each REUSABLE reference type its own home — the **Characters**, **Environments**, and **Styles** tabs, each with its own generation + `@mention`/`#ref` behavior. Do NOT recreate those as folders. Folders are for **structure**, never type.\n\n**Folders = where an asset sits in the FILM**, and they mirror to real subfolders on disk (`projects/<id>/…`), so a human can open the project in Resolve/Finder and navigate it like an edit. Use them for work product, not references.\n\nCreate with `slates_create_folder`; file assets with `slates_move_assets_to_folder`. Generations land in the project's active folder, so set it before a batch.\n\nConventions by project type:\n- **Short film / narrative:** `Shots` (scene stills) · `Clips` (generated video) · `Final` (the export). Use one folder per scene (`Scene 1`, `Scene 2`, …) instead when the piece has distinct locations/beats.\n- **Ad / UGC:** `Hooks` · `B-roll` · `Talking-head` · `Final`.\n\nRules of thumb:\n- Reusable cast / sets / look → leave in the Characters/Environments/Styles tabs. Don't fold them.\n- Scene stills, clips, and the final cut → file into the structural folder they belong to, as you make them.\n- One folder per asset (folders are structure). Cross-cutting status (hero take, reject, variant) is a tag concern, not a folder.\n- Keep the gallery legible: work product lives in folders; the reference scaffolding (sheets, plates, style images) stays in its tabs.\n\n## Asset codes — the shared vocabulary (IMG-A12 / VID-V3 / AUD-S1)\n\nEvery asset gets a short, stable code the moment it lands in a project, and the user sees it as the badge in the **top-left corner of every image and video card** in the gallery. This is the shared vocabulary between you and the user — it exists so neither of you ever has to quote a UUID.\n\n**The scheme:**\n- `IMG-A{n}` = images · `VID-V{n}` = videos · `AUD-S{n}` = audio.\n- Numbering is **per project, per type**, counts up from 1, and **numbers are never reused** — deleting IMG-A12 doesn't renumber anything, so a code always means the same asset forever.\n- Each asset also carries a **label**: the first ~4 meaningful words of its prompt, title-cased. Chat format is code + label: `IMG-A12 — Beach Sunset`.\n\n**How to use it:**\n- **User names a code** (\"use IMG-A36 as the reference\", \"animate VID-V3's last frame\") → resolve it via `slates_list_assets` (match the `code` field) to get the assetId, confirm back in the same vocabulary: \"Got it — IMG-A36 — Marcus Rooftop Close-Up as the first frame.\"\n- **You name assets** → ALWAYS code + label, never UUID, never \"the beach one\" (which of three?). The user matches your words to the badge by eye.\n- **User seems confused** about what a code is or how to point you at an image → explain it in one line: \"Every image and video in your gallery has a code badge in its top-left corner — like IMG-A36. Just say that code and I'll know exactly which one you mean.\"\n- **Ambiguity** (\"the sunset image\" when several exist) → pull candidates with `slates_get_assets_batch` and offer the codes: \"I see IMG-A12, IMG-A19, and IMG-A24 with sunsets — which one?\"\n",
     "slates-prompting-elevenlabs": "---\nname: slates-prompting-elevenlabs\ndescription: How to prompt ElevenLabs Sound Effects v2 in Slates. Read before calling slates_generate_audio with model eleven-sfx — ONE short effect with an EXACT duration (0.5-22s), or a seamless loop, billed per second. Covers describing an effect by its physical cause, the one-sound-per-generation rule, picking a duration, loops, prompt_influence, and when to use Seed Audio instead.\n---\n\n# ElevenLabs Sound Effects v2 — prompting\n\nOne short sound with an exact length, carried on fal (`fal-ai/elevenlabs/sound-effects/v2`). This is the only Slates audio surface with a real duration control and a real loop mode.\n\n## Where it routes\n\n- **A single hit that has to land on a known frame** — door slam, whoosh, impact, UI blip, riser.\n- **A seamless loop** you can lay under a whole scene — rain, engine hum, crowd murmur, machine noise.\n- **NOT** layered scenes. A room with dialogue *and* clatter *and* ambience is one `seed-audio` pass, not three SFX generations.\n- **NOT** speech. Dialogue, narration and scratch VO are `seed-audio` — it casts and performs the line inside the scene.\n- **AUDIO-ONLY.** It cannot produce images or video.\n\n## THE RULES\n\n### 1. Describe the physical CAUSE, not the label\n\n```\n✗  door sound\n✓  heavy oak door slams shut in a stone hallway\n\n✗  whoosh\n✓  a thick rope swung fast past a microphone, low air displacement\n\n✗  footsteps\n✓  boots on wet gravel, slow, one person\n```\n\nMaterial + weight + surface + room. Naming all four is the difference between a usable effect and a stock-library shrug. Cap is 450 characters — you will not need them.\n\n### 2. One sound per generation\n\nThis surface makes a single event. A door, then footsteps, then a siren is three generations layered on the timeline — or one `seed-audio` scene, which is usually cheaper and always more coherent.\n\n### 3. Duration is always explicit, and it is the price\n\n`durationSeconds` is 0.5–22 and Slates **always sends it**. (Left null the model picks, which makes the charge non-deterministic — so it is never left null.)\n\n| Kind of sound | Ask for |\n|---|---|\n| impact, hit, click | 0.5–1s |\n| whoosh, riser, transition | 2–4s |\n| loopable bed | 8–22s + `loop: true` |\n\nOver-asking pads the tail with room tone you then trim. Under-asking clips the decay.\n\n### 4. Loops\n\n`loop: true` tiles without a seam — rain, engine hum, crowd murmur, machine noise. Combine with a longer duration so the loop point is not obvious.\n\nFor a bed longer than 22s, this is the wrong surface: `seed-audio` runs to 120s in one pass.\n\n### 5. Prompt influence\n\n`promptInfluence` 0–1, default 0.3. Higher hugs your wording with less variation between takes; lower explores. Raise it when a re-roll keeps wandering off the brief; lower it when every take sounds like the same take.\n\n## Iterating\n\n- Re-rolls that keep missing = the prompt named a **label** instead of a **cause**. Rewrite it as a physical event.\n- A hit that lands but sounds wrong in the scene is usually a *room* problem — name the space (\"in a stone hallway\", \"in a padded studio\", \"outdoors, no reflections\").\n- Three failed takes means the prompt is wrong, not the seed.\n\n## Content notes\n\nElevenLabs applies its own moderation. See slates-content-policy.\n",
@@ -18,8 +18,8 @@ export const SKILLS = {
     "slates-prompting-nano-banana-2": "---\nname: slates-prompting-nano-banana-2\ndescription: How to write prompts that produce cinematic, photorealistic results from Nano Banana 2 (Google Gemini 3.1 Flash Image, accessed via fal-ai/nano-banana-2). Read this before calling slates_generate_image when the user wants film-quality, real-world, or cinematic output. Skip for stylized / illustrated / cartoon work — the rules differ.\n---\n\n# Nano Banana 2 — cinematic & photorealistic prompting\n\nNano Banana 2 is **Gemini 3.1 Flash Image**.<!-- slates-only --> It is the default model behind `slates_generate_image` — the op also exposes `flux-2-max` and `seedream-5-lite`, each with its own prompting skill.<!-- /slates-only --> It is **not** Gemini 3 Pro Image; that is Nano Banana **Pro** (`nano-banana-pro`), a separate model with its own seat.<!-- slates-only --> Verified against the runtime slug map in `slate/src/main/api/google.ts`.<!-- /slates-only --> NB2 is a language model that outputs pixels — brief it like a creative director, not like a Stable-Diffusion tag-soup tool. The single biggest lever for realism: **specificity that mimics how real photographers and cinematographers describe their work**.\n\nKnowledge cutoff: January 2025. Anything after needs explicit reference images.\n\n## Google's 4 official rules (verbatim)\n\n1. **Be specific.** Provide concrete details on subject, lighting, and composition.\n2. **Use positive framing.** Describe what you want, not what you don't want.\n3. **Control the camera.** Use photographic and cinematic terms like \"low angle\" and \"aerial view.\"\n4. **Iterate.** Refine images with follow-up prompts in a conversational manner.\n\n## Official prompt formula\n\n```\n[Subject] + [Action] + [Location/context] + [Composition] + [Style]\n```\n\nFor the cinematic / photoreal use case, expand to:\n\n```\nFilm still from [DIRECTOR] [GENRE]. Shot on [CAMERA] with [LENS]. [SUBJECT and action]. [3-5 specific visual details]. [LIGHTING — direction + quality]. [COLOR PALETTE]. [FILM STOCK or sensor language]. [1-2 word emotional tone].\n```\n\n## Photorealism positives — what consistently works\n\n> ⚠️ **This vocabulary is an IMAGE-model lever and a video-model anti-pattern — do not carry it across.**\n> Named lenses, apertures, film stocks and camera bodies (`85mm f/1.4`, `Kodak Portra 400`, `ARRI Alexa 65`) are correct and encouraged **here**. They are a **Seedance anti-pattern**: ByteDance's own guide uses shot sizes, camera moves, pacing words and its image-quality vocabulary throughout, and never once mentions fps, shutter angle, f-stop, or lens millimetres.\n> The leak happens in one specific way — you write an NB2 start frame, then write the video prompt to animate it and carry the look description straight across. **Translate instead of copying:** `85mm f/1.4, Portra 400` → `close-up, shallow depth of field, warm natural colors, cinematic texture, film-grain texture`. Full rule and the receipts: `slates-prompting-seedance` (Part 3, \"Don't cross-pollinate image-model syntax\").\n\n**Named lenses + apertures** beat generic \"shallow depth of field\":\n- `85mm f/1.4`, `135mm f/2.8` (the cheat code for skin texture), `50mm f/1.2`, `35mm f/2`\n- `Panavision anamorphic` for horizontal flares + cinematic width\n- `400mm telephoto` for compression + isolation\n- `24mm` for environmental interiors\n\n**Named cameras / sensors:**\n- `ARRI Alexa 65`, `Hasselblad X2D`, `Canon EOS R5`, `Sony A7III`, `Fujifilm X-T5`\n- \"Specific gear\" beats \"DSLR\"\n\n**Named film stocks** (one per prompt — never mix):\n- `Kodak Portra 400` — natural skin, warm\n- `Fuji Velvia 50` — saturated, landscape\n- `Ilford HP5 Plus` — black and white, gritty grain\n- `CineStill 800T` — tungsten night, halation\n\n**Physics-based lighting** (direction + quality):\n- `Single key light at 45 degrees from upper left`\n- `Late afternoon sun at 15 degrees above horizon`\n- `Color temperature 4500K` beats `slightly warm`\n- `Practicals only — no fill` for Deakins-style realism\n\n**Imperfection vocabulary** (forces away from AI-clean):\n- `visible pores`, `natural skin grain`, `peach fuzz`, `slight hyperpigmentation`\n- `unretouched raw photography`, `ISO noise`, `sweat beading`\n- `crisp catchlights in the eyes`, `skin micro-detail`\n\n**Director references** (use when locking style):\n| Director | Tone | Visual signature |\n|---|---|---|\n| Denis Villeneuve | Cold, vast, existential | Desaturated, overwhelming scale |\n| Roger Deakins | Precise motivated light | Single source, deep shadows, practicals |\n| Emmanuel Lubezki | Natural, spiritual | Available light, golden hour |\n| Bradford Young | Warm darkness | Underexposed, rich shadows, skin tones |\n\n**Genre cues that move the model:**\n- `unstaged documentary photography style`\n- `fashion magazine editorial, shot on medium-format analog film, pronounced grain`\n- `Film still from [Director] [genre]`\n\n## The anti-list — phrases that DEGRADE realism\n\nThese are Stable-Diffusion-era tag soup. The model treats them as low-signal noise. Measured success rate: ~60-70% with these vs ~95%+ with positive description.\n\n**Never use:**\n- `8k`, `4k` (as a quality token)\n- `hyperrealistic`, `ultra-realistic`, `photorealistic` standing alone\n- `masterpiece`, `best quality`, `highly detailed`, `ultra-detailed`\n- `trending on ArtStation`, `award-winning`\n- `perfect skin`, `flawless`, `airbrushed`, `smooth skin`\n- `cinematic` standing alone — always specify *which cinema* (director, lens, era, stock)\n- `not anime, not cartoon, not 3D` — negation tag soup, replace with a positive style cue\n\n## Negative prompting — there is no field\n\nNano Banana 2 has **no `negativePrompt` parameter**. Three patterns to suppress unwanted content:\n\n1. **Positive reframing (preferred):** \"empty street\" not \"no cars\". \"Unstaged documentary photography\" not \"not anime.\"\n2. **Inline `without` / `free of`:** \"without any people, vehicles, or man-made structures\", \"free of text overlays, logos, or watermarks.\"\n3. **Constraint clauses for anatomy/quality:** \"accurate anatomy with five fingers per hand, symmetrical features, natural proportions\"; \"sharp, well-exposed, free of blur or JPEG artifacts.\"\n\nDefault to #1. Reach for #2 only when positive framing can't suppress the unwanted element.\n\n## Reference images\n\n- **Hard limit: 14 images** (10 object-fidelity + 4 character-consistency). Categories don't trade — you can't use 14 object slots even if no characters are referenced.\n- **Name each reference inline — Slates does this for you.** When you `@mention` a subject/environment or `#mention` a style<!-- slates-only --> (or pass `referenceAssetIds`)<!-- /slates-only -->, Slates composes the prompt so each reference is named inline as \"image N\" — e.g. `Marcus (image 1) sits across from the woman (image 2) in the cafe (image 3)`, with a trailing `Render in the visual style of image 4.` The model does NOT infer a reference's role from its position; the NAME carries it. NB2's own consistency lever is literally **\"assign a distinct name to each character/object\"**. **Do NOT hand-write a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block or role essays** (\"use for identity, ignore the outfit, render the scene's expression\") — that drags the sheet's wardrobe + studio lighting into the scene. The prompt leads; the user's words own wardrobe, expression, lighting, and action.\n\n### Reference rules (the verified ones)\n\n<!-- @inject:references-read-literally -->\n> **The general law: the model reads a reference literally.**\n> A reference image is not a suggestion. Whatever is baked into it — lighting, medium, texture, symmetry, competing identities — is read as a **property of the subject** and reproduced downstream. A baked rim light tints every shot made from that sheet. A sheet that looks like a 3D game render gets animated like game footage. Two competing renderings of one face get averaged into a third face.\n\nEvery reference rule below is a corollary of that one sentence, which is why \"prep the reference\" beats \"prompt around the reference\" every time:\n\n- **Flat, plain identity refs** — because scene lighting in the sheet becomes scene lighting in the output (Slates' own receipt: a studio-lit sheet produced a subject that looked green-screen-pasted in front of mountains).\n- **One authoritative rendering per subject** — because the model cannot tell which panel is the real one. ByteDance documents this failure directly: multi-view character assets \"confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"\n- **No 3D-game-render look in a reference** — the model recognizes the render mood and inherits its motion character, so the *animation* comes out looking like game footage. This is not a taste rule; it is the same literal-reading mechanism applied to the temporal layer.\n- **Break perfect symmetry** — mirrored faces and dead-square framing read as synthetic, and the model preserves that reading rather than correcting it.\n\n**What this means in practice:** when output is wrong in a way that tracks the *subject* rather than the *scene* — the lighting is wrong the same way in every shot, the face drifts, the material looks synthetic everywhere — fix the reference, not the prompt. Prompting around a baked-in property is the expensive way to lose.\n<!-- @end:references-read-literally -->\n\n<!-- @inject:reference-rules-core -->\nIdentity = a few flat-lit neutral angles; one reference per role, named inline; 2-4 refs not 12; describe environments instead of feeding a grid.\n\n1. **2-4 strong references beat both extremes.** Not 1 (warps toward itself), not 12 (averages worse). Start with 2-3 focused refs — each one adds context AND another variable to balance.\n2. **One reference per ROLE, named in the prompt** — identity / style-grade / environment. The model does **not** infer a reference's role from its position in the list; the inline name carries it. Same-role competitors drift (two \"identity\" refs of different people blend into a third face). Slates composes the naming for you from your `@mentions` / `#tags` — you never hand-write role labels.\n3. **One identity sheet per character, named inline.** A character's identity is a single asset (dominant portrait + body panels), so attach that one asset rather than a pile of views: **fewer competing renderings of a face is better, because the model cannot tell which one is authoritative and averages them.** Slates cites it as `Marcus (image 1)`. **Do NOT hand-write a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block or role essays** (\"use for identity, ignore the outfit, render a neutral expression\") — that drags the sheet's studio lighting and wardrobe into a scene that asked for neither. The prompt leads; the user's words own wardrobe, expression, lighting, and action.\n4. **Flat-light identity refs.** Prep identity references with flat, even, shadowless lighting on a plain neutral background. A studio-lit or scene-lit character sheet bleeds its lighting into every generation — the failure looks like the subject was green-screen-pasted in front of the location. Reference prep beats prompting here.\n5. **Environment: describe it, don't feed a grid.** Default to describing the location in words and let the model build a space that fits the shot. Reserve an environment reference for a mandatory exact-match, and then use ONE clean establishing image with natural ambient light that reads as the location's real light — never a multi-panel grid fed whole.\n6. **Grids: explore, don't input.** Use grids to explore compositions cheaply, then pick a cell. Never feed a grid back in as a reference — the cells share a split detail budget and were generated jointly, so their flaws propagate.\n7. **Reuse the same refs across every shot** in a sequence. Lock a set and keep it; swapping references mid-sequence causes drift, because the model adapts each reference to the current prompt rather than copying it.\n8. **Legible in-shot text → bake it into a still start frame, never trust text-to-video.** Have an image model render the text, then animate from that locked frame. Video models smear type.\n9. **Working from existing media — describe ONLY what changes.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing, and performance; re-describing them fights the model. Narrate the delta. (Video lane: restyle your own clip while keeping the performance; delayed-VFX on \"video one\"; marker-object insertion; video-as-reference for a series.)\n10. **Style transforms happen in natural language.** By default the source's artistic medium and visual style are inherited. To change it, add a plain-text instruction (\"anime → real person\"). There are no preset pickers, and there is no style slider.\n<!-- @end:reference-rules-core -->\n\n### For Nano Banana 2 specifically\n\n- **NB2's own consistency lever is \"assign a distinct name to each character/object.\"** That is Google's phrasing for rule 3 — cite each canonical identity inline by name.\n- **Rule 8 is a job you do, not one you delegate.** NB2 *is* the start-frame model — when a downstream video shot needs legible text, render it here and animate from this frame.\n- **Character consistency is officially \"not 100% perfect\"** per Google. Test before bulk generations. High-resolution, front-facing reference images help most.\n- **Injection is stochastic — budget 3-5 re-rolls per shot; re-roll, don't re-engineer.** First rolls miss faces/hands; the same prompt lands a clean one within a few tries.\n\n## Common failure modes + fixes\n\n**Hands:** Append `accurate anatomy with five fingers per hand, symmetrical features, natural proportions, relaxed open palm`. Avoid heavy jewelry, props intersecting fingers, motion blur in references.\n\n**Text in images:** Quote-wrap target text. Specify font (`Century Gothic, 12pt`). Long phrases work; small text degrades. Two-step works best — generate text concepts conversationally first, then ask for the image.\n\n**Left/right confusion:** Default is **viewer's perspective**, not subject's. Append `left and right are from the character's perspective, NOT the camera's` when scene-blocking matters.\n\n**Surreal / absurd prompts trip uncanny valley:** The model drags toward realism. If you want surrealism, lean hard into stylization keywords (`painted`, `illustrated`, `stop-motion`).\n\n**Soft faces / dead eyes:** Add `crisp catchlights in the eyes`, `skin micro-detail`, `peach fuzz visible`. Don't stack quality enhancers — single clean prompt beats multiple re-interpretations.\n\n**Post-cutoff content (anything after Jan 2025):** Use reference images. The model has no knowledge of recent franchises, products, events.\n\n## Resolution tactics\n\n- Resolution is priced: NB2 4k costs roughly 2x 1k. Prices change — check current numbers<!-- slates-only --> by calling `slates_estimate_generation_cost`<!-- /slates-only -->. Pick the cheapest resolution that serves the use case.\n- **At 2K and above, the model allocates more tokens to surface detail** — explicit texture vocabulary (pores, fabric weave, grain) compounds at higher resolution.\n- 1k for fast iteration / drafts; 2k for hero shots; 4k only when you need print-grade detail.\n- 2K generations vary 20-60s+. Don't time-budget tightly.\n\n## Boring vs cinema — examples\n\n❌ **Boring:** \"Wide shot of a man on a dock looking at the forest.\"\n\n✅ **Cinema:** \"Direct overhead drone shot on weathered dock surface. Single figure standing center frame, climbing up from frame bottom. Boot prints leading away from him toward shore. Pale winter light. Anamorphic lens flare from low sun. Desaturated blue and slate grey palette. Kodak Portra 400 grain. The path already walked by someone else. Map of threat.\"\n\n❌ **Boring:** \"Close up of a woman looking scared.\"\n\n✅ **Cinema:** \"Extreme close on subject's mouth and nose, 135mm f/2.8, shallow depth of field. Breath pluming out, catching cold light from upper-left key. Lips slightly parted, peach fuzz visible. The breath holds. CineStill 800T halation around catchlights. Waiting.\"\n\n## The 3-strike rule\n\nIf three iterations on the same prompt haven't produced what the user wants, stop. Hand back to the user with what you tried and what isn't working. The slot machine doesn't converge — the prompt structure is wrong, not the seed.\n\n## Family variants — Lite and Pro\n\nEverything in this skill applies to the whole Nano Banana family; two variants trade speed/ceiling around NB2 full:\n\n- **nano-banana-2-lite** — ~half the price, ~2.7× faster, **1K output only**, max 4 refs. The draft/iteration seat: explore compositions here, then re-run the winner on NB2 full at 2K/4K. Same Gemini filter.\n- **nano-banana-pro** — the hero-frame/typography ceiling (~2× NB2, 4K native). NB2 ≈ 95% of Pro; escalate only when spatial composition, cinematic lighting/skin, fine typography-in-scene, or deep multi-element frames must be perfect. Up to 14 refs — it takes a full subject library in one call.\n\n<!-- slates-only -->\nRouting between them (and vs GPT Image 2 / FLUX / Seedream): `slates-model-selection`.\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n",
     "slates-prompting-omni-flash": "---\nname: slates-prompting-omni-flash\ndescription: How to prompt Gemini Omni Flash (Google, via fal). Read before calling slates_generate_video with omni-flash or slates_edit_video with omni-flash-edit. Cheap 720p tier with native synced audio included — 3-10s, 16:9/9:16 only; t2v, single-start-frame i2v, or reference-to-video with up to 7 reference images. The edit variant is the EDIT-FIDELITY WINNER for footage-synced VFX (receipt 2026-07-09) — but ONLY with short prompts: one change + \"Keep everything else the same.\" Long descriptive prompts destroy fidelity.\n---\n\n# Gemini Omni Flash — prompting\n\nGoogle's fast video generation + editing model (\"Nano Banana Pro for video\" in creator slang — a nickname; it is NOT the NB Pro image model). Carried on fal (`google/gemini-omni-flash*`). 720p only, 24fps, 3–10 second clips, 16:9 or 9:16. **Audio is native and included** — dialogue, SFX, and ambient generate WITH the video at no extra cost.\n\n## Where it routes\n\n- **Video editing (`omni-flash-edit`) — its headline strength and the edit-lane default** for footage-synced VFX: verified 2026-07-09 head-to-head vs Kling O3 Edit on real phone footage (fire-on-fingertips on a talking take) — Omni Flash held lip movement perfectly, audio near-identical, and executed both action beats; Kling kept audio verbatim but drifted lips and missed the second beat. Full routing: slates-model-selection.\n- **Cheap drafts and iteration volume** — lowest-cost audio-native video seat (~6.4 cr/s at 720p).\n- **NOT hero GENERATION shots** — Kling 3.0 stays the general gen default, Seedance 2.0 the premium tier; Omni Flash's *generation* quality seat is still unproven.\n\n## Editing (`slates_edit_video`, model `omni-flash-edit`) — THE RULES (receipts, not theory)\n\n1. **SHORT PROMPT. One change. Nothing else.** Google's own doc: *\"Simple prompts work best for video editing. Overly descriptive prompts can lead to unintended changes.\"* Live receipt 2026-07-09: a long \"keep every frame/word/movement identical…\" preamble produced WORSE drift (re-synthesized performance, wrong timing); the winning prompt was two sentences: *\"Small magical flames appear on his fingertips when he snaps his fingers, and vanish when he blows on them. Keep everything else the same.\"*\n2. **Always end with \"Keep everything else the same.\"** — the one documented preservation lever.\n3. **Never name a real-world object as a metaphor.** \"Candle-like flame\" rendered a literal candle in his hand. Describe the effect itself (\"small magical flames on his fingertips\").\n3b. **No conditional timing cues — they HARD-FAIL, not drift.** Receipt 2026-07-09: \"a dragon appears behind him, flies onto his shoulder WHEN HE CALLS IT, and perches AS HE WALKS…\" → deterministic `invalid_request` (2×, \"could not generate with the given inputs\"); collapsing to one continuous action — \"A small photorealistic dragon flies in and perches on his shoulder, puffing a small breath of flame and smoke.\" — succeeded first try. The model syncs the change to the footage's own motion; it cannot take beat-by-beat stage directions cued to moments in the video.\n4. **Safety filter (Google's, strict about harm-to-person):** \"fingertips ignite / catch fire\" → `content_policy_violation`. Frame effects as magical/harmless VFX: \"small magical flames appear on his fingertips\" passed. See slates-content-policy §Gemini for the substitution patterns.\n5. **Expect a possible tail artifact** — jitter or a doubled final speech beat in the last ~0.5s. Plan to trim the tail on the timeline; don't burn a re-roll on it.\n6. **Prompt + source clip ONLY.** No element/style reference images — identity swaps that need refs go to `kling-v3.0-omni-edit`.\n7. Source clip 3–10s (trim longer clips first). Output length follows the source; billing per output second, rounded up. Voice editing unsupported — never ask it to change dialogue.\n8. **Ship via segment-splice** (the workflow, not the model): edit only the seconds where the change happens, splice back over the original on the timeline with the original audio underneath. Most of the deliverable stays untouched original footage — this is how the pro demos are actually assembled (gesture-only edited beats + voiceover in post).\n9. Chain edits one change at a time — each edit saves as a new asset linked to its parent.\n\n## Generation (`slates_generate_video`, model `omni-flash`)\n\n- **Inputs:** prompt only (t2v), prompt + ONE start frame (`firstFrameAssetId`, i2v), or prompt + up to **7 reference images** (ingredient/character/environment/style asset params — they merge into one reference list). No last frame, no video/audio references — the op rejects them.\n- Descriptive prompts are fine for GENERATION (the short-prompt law above is edit-specific). Structure like a shot brief: subject + action + setting + camera + lighting + tone.\n- **Name references inline** the standard Slates way (\"Marcus (image 1) walks…\"). The endpoint also accepts explicit `<IMAGE_REF_0>`-style binding tags (zero-indexed) — useful when a specific image must bind to a specific role.\n- **Audio is prompt-driven** — no audio parameters. Dialogue in quotes; direct sound in plain language (\"rain patters on the tin roof\"). Negative direction as plain instructions (\"Do not show text\").\n- Duration is an explicit 3–10s integer param; cost scales linearly per second.\n\n## Input conditioning (Slates handles this — know it exists)\n\nPhone footage stores rotation as a metadata flag; models ignore it and edit the raw sideways pixels. Clips must be rotation-normalized (and oversized sources downscaled) before upload — receipt 2026-07-09: a portrait Pixel clip came back sideways until conditioned. If an edit output comes back rotated, the source wasn't normalized.\n\n## Content notes\n\n- Google applies its own safety filters to input images/clips and output. Uploads containing recognizable real people are restricted by Google's policy — though own-footage editing of the uploader passed on our route 2026-07-09. See slates-content-policy.\n- Output carries an invisible SynthID watermark (Google-side, programmatic detection only).\n",
     "slates-prompting-seed-audio": "---\nname: slates-prompting-seed-audio\ndescription: How to prompt Seed Audio 1.0 (ByteDance, via fal). Read before calling slates_generate_audio with model seed-audio. The one-pass audio SCENE model — dialogue, SFX and ambience together from ONE plain sentence. CRITICAL - it has NO duration parameter, so length must be named IN THE PROMPT TEXT and Slates bills the duration you request. Covers the one-sentence doctrine, the crowd-size rule, why Kling \"SFX:\" syntax hurts here, and the audio-refs-XOR-image input rule.\n---\n\n# Seed Audio 1.0 — prompting\n\nByteDance's one-pass audio scene model, carried on fal (`bytedance/seed-audio-1.0`). It generates dialogue, sound effects and ambience **together**, from a single plain sentence. 1–120 seconds. It is the default audio model in Slates and the workhorse for continuity beds.\n\n## Where it routes\n\n- **Scene audio, room tone, ambience beds, crowd/nature soundscapes** — anything where several sounds share a space. One generation, not three layered ones.\n- **Dialogue and scratch VO.** This is the only speech surface in Slates: the line is performed inside the scene. Lock the read by re-rolling until a take is right, then lip-sync against it with `slates_generate_lip_sync`.\n- **NOT** a single effect that must land on a known frame — that is `eleven-sfx`, which takes an exact duration.\n- **NOT** music. Slates has no music model; import a track and drop it on an audio track.\n- **AUDIO-ONLY.** It cannot produce images or video.\n\n## THE RULES\n\n### 1. 🚨 There is no duration parameter — the words set the length\n\nThis is the single most important fact about this model. Output length is driven by the prompt text (\"… 15 seconds\"), capped at 120s.\n\n**Slates handles this for you:** the `durationSeconds` param appends the duration to the prompt and **bills that number of seconds**. So:\n\n- Set `durationSeconds` to what you actually want.\n- **Do not also write a different length into your sentence.** Two numbers fight, and you pay for the one you selected, not the one you got.\n- If the returned clip is shorter than requested you still paid for the request — that is the deal that keeps the displayed price equal to the charge. Ask for what you need.\n\n<!-- slates-only -->\nThe server re-derives the billed key from `durationSeconds` (a client cannot under-bill), probes the returned `audio.duration` after completion, and logs `SEED AUDIO BILLING DRIFT` if the model overshot. No auto-charge, no refund — the request is the contract.\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n### 2. One plain sentence. No production jargon.\n\nField-proven (Higgsfield sprint, 2026-07-27/28). Working prompts look like this:\n\n```\ntiny applause of 2 or 3 people at an open mic. 15 seconds\nnature soundscape, wide open field cicadas and birds and a loon.\na diner at 2am, one coffee machine hissing, cutlery somewhere behind the counter\n```\n\nNot this:\n\n```\n✗ AMBIENCE: interior diner, night. SFX: espresso machine (hiss, 2s), cutlery.\n✗ Wide shot of a diner. Slow push in. Warm tungsten. Ambient noise: ...\n```\n\nShot language, camera moves and lighting belong to video prompts. Here they are just words the model has to ignore.\n\n### 3. Never bring Kling's audio syntax to this model\n\n`SFX:` and `Ambient noise:` prefixes and `Background music:` labels are **Kling 3.0 video** syntax. Seed Audio has no parser for them — it reads them as text in the scene and the output gets measurably worse. Describe the sounds directly instead.\n\n### 4. Name the crowd size, the room size, the distance\n\nThe highest-leverage single edit on any bed. Unqualified nouns default big:\n\n| Vague | What it returns | Fixed |\n|---|---|---|\n| `applause` | a full auditorium | `tiny applause of 2 or 3 people` |\n| `traffic` | a highway | `one car passing on a wet residential street` |\n| `crowd` | a stadium | `four people talking at the next table` |\n\nDistance words (`far off`, `muffled through a wall`, `right next to the mic`) work the same way and are how you build depth in one sentence.\n\n### 5. Beds must outlast the cut\n\nAsk for a few seconds more than the clip needs so the edit has handles to fade through. A bed that ends exactly on the cut always sounds clipped. This is a product requirement, not a preference — it is why the duration control exists at all.\n\n### 6. Dialogue goes in quotes, inside the same sentence as the room\n\n```\na tired bartender says, \"we closed twenty minutes ago\", glasses clinking behind him\n```\n\nPick a preset voice when a specific speaker matters. Leave `voice` unset and the scene casts itself — which is usually right for crowd and background dialogue.\n\nPreset voices (20): `vivi_mixed_en_zh_ja_es_id`, `mindy_en_es_id_pt_zh`, `kian_en_zh`, `cedric_en_zh`, `sophie_en_zh`, `jean_en_zh`, `magnus_en_zh`, `mabel_en_zh`, `nadia_en_zh`, `opal_en_zh`, `pearl_en_zh`, `quentin_en_zh`, `corinne_mixed_en_zh`, `esther_mixed_en_zh`, `lyla_mixed_en_zh`, `tracy_es_zh`, `sandy_es_mixed_en_zh`, `felix_zh`, `celeste_zh`, `monkey_king_zh`.\n\nSet `multilingual: true` for non-English or mixed-language lines.\n\n### 7. Inputs: up to 3 audio clips **XOR** one image. Never both.\n\n- **Audio references** — up to 3 clips, each ≤30s and ≤10MB (wav/mp3/pcm/ogg_opus). Refer to them in the prompt as `@Audio1`, `@Audio2`, `@Audio3`: *\"match the room tone of @Audio1\"*.\n- **Image reference** — one image (jpeg/png/webp ≤10MB). The model scores what it sees.\n- Sending both is rejected by the API. Pick the one that carries the intent.\n\n### 8. The knobs, and when to touch them\n\n| Param | Range | Reach for it when |\n|---|---|---|\n| `speed` | 0.5–2.0 | Dialogue is racing or dragging against picture. |\n| `volume` | 0.5–2.0 | Rarely — normalize on the timeline instead. |\n| `pitch` | −12…+12 semitones | Ageing or shifting a voice. Small moves only; ±3 is already a lot. |\n| `multilingual` | bool | Non-English or code-switched lines. |\n| `sampleRate` | 8k–48k | Leave at 24000 unless you are matching an existing stem. |\n| `outputFormat` | mp3 / wav / pcm / ogg_opus | wav when this is going into a mix; mp3 otherwise. |\n\n## Iterating\n\n- A bed that came back wrong is almost always a **scale** problem (crowd/room too big) or a **jargon** problem (the sentence reads like a spec). Fix those two before touching `speed`/`pitch`.\n- Three failed takes on the same sentence means the sentence is wrong, not the seed. Rewrite it the way you would say it out loud.\n- Generations are cheap enough at short durations that auditioning two phrasings beats agonizing over one.\n\n## Content notes\n\nProvider-side moderation applies to voices and to recognizable real people. See slates-content-policy.\n",
-    "slates-prompting-seedance-2-5": "---\nname: slates-prompting-seedance-2-5\ndescription: How to prompt Seedance 2.5 and Seedance 2.5 Edit. Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2.5, or slates_edit_video with model seedance-2.5-edit. 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT next to 2.0, not an upgrade — it buys 30-second takes, 30 image references and audio-only references, and it gives up 1080p and 4K entirely. Shares 2.0's prompt grammar (read slates-prompting-seedance for the shot structure, subject binding, camera and constraint vocabulary); this file covers only what is different, plus the two hazards unique to 2.5 — the prompt-intent task classifier and the cost trap at 720p.\n---\n\n# Seedance 2.5 — prompting\n\n**Read `slates-prompting-seedance` first.** The prompt GRAMMAR is the same model family: the\n8-slot advanced formula, the `Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3` storyboard, subject binding by\n`<Subject_N>@<Image_N>`, camera vocabulary, externalised emotion, inline constraint words, the\nanti-twin fix. None of it is restated here. This file is only what 2.5 changes.\n\n---\n\n## The one fact that decides whether you use it at all\n\n**Seedance 2.5 is 480p or 720p. There is no 1080p and no 4K, on any provider.**\n\nThat is not a Slates limitation or a tier gate — the model does not produce those resolutions.\nSo 2.5 does not replace 2.0; it sits beside it:\n\n| | Seedance 2.0 | Seedance 2.5 |\n|---|---|---|\n| Resolution | 480p / 720p / 1080p / **native 4K** | **480p / 720p only** |\n| Length | 4–15s | **4–30s in one take** |\n| Reference budget | 15 (9 image + 3 video + 3 audio) | **50 (30 image + 10 video + 10 audio)** |\n| Combined reference video/audio | ≤15s | **≤30s** |\n| Audio-only reference | ✗ (needs an image or video alongside) | **✓** |\n| Video edit as its own task type | ✗ | **✓ (`seedance-2.5-edit`)** |\n| Default video model | **yes** | no |\n\n**Route to 2.5 when the shot needs LENGTH, MANY REFERENCES, or an audio-only reference.\nRoute to 2.0 when resolution matters at all** — which, for anything a client will see full-screen,\nis most of the time.\n\n---\n\n## 🚨 Hazard 1 — the prompt-intent task classifier\n\nThis is the one that costs money and time, and it has no equivalent on 2.0.\n\n**Seedance 2.5 sorts every request into one of five task types** — text-to-video,\nreference-to-video, first/last-frame, **video edit**, **video extend** — from the reference roles\nattached **plus the intent of your sentence**. Each type then has its own parameter constraints,\nand a violation comes back **asynchronously**: the task queues, credits are reserved, and only then\ndoes it fail.\n\nThe trigger words are ordinary English:\n\n| Reclassified as | Words that do it |\n|---|---|\n| **video edit** | `add` · `remove` · `replace` · `change` · `edit the video` |\n| **video extend** | `extend` · `continue` · `continue the story` |\n\nSo a perfectly legitimate reference-to-video prompt — *\"a wide shot of the workshop, **remove** the\ntripod from frame\"* — gets classified as an edit and fails on constraints it never set.\n\n**What to do:**\n\n1. **If you mean to edit an existing clip, say so with the MODEL, not the sentence.** Call\n   `slates_edit_video` with `model: 'seedance-2.5-edit'`. That routes to a dedicated\n   task-typed endpoint and the classifier never has to guess.\n2. **If you mean a fresh shot, describe the finished frame rather than an instruction to change\n   one.** Not *\"remove the tripod\"* → *\"the workshop bench, clear and uncluttered\"*. Not\n   *\"add rain\"* → *\"heavy rain falling through the streetlight\"*. This is better prompting anyway:\n   the model renders what you describe, it does not take edits to an imagined draft.\n3. The trigger only fires when **references are attached**. A plain text-to-video prompt is safe\n   however it is worded.\n\n**Slates will warn you, and it will never rewrite your prompt.** When a 2.5 reference generation's\nprompt contains one of these words, the composer shows a warning that NAMES the words and the agent\nroute returns the same string. Silently editing the user's sentence to dodge a provider classifier\nis forbidden — the words that reach the model are always the words the user can see.\n\n---\n\n## 🚨 Hazard 2 — 720p is not \"the cheap one\" any more\n\nEvery other model in Slates trains the habit that lower resolution means lower cost. 2.5 breaks it,\nbecause the thing that moves the bill is **length**, and 2.5's length ceiling is double 2.0's.\n\nWorked, at the shipped rates:\n\n| Generation | Credits |\n|---|---|\n| 2.5 · 480p · 5s · faceless | 28 |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 5s · faceless | 59 |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 30s · faceless | 355 |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 30s · AI-face route | **484** |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 30s · consented real-face route | **710** |\n| *(for scale)* 2.0 · 1080p · 15s · AI-face route | 411 |\n\n**A 30-second 720p clip can cost more than a 15-second 1080p one** — and a base licence starts\nwith 1,000 credits. Someone who reads \"720p\" as \"cheap\" and asks for a 30-second take on the\nreal-face route has spent 71% of their welcome grant on one clip.\n\n**Discipline:**\n\n- **Always quote with `slates_estimate_generation_cost` before a take over ~10 seconds,** and say\n  the number out loud before generating.\n- **Draft at 480p and 4–8 seconds.** Prove the composition, the motion and the identity first;\n  spend the length only on the take you already know works.\n- **Length is a creative decision, not a default.** 30 seconds is available; it is rarely the right\n  answer for a single shot. Multi-shot storyboards inside one 30s generation are what the length is\n  actually for.\n- Read `slates-cost-discipline` — all of it applies, more sharply here.\n\n---\n\n## What the extra reference budget is actually for\n\n30 image references (up from 9) does **not** mean \"attach 30 images\". Every rule in\n`slates-prompting-seedance` about references still holds — 2–4 strong references beat both extremes,\none reference per role, one authoritative rendering per subject, and past **4 reference people**\noutput stability drops regardless of the cap.\n\nThe larger budget earns its keep in exactly two places:\n\n- **A long multi-shot take** where different shots need different subjects and locations bound —\n  the budget is spread across the storyboard, not stacked on one frame.\n- **Video and audio references alongside images**, which is where 2.5's 10 + 10 matters far more\n  than the image count.\n\n### Audio-only references — the genuinely new input\n\n2.0 required an image or video alongside any audio reference. **2.5 accepts audio on its own.**\nThat makes one recipe possible that was not before: drive a scene's timing, voice or ambience from\na recording with no visual anchor at all — a voice line, a music bed, a room tone — and let the\nmodel build the picture to it. Cite it the same way as any other reference\n(`Reference the timbre in <Audio_N> to generate…`), and remember that audio references carry **no\nbilling dimension** on any Seedance route: audio is included.\n\n### Video references\n\nUp to 10 clips, ≤30s combined (2.0: 3 clips, ≤15s). A reference VIDEO switches the cost key to\n`seedance-2.5*-vref-{res}-{T}s`, where **T = Σ input seconds + output seconds** — the sum is across\n**every** clip attached, not just the longest. Three 6-second references on a 12-second output bills\n30 seconds, not 12 and not 18. Quote before confirming.\n\n**The cap is a refusal, not a trim.** Attach an eleventh clip, or push past 30 combined seconds, and\nthe composition is rejected before anything uploads. That asymmetry is deliberate: reference images\nwarn-and-trim because dropping one doesn't change the price, and a dropped reference VIDEO would be\none you were quoted for and the model never saw.\n\n### Mixing all three in one call\n\n50 files total (30 image + 10 video + 10 audio) is a shared budget. Everything is cited positionally\nby type — `image 1`, `video 2`, `audio 1` — in attachment order, so reordering the attachments\nrenumbers the citations. Write the prompt against those numbers:\n\n```\nMarcus (image 1) performs the motion from video 1 in the workshop from image 2,\nspeaking the line in audio 1. Preserve his identity, appearance and outfit.\n```\n\nFrames and reference media stay mutually exclusive, in every combination — the reference endpoint\nhas no first/last-frame parameters at all, so this is a shape mismatch rather than a preference.\n\n---\n\n## Seedance 2.5 Edit (`slates_edit_video`, `model: 'seedance-2.5-edit'`)\n\nIts own picker row and its own op call, deliberately: the task type is **the model you chose**,\nnever something inferred from your sentence.\n\n**Why route here at all:** it is the **only edit engine in Slates that accepts a clip longer than 15\nseconds** (4–30s, versus Kling O3 Edit's 3–15s and Omni Flash Edit's 3–10s). For a clip inside the\nothers' range, choose on fidelity instead — Omni Flash Edit won the prompt-only head-to-head, and\nKling O3 Edit is the one that takes element and style reference images.\n\n**How it behaves:**\n\n- **Output length follows the SOURCE clip**, and the bill is the ceiled source length. The provider\n  requires an automatic duration on this task type, so there is no length knob — the clip you attach\n  is the quote.\n- **The aspect ratio follows the source clip too.** No ratio control; the frame is the clip's frame.\n- **480p or 720p output**, native audio.\n- **Prompt and source clip only** on this op — no character or style reference images. If the edit\n  needs a reference image to lock an identity, that is Kling O3 Edit's job.\n- **An edit bills roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length**, because every provider\n  charges an edit on input + output seconds. Read the confirm gate's number; do not reason from the\n  generation rate.\n- **Set `seedanceFace: true` when a character's face is visible in the clip.** The faceless provider\n  blocks faces outright — this is not a price optimisation, it is whether the job runs at all.\n- **There is no consented-real-face route for editing.** Real-person footage that the AI-face route\n  rejects has to go to Kling O3 Edit.\n\n**Prompting an edit** — the same discipline as every other edit engine: **describe only what\nchanges.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing and performance; re-describing\nthem fights the model. Use Seedance's own edit grammar from `slates-prompting-seedance`\n(*\"Strictly edit `<Video_1>`, and modify `<Original_Characteristic>` to `<New_Characteristic>`\"*) and\n**never** write *\"reference video 1\"* in an edit — the official guide is explicit that this phrasing\ngets the request reclassified as a reference task, which is the same landmine as Hazard 1.\n\n---\n\n## Faces, and what does NOT change\n\nThe three-tier face routing is identical to 2.0 — faceless → default route, an AI character's face →\n`seedanceFace: true` (the relaxed provider, a real cost premium), a real person's photo → the\nconsent-gated premium route after a `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]` rejection, with `realFaceConsent: true`\nset **only** after the user explicitly confirms they hold the rights to the likeness. The full rules,\nincluding why the real-vs-AI call is the provider's and not yours, are in\n`slates-prompting-seedance`.\n\nAlso unchanged, and worth restating because 2.5's length makes each one more expensive to get wrong:\n\n- **No time stamps.** `Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3`, ordered by when events occur, pacing left to the\n  model. A 30-second take makes this rule matter more, not less — it is more shots, not longer\n  segment labels.\n- **One primary camera move per shot.**\n- **No lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary.** That is image-model syntax and a Seedance\n  anti-pattern.\n- **No `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline.\n- **Legible in-shot text still belongs in a baked start frame**, not in the video prompt.\n",
-    "slates-prompting-seedance": "---\nname: slates-prompting-seedance\ndescription: How to prompt Seedance 2.0 (ByteDance video model). Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2. Seedance structures multi-beat prompts as a \"Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3\" storyboard against an 8-slot advanced formula — never per-second time stamps. Its syntax differs from Kling, Veo and the image models; don't cross-pollinate (in particular, no lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary).\n---\n\n# Seedance 2.0 — prompting\n\nByteDance's video model — first-party via **BytePlus ModelArk** (credits only, no BYOK). Audio always generated alongside the video. Single model `seedance-2` across the full resolution ladder (480p / 720p / 1080p / native 4K — 4K video is Pro-only, default 1080p), 4–15s, first+last frame, and up to 9 reference images / 3 videos / 3 audio clips.\n\n> **How to read this file.**\n> **[official :NNNN]** — ByteDance's own BytePlus ModelArk prompting guide, line `NNNN` of the archived doc dump (`research/seedance-2-modelark-docs.md`). Receipt-grade; treat as law.\n> **[community]** — third-party guides and our own field notes. Useful, but an `[official]` block always wins.\n> **[slates]** — how the Slates app composes or bills this; not ByteDance doctrine.\n>\n> The split is load-bearing. A community-sourced \"narrative timing beats\" doctrine shipped in this file for months teaching the **exact inverse** of ByteDance's published guidance. Never merge the two registers again.\n\n---\n\n# Part 1 — Official ByteDance doctrine\n\n## What Seedance actually is `[official :1450-1452]`\n\nSeedance 2.0 is a multimodal AI director. It reads text, images, video and audio **simultaneously** and internally decomposes them into two dimensions:\n\n- the **spatial layer** — what is in the frame\n- the **temporal layer** — how things change over time\n\nSo a good prompt is **not \"copywriting-style description\" but an \"engineering-style instruction\"**: who, in what scene, doing what action, how the camera moves, and in what chronological order events occur — delivered respectively to the spatial layer and the temporal layer.\n\n## The advanced formula — 8 slots `[official :1455]`\n\n```text\nprecise subject + action details + scene/environment + lighting & color tone\n+ camera movement + visual style + image quality + constraints\n```\n\n⚠️ There is **no official \"6-step formula.\"** `Subject + Action + Environment + Camera + Style + Constraints` is community branding with no ByteDance source, and it silently drops the **lighting & color tone** and **image quality** slots. Use the 8 slots above.\n\n## Task-type sentence patterns `[official :1389-1425]`\n\nSeedance classifies your request from the phrasing. Use the pattern that matches the task:\n\n| Task | Pattern |\n|---|---|\n| **Image reference** | ``Reference `<Subject_N>` in `<Image_N>` to generate…`` |\n| **Video reference** | ``Reference `<Action / Camera_movement / Style / Sound_effect>` in `<Video_N>` to generate…`` |\n| **Audio reference** | ``Reference the timbre in `<Audio_N>` to generate…`` |\n| **Video edit — modify** | ``Strictly edit `<Video_N>`, and modify `<Original_Characteristic>` in it to `<New_Characteristic>``` |\n| **Video edit — add** | ``<Element_Features>` + `<Timing>` + `<Location>`` |\n| **Video edit — delete** | Name what to delete; for anything that must stay, say so explicitly |\n| **Video extend** | ``Extend `<Video_N>` forward/backward to generate…`` |\n| **Combined** | ``Reference `[Dimension]` of `<Image/Video_N>`, strictly edit `<Video_X>`, `[Specific_Edits]``` |\n\n### ⚠️ Edit / extend phrasing landmine `[official :1431]`\n\n> *\"For edit / extend video tasks, directly use `<Video_N>` to refer to the video. **Do not use \"reference `<Video_N>`\"**, to avoid being incorrectly identified as a reference task.\"*\n\nThis is easy to trip: Slates has an edit lane<!-- slates-only --> (`slates_generate_video` with `videoReferenceAssetId`, plus the Seedance edit/relocate routes)<!-- /slates-only -->. Writing *\"reference video 1 and change the jacket to red\"* gets classified as a **reference** task — the model generates a brand-new clip inspired by the source instead of editing it. Write *\"Strictly edit video 1, and modify the blue jacket to red.\"*\n\n## Shot structure — \"Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3\" `[official :1563-1598]`\n\n> *\"Use shot order, write a simple 'Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3' storyboard for each segment of the video, and then merge them into a complete prompt.\"*\n\n**❌ Never second-stamp.** No `0:00–0:03`, no \"At 4 seconds\", no per-segment durations.\n\n> *\"Do not impose strict limits on the duration of each segment; prioritize allowing the model to naturally generate the pacing based on the plot.\"* `[:1580]`\n>\n> *\"The model's support for precise timing (such as 0–3 seconds) is **unstable**, and forcibly limiting duration may lead to **abnormal generation results**.\"* `[:1586]`\n\nOrder shots by when events occur — primary first, secondary later. Let the plot set the pacing.\n\n**Per-shot internal order** `[official :1590-1598]` — organize each shot in exactly this sequence:\n\n1. **Camera movement or shot transition** — \"slowly push in from a wide shot\", \"fixed camera position\", \"cut to…\"\n2. **Subject actions and expressions** — the key actions and expression changes of the core character/object\n3. **Position or spatial change** — where the subject is, and how that relationship shifts\n4. **Audio** — sound effects, voices, background music for that shot\n\n**One primary camera move per shot** — see Camera below. `[official :1648]`\n\n## Subject binding — names + image indexes `[official :1488-1556]`\n\nEvery time a subject appears, it must be **explicitly referred to**. Two supported forms:\n\n- **Undefined subjects** — bind inline every mention: `<Subject_N>@<Image_N>`. Official example: **`Zhang San@Image 1`**. `[:1540]`\n- **Pre-declared subjects** — define once, then reuse the same label verbatim: *\"Define the tall man in **Video 1** as **police officer**, and define the other short man as **thief**\"*, then say \"police officer\" every time after. `[:1514]`\n\n**One subject spread across several assets** — bind them together: *\"Define `[…]` in **Image 1** and `[…]` in **Image 2** as `<Subject N>`.\"* `[:1514]`\n\n⚠️ **An Asset ID must never substitute for `<Image/Video_N>`.** `[:1546]` *\"the model cannot directly associate the Asset ID with the reference content.\"* Always cite by index.\n\nAlso official: keep descriptions concise, avoid redundancy, avoid semantic conflicts (contradictory traits for one subject), and prefer expressing spatial relationships through reference images rather than dense text. `[:1550-1556]`\n\n**`[slates]`** — the app composes this for you. `composeReferences()` cites each canonical character or environment reference inline as `Name (image N)` in the exact order it sends them, which is ByteDance's own duplicate-character format (*\"Zhang San (corresponding to image 1)\"* `[:1976]`). You never hand-write role labels or index numbers.\n\n## Action description `[official :1602-1621]`\n\n- **Body-part specificity + quantified degree.** Name hands, legs, head, shoulders, back — and supplement **range, speed, and force**. *\"slowly raise a hand\", \"quickly turn the head\", \"push hard off the ground\", \"slightly lower the head.\"*\n- **Prioritize slow, gentle, continuous small movements.** Avoid high-burst, large-dynamic actions — sprinting, big jumps, violent rolls. *\"walk slowly\", \"gently raise a hand\", \"sit down naturally with the motion.\"* **This is the official basis for the folk rule that \"fast\" degrades quality** — it is not a banned token, it is a class of motion the model handles badly.\n- **Supplement transitions between actions.** Specify inertia and continuity between consecutive beats so movement reads coherent: *\"use the inertia of turning around to naturally raise a hand\", \"naturally transition from a pause into raising a hand.\"*\n\n## Externalize emotion `[official :1623-1636]`\n\nReplace abstract emotion words (\"very sad\", \"extremely angry\") with **specific physical detail**. This is the highest-leverage single habit in the official guide:\n\n| Abstract | Externalized as actions and details |\n|---|---|\n| **Sadness** | head lowering, shoulders trembling slightly, eyes reddening, fingers unconsciously clutching the corner of clothing, tears welling but not falling |\n| **Joy** | corners of the mouth rising uncontrollably, brows and eyes relaxing, steps becoming light, unconsciously humming a tune |\n| **Nervousness / anxiety** | frequently checking the watch, fingers constantly tapping the tabletop, rapid breathing, eyes darting away |\n| **Anger** | both fists clenched, jawline tense, chest heaving, eyes sharp, squeezing words out through gritted teeth |\n| **Relief** | letting out a long breath, tense shoulders completely relaxing, a faint smile appearing, looking up toward the distance |\n\n## Camera `[official :1643-1648]`\n\n> *\"The model has a **strong understanding of camera movement terms**, so you can **directly use standard camera movement terminology**, such as 'medium shot, close-up, wide shot, slow push-in, smooth lateral tracking, fixed shot.'\"*\n\nThis is an **open vocabulary, not a fixed list** — and it explicitly includes **shot size** (close-up / medium / wide / long shot), which is as much a camera instruction as the move itself.\n\n> ⚠️ *\"Try to specify only 1 type of camera movement in a single shot. Do not require push, pull, pan, and move at the same time, as this will increase image instability.\"* `[:1648]`\n\n## Image quality, style, and constraints `[official :1656-1679]`\n\nThese three slots \"define creative boundaries for the model, unify image quality and artistic tone, and avoid visual flaws and random deviations.\"\n\n**1. Image quality** — define clarity, texture detail, and lighting quality. Official vocabulary: `HD` · `rich details` · `cinematic texture` · `natural colors` · `soft lighting`.\n\n> ⚠️ This is a **real slot with real vocabulary** — do not confuse it with Stable-Diffusion-era quality incantations. `8K` / `masterpiece` / `trending on artstation` remain banned slop tokens (see Part 3); *\"cinematic texture, rich details, natural colors\"* is the officially sanctioned way to ask for the same thing.\n\n**2. Style** — the overall art style and visual tone: `cyberpunk cool blue-purple tone` · `retro film` · `fresh Japanese style`.\n\n**3. Constraint words** — *\"Constraint words are very important. They can effectively avoid visual flaws, deformities, breakdowns, and unreasonable elements.\"* Official templates, verbatim:\n\n- **No subtitles** — \"keep it subtitle-free\" / \"avoid generating any text or subtitles\"\n- **No logo** — \"do not generate a logo\"\n- **No watermark** — \"do not generate a watermark\"\n\nSeedance has **no `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline in this slot. See Part 3 for the wider inline-negative kit.\n\n## 🔴 Duplicated characters — the twin problem `[official :1948-1994]`\n\n**Symptom:** in frames with **many characters**, where **three-view / multi-view character images** are supplied as references, two identical characters appear in the same generated frame.\n\n**Root causes** `[:1954-1959]`:\n1. Character subjects are not clearly defined in the prompt, so the model cannot distinguish roles.\n2. *\"When character **three-view / multi-view images** are used as reference assets, it is easy to confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"*\n\n**Official fixes, in their order** `[:1971-1994]` — ByteDance is explicit that these *reduce probability*, not eliminate it:\n\n1. **Bind each character to its image explicitly**, in a consistent format. Official example: *\"Zhang San (corresponding to image 1) throws the green passbook toward Li Si (corresponding to image 2), who is standing.\"*\n2. **Append the global constraint verbatim** at the end of the prompt `[:1982]`:\n   > *\"Throughout the video, characters with completely identical appearance, clothing, and accessories are prohibited. Do not generate duplicate avatars or a twin effect. Keep only a single corresponding character in the same frame, and do not reproduce repeated copies of characters.\"*\n3. **Optimize reference assets** `[:1988]` — *\"For character reference images, prioritize independent single-person photos. Three-view or multi-view assets are not recommended.\"*\n4. **Simplify the prompt** — do not paste a whole script; redundant copy confuses the model.\n\n**Scope this honestly.** This is troubleshooting for the twin problem in **multi-character frames**, not a blanket verdict on identity sheets. Practical rule for Slates:\n\n- **Multi-character Seedance shot** → bind every character to its image, append the anti-twin constraint, and prefer single-person / dominant-portrait references over multi-view sheets.\n- **Single-character shot** → the standard character-sheet flow is fine.\n\n**Too many reference people** `[official :2048-2052]` — past **4 reference people**, output stability drops (wrong headcount, duplicates). Official workaround: group the cast into images of ≤4 people each, generate those stills first, then drive the video from them.\n\n## Worked examples `[official :1689-1745]`\n\nThese are ByteDance's own end-to-end cases. Note the shape: an asset-binding preamble, then `Shot N` blocks in event order, then a trailing style + stability paragraph. No time stamps anywhere.\n\n**Example 1 — dormitory emotional short drama (dialogue-focused).** Assets: `@Image 1` half-body photo of the female lead · `@Image 2` dormitory scene reference · `@Video 1` camera-movement reference · `@Audio 1` indoor ambience.\n\n> Use the girl in @Image 1 as the main character, use @Image 2 as the dormitory scene style reference, and refer to the camera movement in @Video 1.\n>\n> **Shot 1**: At dusk, **girl @Image 1** walks briskly to the **dormitory entrance @Image 2**. The camera follows steadily in a medium shot. Warm yellow sunlight spills into the hallway from the window. She pauses at the doorway, takes a deep breath, and looks slightly nervous.\n>\n> **Shot 2**: **Girl @Image 1** pushes the door open and enters the dormitory. The camera cuts to an indoor medium shot. Her roommates look up at her while organizing their books. One of them smiles and asks {How did the exam go? Did you pass?}. The camera slowly cuts between half-body close-ups of several people.\n>\n> **Shot 3**: **Girl @Image 1** first lowers her head with a dejected expression. The camera gives her a close-up. Then she raises her head, unable to hold back a smile, laughs out loud, and says {I was kidding}. Her roommates start chasing and play-fighting with her. The camera slowly pulls back and freezes on a wide shot of the dormitory filled with laughter.\n>\n> The entire video should have a high-definition cinematic documentary style, with warm tones and soft lighting. The character's face remains stable without deformation; movements are natural and smooth, with no stutter or flicker. The ambient sound blends naturally with @Audio 1.\n\n**Example 2 — ancient-style cliff confrontation (action/atmosphere-focused).** Assets: `@Image 1` female lead in red · `@Image 2` assassin in black · `@Image 3` cliff and bamboo forest · `@Video 1` martial-arts camera reference · `@Audio 1` drum beats.\n\n> Use the woman in red from @Image 1 as the female lead, use the woman in black from @Image 2 as the opponent, use the cliff and bamboo forest environment in @Image 3 as the scene reference, refer to the overall camera movement and action rhythm in @Video 1, and synchronize the background sound effects with @Audio 1.\n>\n> **Shot 1**: At dusk, the camera slowly pushes in from a side medium shot of **woman in red @Image 1**. She stands at the edge of the cliff and lifts a wine flask to drink. Her sleeves and robe hem sway gently in the mountain wind. The camera circles halfway around her, moving from the front to her back. In the distance, a figure in black is faintly visible in the bamboo forest.\n>\n> **Shot 2**: The camera zooms and fades into a long shot. From a drone perspective, it overlooks the entire cliff and bamboo forest. The two characters stand at opposite ends of the cliff. The mountain wind lifts their robe hems and dust, and the rhythm slightly accelerates with the drum beats.\n>\n> **Shot 3**: The camera cuts back to a ground-level close shot. The two slowly draw their swords and face off. **Woman in red @Image 1** shifts from a careless expression to a cold gaze. **Woman in black @Image 2** looks determined, and the sword tip trembles slightly. The camera steadily follows the two as they circle each other, finally freezing on a close-up of the instant before the two swords meet.\n>\n> The overall visual style should feel like a cinematic wuxia world in misty rain, with cool tones, low saturation, a film-grain texture, and rich light-and-shadow layers. The characters' faces and body proportions remain stable without deformation. Movements are continuous and natural, not stiff, with no clipping or stutter.\n\n## Other official notes\n\n- **On-screen text** `[official :1758]` — Seedance can render common text (ad slogans, subtitles, speech bubbles) and will auto-match style/colour from context, or take an explicit colour / style / timing / position. Prefer **common characters**; avoid rare glyphs and special symbols. (For *guaranteed* legible text, the start-frame route in Part 3 is still safer.)\n- **Extension degrades quality** `[official :2004-2024]` — using a generated video as the input for extension compounds degradation, with mottled colour blocks in face regions. Limit repeated continuations; prefer HD assets as input.\n- **Special effects that miss** `[official :2031-2044]` — when a described effect comes out wrong (a countdown that scrolls randomly), define it with a **reference video** instead of words: *\"the way the number '2999' appears should reference video 1.\"*\n\n---\n\n# Part 2 — Slates-specific `[slates]`\n\n## Reference media — caps and transport\n\nReference-to-video accepts up to **9 reference images, 3 reference videos, 3 audio clips** `[official :275-281]`. Text+audio-only and audio-only inputs are not supported.\n\n**Mutually exclusive:** first-frame/last-frame mode CANNOT be combined with reference images. The error reads `\"first/last frame content cannot be mixed with reference media content.\"` Pick one or the other. *(Official note `[:284]`: you can approximate first/last frames via prompt wording inside a multimodal call, but if the frames must be exact, use the dedicated first/last-frame route.)* The same rule covers reference VIDEO and AUDIO: they ride the reference endpoint, which has no frame parameters at all.\n\n### All three modalities go in ONE call\n\nThe caps are a shared budget, not three separate features: **12 files total on 2.0** (9 image + 3 video + 3 audio), **15 seconds of reference video combined**, **15 seconds of audio combined**. On 2.0 an audio reference needs at least one image or video alongside it; 2.5 accepts audio on its own.\n\nCite each by type and index, in the order they were attached — `image 1`, `video 1`, `audio 1`. The index is positional: reorder the attachments and the numbers move with them.\n\n```\nMarcus (image 1) performs the motion from video 1, in the workshop from image 2,\nspeaking the line in audio 1. Preserve his identity, appearance and outfit.\n```\n<!-- slates-only -->\n**Attaching a clip is NOT the same as editing it.** \"Add as reference\" puts it in the composer alongside everything else and wipes nothing; \"Edit with AI\" makes the clip the canvas and clears the tray for a fresh instruction. Two different jobs, two different menu entries — never infer one from the other.\n\n**Over the cap is REFUSED, never trimmed.** A reference video is priced into the quote before it is sent, so a clip silently dropped after the quote would be a clip you paid for and the model never saw. Remove one and retry.\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n### Motion transfer & lip-sync recipes (reference video / audio)\n\nThese aren't separate Seedance features — they're prompting strategies over reference media.<!-- slates-only --> The Slates tools (`slates_generate_motion_transfer` / `slates_generate_lip_sync` with the seedance engine) compose them for you. When driving them by hand through `slates_generate_video`:<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n- **Motion transfer:** subject image as a reference + the driving clip<!-- slates-only --> via `videoReferenceAssetId`<!-- /slates-only --> (2–15s) + `The character from image 1 performs the exact motion, choreography, and camera movement from video 1. Preserve the character's identity, appearance, and outfit.`\n- **Lip-sync / dialogue:** write the line in the prompt — `The person in video 1 says: \"…\"` — with audio generation on (always on in Slates). A **video** source's own voice is cloned natively; an **audio** reference (≤15s) drives speech from an existing recording: `…speaks the dialogue from audio 1 with accurate lip sync.`\n- **Voice + face from one clip (the talking-head recipe):** ONE unedited 2–15s clip of the person speaking (clear voice, no music, no cuts) as the video reference + prompt with the new script → their likeness AND voice deliver the new line.\n<!-- slates-only -->\n- **Billing:** a reference VIDEO switches the cost key to `seedance-2*-vref-{res}-{T}s` where T = clip seconds + output seconds — quote before confirming. Audio references are free (audio is included on every route).\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n<!-- slates-only -->\n## Faces — set `seedanceFace` for AI-character faces\n\nSeedance routes through **three tiers** depending on the face in the reference, exposed as the \"Face in Reference\" toggle plus the real-face params on `slates_generate_video`:\n\n- **Faceless / object / environment refs → default route (cheapest).** Leave `seedanceFace` off.\n- **An AI-character's FACE in a reference → `seedanceFace: true`.** The default route's baseline moderation rejects or degrades faces, so this reroutes to the face-capable provider. It costs **~45% more** — the cost key becomes `seedance-2-face-{res}-{N}s`, so the pre-flight quote already reflects it. Announce the face-route price, not the faceless one.\n- **A REAL person's photo (the user themselves, an actor) → the consent-gated premium route.** If a `seedanceFace` gen fails with `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]`, the provider classified the reference as a real person: confirm with the user that (a) they hold the rights/consent to the likeness and (b) they accept the higher price (cost key `seedance-2-realface-{res}-{N}s`, roughly 2× the AI-face rate — quote via `slates_estimate_generation_cost`), then retry with `seedanceRealFace: true` + `realFaceConsent: true`. Never set `realFaceConsent` without the user's explicit confirmation.\n\nRules:\n- **The real-vs-AI call is the PROVIDER'S, not yours.** ByteDance's classifier is probabilistic — some real photos pass the standard face route (billed at the cheap rate; fine), others get rejected with `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]` (auto-refunded). Don't preemptively route to the real-face tier just because a photo looks real; try `seedanceFace: true` first and escalate only on the marked rejection. Public figures / celebrities fail on every route.\n- It's about the **reference, not the output.** If your character identity or generated portrait shows a face, turn it on. A product shot with no person stays off.\n- Don't toggle it on \"just in case\" — a faceless gen on the face route burns ~45% extra for nothing.\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n## Reference rules (the verified ones)\n\n<!-- @inject:references-read-literally -->\n> **The general law: the model reads a reference literally.**\n> A reference image is not a suggestion. Whatever is baked into it — lighting, medium, texture, symmetry, competing identities — is read as a **property of the subject** and reproduced downstream. A baked rim light tints every shot made from that sheet. A sheet that looks like a 3D game render gets animated like game footage. Two competing renderings of one face get averaged into a third face.\n\nEvery reference rule below is a corollary of that one sentence, which is why \"prep the reference\" beats \"prompt around the reference\" every time:\n\n- **Flat, plain identity refs** — because scene lighting in the sheet becomes scene lighting in the output (Slates' own receipt: a studio-lit sheet produced a subject that looked green-screen-pasted in front of mountains).\n- **One authoritative rendering per subject** — because the model cannot tell which panel is the real one. ByteDance documents this failure directly: multi-view character assets \"confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"\n- **No 3D-game-render look in a reference** — the model recognizes the render mood and inherits its motion character, so the *animation* comes out looking like game footage. This is not a taste rule; it is the same literal-reading mechanism applied to the temporal layer.\n- **Break perfect symmetry** — mirrored faces and dead-square framing read as synthetic, and the model preserves that reading rather than correcting it.\n\n**What this means in practice:** when output is wrong in a way that tracks the *subject* rather than the *scene* — the lighting is wrong the same way in every shot, the face drifts, the material looks synthetic everywhere — fix the reference, not the prompt. Prompting around a baked-in property is the expensive way to lose.\n<!-- @end:references-read-literally -->\n\n<!-- @inject:reference-rules-core -->\nIdentity = a few flat-lit neutral angles; one reference per role, named inline; 2-4 refs not 12; describe environments instead of feeding a grid.\n\n1. **2-4 strong references beat both extremes.** Not 1 (warps toward itself), not 12 (averages worse). Start with 2-3 focused refs — each one adds context AND another variable to balance.\n2. **One reference per ROLE, named in the prompt** — identity / style-grade / environment. The model does **not** infer a reference's role from its position in the list; the inline name carries it. Same-role competitors drift (two \"identity\" refs of different people blend into a third face). Slates composes the naming for you from your `@mentions` / `#tags` — you never hand-write role labels.\n3. **One identity sheet per character, named inline.** A character's identity is a single asset (dominant portrait + body panels), so attach that one asset rather than a pile of views: **fewer competing renderings of a face is better, because the model cannot tell which one is authoritative and averages them.** Slates cites it as `Marcus (image 1)`. **Do NOT hand-write a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block or role essays** (\"use for identity, ignore the outfit, render a neutral expression\") — that drags the sheet's studio lighting and wardrobe into a scene that asked for neither. The prompt leads; the user's words own wardrobe, expression, lighting, and action.\n4. **Flat-light identity refs.** Prep identity references with flat, even, shadowless lighting on a plain neutral background. A studio-lit or scene-lit character sheet bleeds its lighting into every generation — the failure looks like the subject was green-screen-pasted in front of the location. Reference prep beats prompting here.\n5. **Environment: describe it, don't feed a grid.** Default to describing the location in words and let the model build a space that fits the shot. Reserve an environment reference for a mandatory exact-match, and then use ONE clean establishing image with natural ambient light that reads as the location's real light — never a multi-panel grid fed whole.\n6. **Grids: explore, don't input.** Use grids to explore compositions cheaply, then pick a cell. Never feed a grid back in as a reference — the cells share a split detail budget and were generated jointly, so their flaws propagate.\n7. **Reuse the same refs across every shot** in a sequence. Lock a set and keep it; swapping references mid-sequence causes drift, because the model adapts each reference to the current prompt rather than copying it.\n8. **Legible in-shot text → bake it into a still start frame, never trust text-to-video.** Have an image model render the text, then animate from that locked frame. Video models smear type.\n9. **Working from existing media — describe ONLY what changes.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing, and performance; re-describing them fights the model. Narrate the delta. (Video lane: restyle your own clip while keeping the performance; delayed-VFX on \"video one\"; marker-object insertion; video-as-reference for a series.)\n10. **Style transforms happen in natural language.** By default the source's artistic medium and visual style are inherited. To change it, add a plain-text instruction (\"anime → real person\"). There are no preset pickers, and there is no style slider.\n<!-- @end:reference-rules-core -->\n\n### For Seedance specifically\n\n- **Describe the ACTION, never the reference's content.** With refs attached, prompt only what is *happening* — motion, change, camera. Never re-describe what's in the reference, and never say \"still / scene / from a movie / from the image.\" The model already sees the refs; narrating them wastes tokens and induces drift. Injection is stochastic — if a roll misses, **re-roll, don't re-engineer** (and a slow gen is not a failed one<!-- slates-only --> — see slates-cost-discipline<!-- /slates-only -->).\n- **Seedance's own idiom for rule 2 is `Reference <Subject_N> in <Image_N>`** `[official :1389]` — `Image_N` indexes the order the refs are attached, so the name plus the index carries the role. The full binding grammar is in Part 1 (Subject binding).\n- **Rule 3 has an official ceiling here.** The trend is MORE references (video and audio into Seedance), all addressed by name — but for **multi-character frames** see the twin-problem section above: bind every character to its image, append the anti-twin constraint, and prefer single-person references. Past 4 reference people, stability drops `[official :2048-2052]`.\n- **Rule 8 holds even though Seedance can render common text natively** `[official :1758]`. A baked NB2 start frame is still the reliable route for text that must be legible.\n- **Rule 5 pairs with the first/last-frame exclusion** — frames and reference images are mutually exclusive on this model (see Reference media above), so an environment you must match exactly costs you the frame lane.\n\n<!-- slates-only -->\n## Pre-flight: references arrive inline, refer by code\n\nWhen you call `slates_generate_video` with reference asset IDs (firstFrameAssetId, lastFrameAssetId, ingredientAssetIds), the first call returns those references **inline as image content blocks** alongside a cost estimate and `requires_confirm: true`. **Look at the references** — if they suggest a different framing, lighting, or motion than your current prompt captures, revise the prompt before re-calling with `confirm=true`.\n\nWhen talking to the user about the gen, refer to each reference by its short code: `IMG-A12 — Beach Sunset`. The user sees that code as a badge on the gallery thumbnail, so they can match what you're saying to what they're looking at.\n\n- ✅ \"I'm using **IMG-A12** as the first frame and **IMG-A15** as the last frame — the camera move is going to be a slow dolly forward through the gap.\"\n- ❌ \"I'm using the first beach image and the last one...\" (which? They have four.)\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n---\n\n# Part 3 — Community field notes `[community]`\n\nThird-party guides and Slates field experience. Useful heuristics — but if one of these ever appears to contradict Part 1, **Part 1 wins**.\n\n## Length\n\n**Sweet spot 60-150 words** for a single shot (not 150-300 — that's the upper bound). Multi-shot storyboards run longer; official Example 1 above is ~230 words across three shots.\n\n## Pin the subject in the first 20-30 words\n\nThe opening sentence is the **identity anchor**. If the subject isn't locked early, the model hallucinates new subjects mid-clip. (Compatible with Part 1: the binding preamble comes before `Shot 1`.)\n\n```\nA matte black earbud case sits on a polished obsidian surface...\n```\n\n## Lighting is a top quality lever\n\nLighting has an outsized impact on output quality — which is why it has its own slot in the official 8-slot formula. Describe it before or alongside the subject.\n\n```\nA cool-white diagonal beam from upper left, dust particles drifting through.\nSoft golden hour lighting from low west angle.\nDramatic rim light against dark background.\n```\n\n## Camera and subject motion — separate sentences\n\nMixing them is a common cause of glitchy / shaky output.\n\n❌ \"The camera speed ramps as the earbud rises.\"\n✅ \"The earbud rises smoothly. The camera tracks upward.\"\n\n## Slow-motion works; \"fast\" is a known bad token\n\nSpeed ramps and slow-motion are supported in natural language, and `fast` is widely reported as a quality-degrading keyword. **The official version of this rule is stronger and better founded** — prioritize slow, gentle, continuous small movements and avoid high-burst action (Part 1, Action description `[:1611-1615]`). Prompt the motion class, not the adjective.\n\n```\nthe lid opens in slow-motion · the blade whips through the air\n```\n\n**Slop tokens to avoid:** `epic`, `amazing`, `beautiful`, `lots of movement`, `8K`, `masterpiece`, `trending on artstation`. These are quality *incantations* — the officially sanctioned way to ask for quality is the image-quality slot vocabulary in Part 1 (`HD`, `rich details`, `cinematic texture`, `natural colors`, `soft lighting`).\n\n## Style block at the end\n\nOne primary anchor + 2-3 supporting details, as the trailing paragraph (both official examples do exactly this). End with `Single continuous take` if you want one shot with no cuts. **Never** write `no cut` or `seamless transition` — not in the training vocabulary.\n\n## ⚠️ Don't cross-pollinate image-model syntax\n\nNamed **lenses, apertures, film stocks, and camera bodies** — `85mm f/1.4`, `Kodak Portra 400`, `ARRI Alexa 65`, `shot on Sony A7S3` — are an **image-model lever** (correct and encouraged in `slates-prompting-nano-banana-2`) and a **Seedance anti-pattern**. ByteDance's guide uses shot sizes, camera moves, pacing words, and the image-quality/style vocabulary throughout, and never once mentions fps, shutter angle, f-stop, or lens millimetres.\n\nIf you are carrying a look over from an NB2 start frame, translate it: `85mm f/1.4, Portra 400` → `close-up, shallow depth of field, warm natural colors, cinematic texture, film-grain texture`.\n\n## Negative prompting — inline only\n\nSeedance has **no `negativePrompt` field**. Put negatives in the constraints slot, led by the three official templates (Part 1):\n\n```\nkeep it subtitle-free · do not generate a logo · do not generate a watermark\navoid jitter and bent limbs\navoid temporal flicker\navoid identity drift\nno distortion, no stretching\n```\n\nAlso fine: positive reframing (\"empty street\" not \"no cars\").\n\n## Image-to-video / first-frame guidance\n\n**Describe motion, not image.** The model already sees the visual; tokens spent re-describing appearance are wasted.\n\nStability phrases that help:\n- `preserve composition and colors`\n- `maintain exact appearance from reference image`\n- `consistent character throughout, no deformation or drift`\n\n**Cap I2V prompts under 60 words** when possible. Over 100 words frequently triggers silent generation failure.\n\n## Common failure modes + fixes\n\n| Failure | Fix |\n|---|---|\n| Hallucinated subject mid-clip | First 20-30 words = identity anchor |\n| Bent limbs / extra fingers | `avoid jitter and bent limbs` in Constraints |\n| Identity drift across multi-shot | Re-name the bound subject in **every** `Shot N` block `[official :1537]` |\n| Two identical characters in one frame | The twin fix in Part 1 — bind each character to its image + append the global anti-twin constraint |\n| Silent generation failure on I2V | Cut prompt under 100 words, single primary camera move |\n| Speech / motion conflict | Limit dialogue to one line per action shot |\n| Erratic/random pacing | You second-stamped. Remove all time markers and use `Shot N` `[official :1586]` |\n\n## Sources\n\n**Official (authoritative):**\n- BytePlus ModelArk — Seedance 2.0 prompting guide, archived at `research/seedance-2-modelark-docs.md` (all `:NNNN` refs above)\n\n**Community (secondary):**\n- [fal.ai — How to Use Seedance 2.0](https://fal.ai/learn/tools/how-to-use-seedance-2-0)\n- [apiyi.com — Seedance 2.0 Prompt Guide](https://help.apiyi.com/en/seedance-2-0-prompt-guide-video-generation-camera-style-tips-en.html)\n- [atlabs.ai — Ultimate Seedance 2.0 Prompting Guide](https://www.atlabs.ai/blog/the-ultimate-seedance-2.0-prompting-guide-47-prompts-2026)\n",
+    "slates-prompting-seedance-2-5": "---\nname: slates-prompting-seedance-2-5\ndescription: How to prompt Seedance 2.5 and Seedance 2.5 Edit. Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2.5, or slates_edit_video with model seedance-2.5-edit. 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT next to 2.0, not an upgrade — it buys 30-second takes, 30 image references, audio-only references and INTEGER-SECOND TIMESTAMPS, and it gives up 1080p and 4K — it is 480p or 720p on every route Slates offers. Timestamps are the one grammar difference that matters: 2.0 ignores them and answers only to shot numbers, 2.5 acts on them. Otherwise it shares 2.0's grammar (read slates-prompting-seedance for subject binding, camera and constraint vocabulary); this file covers what is different, plus the two hazards unique to 2.5 — the prompt-intent task classifier and the cost trap at 720p.\n---\n\n# Seedance 2.5 — prompting\n\n**Read `slates-prompting-seedance` first.** The prompt GRAMMAR is the same model family: the\n8-slot advanced formula, subject binding by `<Subject_N>@<Image_N>`, camera vocabulary,\nexternalised emotion, inline constraint words, the anti-twin fix. None of it is restated here.\nThis file is only what 2.5 changes — and the biggest change is that **2.5 acts on timestamps\nwhere 2.0 ignores them.**\n\n---\n\n## The one fact that decides whether you use it at all\n\n**Seedance 2.5 is 480p or 720p on every route Slates offers — no 1080p, no 4K.**\n\nTreat that as the current ceiling on our routes, not a claim about the model everywhere. It is not a\ntier gate either: no Slates plan unlocks a higher resolution on 2.5. So 2.5 does not replace 2.0;\nit sits beside it:\n\n| | Seedance 2.0 | Seedance 2.5 |\n|---|---|---|\n| Resolution | 480p / 720p / 1080p / **native 4K** | **480p / 720p only** |\n| Length | 4–15s | **4–30s in one take** |\n| Reference budget | 15 (9 image + 3 video + 3 audio) | **50 (30 image + 10 video + 10 audio)** |\n| Combined reference video/audio | ≤15s | **≤30s** |\n| Audio-only reference | ✗ (needs an image or video alongside) | **✓** |\n| **Timestamps in the prompt** | **✗ — ignored; shot numbers only** | **✓ — integer seconds, acted on** |\n| Multi-view image as ONE subject reference | ✗ (not recommended) | **✓ (up to 5 subjects)** |\n| Video edit as its own task type | ✗ | **✓ (`seedance-2.5-edit`)** |\n| Default video model | **yes** | no |\n\n**Route to 2.5 when the shot needs LENGTH, MANY REFERENCES, or an audio-only reference.\nRoute to 2.0 when resolution matters at all** — which, for anything a client will see full-screen,\nis most of the time.\n\n---\n\n## 🚨 Hazard 1 — the prompt-intent task classifier\n\nThis is the one that costs money and time, and it has no equivalent on 2.0.\n\n**Seedance 2.5 sorts every request into one of five task types** — text-to-video,\nreference-to-video, first/last-frame, **video edit**, **video extend** — from the reference roles\nattached **plus the intent of your sentence**. Each type then has its own parameter constraints,\nand a violation comes back **asynchronously**: the task queues, credits are reserved, and only then\ndoes it fail.\n\nThe trigger words are ordinary English:\n\n| Reclassified as | Words that do it (ByteDance's own list) |\n|---|---|\n| **video edit** | `edit video` · `add` · `insert` · `remove` · `delete` · `modify` · `replace` · `change to` |\n| **video extend** | `extend forward` · `extend backward` · `continue` · `continue from` · `extend the story` |\n\nSo a perfectly legitimate reference-to-video prompt — *\"a wide shot of the workshop, **remove** the\ntripod from frame\"* — gets classified as an edit and fails on constraints it never set.\n\n**What to do:**\n\n1. **If you mean to edit an existing clip, say so with the MODEL, not the sentence.** Call\n   `slates_edit_video` with `model: 'seedance-2.5-edit'`. That routes to a dedicated\n   task-typed endpoint and the classifier never has to guess.\n2. **If you mean a fresh shot, describe the finished frame rather than an instruction to change\n   one.** Not *\"remove the tripod\"* → *\"the workshop bench, clear and uncluttered\"*. Not\n   *\"add rain\"* → *\"heavy rain falling through the streetlight\"*. This is better prompting anyway:\n   the model renders what you describe, it does not take edits to an imagined draft.\n3. The trigger only fires when **references are attached**. A plain text-to-video prompt is safe\n   however it is worded.\n\n**Slates will warn you, and it will never rewrite your prompt.** When a 2.5 reference generation's\nprompt contains one of these words, the composer shows a warning that NAMES the words and the agent\nroute returns the same string. Silently editing the user's sentence to dodge a provider classifier\nis forbidden — the words that reach the model are always the words the user can see.\n\n---\n\n## 🚨 Hazard 2 — 720p is not \"the cheap one\" any more\n\nEvery other model in Slates trains the habit that lower resolution means lower cost. 2.5 breaks it,\nbecause the thing that moves the bill is **length**, and 2.5's length ceiling is double 2.0's.\n\nWorked, at the shipped rates:\n\n| Generation | Credits |\n|---|---|\n| 2.5 · 480p · 5s · faceless | 28 |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 5s · faceless | 59 |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 30s · faceless | 355 |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 30s · AI-face route | **484** |\n| 2.5 · 720p · 30s · consented real-face route | **710** |\n| *(for scale)* 2.0 · 1080p · 15s · AI-face route | 411 |\n\n**A 30-second 720p clip can cost more than a 15-second 1080p one** — and a base licence starts\nwith 1,000 credits. Someone who reads \"720p\" as \"cheap\" and asks for a 30-second take on the\nreal-face route has spent 71% of their welcome grant on one clip.\n\n**Discipline:**\n\n- **Always quote with `slates_estimate_generation_cost` before a take over ~10 seconds,** and say\n  the number out loud before generating.\n- **Find the shot at short LENGTH, not at low resolution.** Length is what moves the price, so cut\n  seconds while you are still exploring — 4–8s — and stay at the resolution you actually want.\n  **A 480p pass does not de-risk a 720p render.** Generation is stochastic: the 720p run is a\n  different take, not the same shot rendered better. So a 480p draft that looks right buys you no\n  guarantee, and one that looks wrong may have been fine at 720p — you paid 22 credits to learn\n  nothing, when 48 would have bought a real candidate.\n- **Length is a creative decision, not a default.** 30 seconds is available; it is rarely the right\n  answer for a single shot. Multi-shot storyboards inside one 30s generation are what the length is\n  actually for.\n- Read `slates-cost-discipline` — all of it applies, more sharply here.\n\n---\n\n## Timestamps — the one grammar change\n\n<!-- @inject:seedance-25-timestamps -->\n**2.0 does not respond to timestamps and answers only to shot numbers. 2.5 responds to\ninteger-second timestamps.** That is ByteDance's own first line under \"Differences from Seedance\n2.0\", and it is why a 30-second take is usable at all: the length is only worth buying if you can\nsay *when* things happen inside it.\n\nBoth formats are valid on 2.5, and you can mix them — `Shot N` blocks for a storyboard whose\npacing you are happy to leave to the model, timestamps when a beat has to land at a moment.\n\n**Three ways to control time, all first-party:**\n\n| Form | Write it like |\n|---|---|\n| **Interval** | `0-3 seconds… 3-7 seconds… 7-15 seconds` or `[1s-4s]… [4s-8s]… [8s-12s]` |\n| **Time point** | *\"Quick left sideways transition at the 5-second mark.\"* |\n| **Relative** | *\"After 3 seconds, everyone around him shakes their head.\"* · *\"The frame freezes for 1 second after he presses the shutter.\"* |\n\n**The rules that come with them:**\n\n- **One second is the smallest unit.** Integers only — no `2.5s`, no frames.\n- **No gaps in the timeline.** `0-3s… 5-6s…` leaves 3-5s unspecified and the model fills it however\n  it likes. Intervals must abut: `0-3s`, `3-7s`, `7-15s`.\n- **Budget the plot to the seconds.** Too little content in a range and the model improvises to\n  fill it; too much and you get extra cuts or dropped beats. This is the actual craft of a 30s take.\n- **Never time-code a high-frequency action.** *\"Shake your head three times per second\"* is\n  explicitly called out as a misuse — timestamps schedule beats, they don't choreograph frames.\n- **Transitions want both halves:** the moment AND the method — *\"At the 5-second mark, the camera\n  transitions leftward with a left wipe into a natural dissolve.\"*\n- **Timestamps work on an EDIT too**, and that is where they earn the most: they scope a change in\n  time as well as in content — *\"Change the man's action from drinking coffee to mopping the floor\n  from 4-6 seconds in Video 1, and leave the rest of the content unchanged.\"* Without a range, a\n  whole-clip instruction is applied to the whole clip.\n\nDo **not** carry this back to 2.0, and do not carry Veo's `[00:00-00:02]` bracket syntax into\neither — 2.0 ignores time entirely, and the cross-model syntax swap is its own known failure.\n<!-- @end:seedance-25-timestamps -->\n\n---\n\n## What the extra reference budget is actually for\n\n30 image references (up from 9) does **not** mean \"attach 30 images\". Every rule in\n`slates-prompting-seedance` about references still holds — 2–4 strong references beat both\nextremes, and one reference per role.\n\n**Where 2.5 moves the ceiling, per ByteDance's own input recommendations:**\n\n| | Stable | Works, but expect re-rolls |\n|---|---|---|\n| Subjects bound by IMAGE reference | 1–8 | 9–12 |\n| Subjects bound by VIDEO or AUDIO reference | 1–5 | 6–10 |\n| Reference clip length, per subject | 5–10s | longer drops stability |\n\n**Multi-view images of one subject are supported on 2.5** — a turnaround sheet can be a single\nreference image, where 2.0 wanted one authoritative rendering per subject. Past **5 subjects**,\ngo back to single-view images, one per view, rather than one image carrying several viewpoints.\n\nThe larger budget earns its keep in exactly two places:\n\n- **A long multi-shot take** where different shots need different subjects and locations bound —\n  the budget is spread across the storyboard, not stacked on one frame.\n- **Video and audio references alongside images**, which is where 2.5's 10 + 10 matters far more\n  than the image count.\n\n### Audio-only references — the genuinely new input\n\n2.0 required an image or video alongside any audio reference. **2.5 accepts audio on its own.**\nThat makes one recipe possible that was not before: drive a scene's timing, voice or ambience from\na recording with no visual anchor at all — a voice line, a music bed, a room tone — and let the\nmodel build the picture to it. Cite it the same way as any other reference\n(`Reference the timbre in <Audio_N> to generate…`), and remember that audio references carry **no\nbilling dimension** on any Seedance route: audio is included.\n\n### Video references\n\nUp to 10 clips, ≤30s combined (2.0: 3 clips, ≤15s). A reference VIDEO switches the cost key to\n`seedance-2.5*-vref-{res}-{T}s`, where **T = Σ input seconds + output seconds** — the sum is across\n**every** clip attached, not just the longest. Three 6-second references on a 12-second output bills\n30 seconds, not 12 and not 18. Quote before confirming.\n\n**The cap is a refusal, not a trim.** Attach an eleventh clip, or push past 30 combined seconds, and\nthe composition is rejected before anything uploads. That asymmetry is deliberate: reference images\nwarn-and-trim because dropping one doesn't change the price, and a dropped reference VIDEO would be\none you were quoted for and the model never saw.\n\n### Mixing all three in one call\n\n50 files total (30 image + 10 video + 10 audio) is a shared budget. Everything is cited positionally\nby type — `image 1`, `video 2`, `audio 1` — in attachment order, so reordering the attachments\nrenumbers the citations. Write the prompt against those numbers:\n\n```\nMarcus (image 1) performs the motion from video 1 in the workshop from image 2,\nspeaking the line in audio 1. Preserve his identity, appearance and outfit.\n```\n\nFrames and reference media stay mutually exclusive, in every combination — the reference endpoint\nhas no first/last-frame parameters at all, so this is a shape mismatch rather than a preference.\n\n---\n\n## Seedance 2.5 Edit (`slates_edit_video`, `model: 'seedance-2.5-edit'`)\n\nIts own picker row and its own op call, deliberately: the task type is **the model you chose**,\nnever something inferred from your sentence.\n\n**Why route here at all:** it is the **only edit engine in Slates that accepts a clip longer than 15\nseconds** (4–30s, versus Kling O3 Edit's 3–15s and Omni Flash Edit's 3–10s). For a clip inside the\nothers' range, choose on fidelity instead — Omni Flash Edit won the prompt-only head-to-head, and\nKling O3 Edit is the one that takes element and style reference images.\n\n**How it behaves:**\n\n- **Output length follows the SOURCE clip**, and the bill is the ceiled source length. The provider\n  requires an automatic duration on this task type, so there is no length knob — the clip you attach\n  is the quote. The returned clip can differ from the source by up to ~0.3s, which only compresses\n  transition frames; a clip that 2.5 itself generated comes back at exactly its input length.\n- **Source clips under 20 seconds edit more reliably.** 4–30s is what the task type accepts;\n  ByteDance's own recommendation is to stay inside 20 for quality. A 28-second source is legal and\n  will need more attempts.\n- **The aspect ratio follows the source clip too.** No ratio control; the frame is the clip's frame.\n- **480p or 720p output**, native audio.\n- **Prompt and source clip only** on this op. The MODEL takes reference images on an edit\n  (ByteDance recommends 1–5 — *\"replace the man in dark clothing in @Video 1 with @Image 2\"*);\n  **Slates has not wired that path**, so today an edit that must lock an identity from a photo\n  goes to Kling O3 Edit. Constraint of our build, not of the model — worth revisiting.\n- **An edit bills roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length**, because every provider\n  charges an edit on input + output seconds. Read the confirm gate's number; do not reason from the\n  generation rate.\n- **Set `seedanceFace: true` when a character's face is visible in the clip.** The faceless provider\n  blocks faces outright — this is not a price optimisation, it is whether the job runs at all.\n- **There is no consented-real-face route for editing.** Real-person footage that the AI-face route\n  rejects has to go to Kling O3 Edit.\n\n**Prompting an edit** — the same discipline as every other edit engine: **describe only what\nchanges.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing and performance; re-describing\nthem fights the model. Use Seedance's own edit grammar from `slates-prompting-seedance`\n(*\"Strictly edit `<Video_1>`, and modify `<Original_Characteristic>` to `<New_Characteristic>`\"*) and\n**never** write *\"reference video 1\"* in an edit — the official guide is explicit that this phrasing\ngets the request reclassified as a reference task, which is the same landmine as Hazard 1.\n\nTwo things sharpen an edit prompt, both first-party:\n\n- **Say it as A → B, not as an outcome.** *\"Change the man's action from drinking coffee to mopping\n  the floor\"* beats *\"the man mops the floor\"* — naming what it currently is tells the model what\n  to overwrite.\n- **Timestamp a partial edit** — the edit task type reads the same integer-second timestamps the\n  generation path does. Rules and forms are in § Timestamps above; this is the single most useful\n  thing they buy.\n\n**Audio is editable too, and it is the least obvious use of this row.** The same op rewrites what\nis heard while the picture stays put: change a spoken line, change the accent, translate the\ndialogue and re-fit the lip movement, strip or replace the BGM or a sound effect. *\"Only edit the\nman's dialogue in Video 1: change it to 'Don't come over here,' in an American accent\"* is an edit,\nnot a lip-sync job. Bill it like any other edit — on the source clip's length.\n\n---\n\n## Faces, and what does NOT change\n\nThe three-tier face routing is identical to 2.0 — faceless → default route, an AI character's face →\n`seedanceFace: true` (the relaxed provider, a real cost premium), a real person's photo → the\nconsent-gated premium route after a `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]` rejection, with `realFaceConsent: true`\nset **only** after the user explicitly confirms they hold the rights to the likeness. The full rules,\nincluding why the real-vs-AI call is the provider's and not yours, are in\n`slates-prompting-seedance`.\n\nAlso unchanged, and worth restating because 2.5's length makes each one more expensive to get wrong:\n\n- **One primary camera move per shot.**\n- **No lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary.** That is image-model syntax and a Seedance\n  anti-pattern.\n- **No `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline, and 2.5 acts on negative phrasing in\n  exactly two dimensions: subtitles (*\"no subtitles\"*) and audio (*\"no BGM; environmental and\n  action sounds only\"*, *\"no audio\"*). Everywhere else, describe what you want, not what you don't.\n- **Legible in-shot text still belongs in a baked start frame**, not in the video prompt.\n",
+    "slates-prompting-seedance": "---\nname: slates-prompting-seedance\ndescription: How to prompt Seedance 2.0 (ByteDance video model). Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2. Seedance 2.0 structures multi-beat prompts as a \"Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3\" storyboard against an 8-slot advanced formula — never per-second time stamps, which 2.0 does not respond to (Seedance 2.5 does; see slates-prompting-seedance-2-5). Its syntax differs from Kling, Veo and the image models; don't cross-pollinate (in particular, no lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary).\n---\n\n# Seedance 2.0 — prompting\n\nByteDance's video model — first-party via **BytePlus ModelArk** (credits only, no BYOK). Audio always generated alongside the video. Single model `seedance-2` across the full resolution ladder (480p / 720p / 1080p / native 4K — 4K video is Pro-only, default 1080p), 4–15s, first+last frame, and up to 9 reference images / 3 videos / 3 audio clips.\n\n> **How to read this file.**\n> **[official :NNNN]** — ByteDance's own BytePlus ModelArk prompting guide, line `NNNN` of the archived doc dump (`research/seedance-2-modelark-docs.md`). Receipt-grade; treat as law.\n> **[community]** — third-party guides and our own field notes. Useful, but an `[official]` block always wins.\n> **[slates]** — how the Slates app composes or bills this; not ByteDance doctrine.\n>\n> The split is load-bearing. A community-sourced \"narrative timing beats\" doctrine shipped in this file for months teaching the **exact inverse** of ByteDance's published guidance. Never merge the two registers again.\n\n---\n\n# Part 1 — Official ByteDance doctrine\n\n## What Seedance actually is `[official :1450-1452]`\n\nSeedance 2.0 is a multimodal AI director. It reads text, images, video and audio **simultaneously** and internally decomposes them into two dimensions:\n\n- the **spatial layer** — what is in the frame\n- the **temporal layer** — how things change over time\n\nSo a good prompt is **not \"copywriting-style description\" but an \"engineering-style instruction\"**: who, in what scene, doing what action, how the camera moves, and in what chronological order events occur — delivered respectively to the spatial layer and the temporal layer.\n\n## The advanced formula — 8 slots `[official :1455]`\n\n```text\nprecise subject + action details + scene/environment + lighting & color tone\n+ camera movement + visual style + image quality + constraints\n```\n\n⚠️ There is **no official \"6-step formula.\"** `Subject + Action + Environment + Camera + Style + Constraints` is community branding with no ByteDance source, and it silently drops the **lighting & color tone** and **image quality** slots. Use the 8 slots above.\n\n## Task-type sentence patterns `[official :1389-1425]`\n\nSeedance classifies your request from the phrasing. Use the pattern that matches the task:\n\n| Task | Pattern |\n|---|---|\n| **Image reference** | ``Reference `<Subject_N>` in `<Image_N>` to generate…`` |\n| **Video reference** | ``Reference `<Action / Camera_movement / Style / Sound_effect>` in `<Video_N>` to generate…`` |\n| **Audio reference** | ``Reference the timbre in `<Audio_N>` to generate…`` |\n| **Video edit — modify** | ``Strictly edit `<Video_N>`, and modify `<Original_Characteristic>` in it to `<New_Characteristic>``` |\n| **Video edit — add** | ``<Element_Features>` + `<Timing>` + `<Location>`` |\n| **Video edit — delete** | Name what to delete; for anything that must stay, say so explicitly |\n| **Video extend** | ``Extend `<Video_N>` forward/backward to generate…`` |\n| **Combined** | ``Reference `[Dimension]` of `<Image/Video_N>`, strictly edit `<Video_X>`, `[Specific_Edits]``` |\n\n### ⚠️ Edit / extend phrasing landmine `[official :1431]`\n\n> *\"For edit / extend video tasks, directly use `<Video_N>` to refer to the video. **Do not use \"reference `<Video_N>`\"**, to avoid being incorrectly identified as a reference task.\"*\n\nThis is easy to trip: Slates has an edit lane<!-- slates-only --> (`slates_generate_video` with `videoReferenceAssetId`, plus the Seedance edit/relocate routes)<!-- /slates-only -->. Writing *\"reference video 1 and change the jacket to red\"* gets classified as a **reference** task — the model generates a brand-new clip inspired by the source instead of editing it. Write *\"Strictly edit video 1, and modify the blue jacket to red.\"*\n\n## Shot structure — \"Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3\" `[official :1563-1598]`\n\n> *\"Use shot order, write a simple 'Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3' storyboard for each segment of the video, and then merge them into a complete prompt.\"*\n\n**❌ Never second-stamp.** No `0:00–0:03`, no \"At 4 seconds\", no per-segment durations.\n\n> *\"Do not impose strict limits on the duration of each segment; prioritize allowing the model to naturally generate the pacing based on the plot.\"* `[:1580]`\n>\n> *\"The model's support for precise timing (such as 0–3 seconds) is **unstable**, and forcibly limiting duration may lead to **abnormal generation results**.\"* `[:1586]`\n\nOrder shots by when events occur — primary first, secondary later. Let the plot set the pacing.\n\n**Per-shot internal order** `[official :1590-1598]` — organize each shot in exactly this sequence:\n\n1. **Camera movement or shot transition** — \"slowly push in from a wide shot\", \"fixed camera position\", \"cut to…\"\n2. **Subject actions and expressions** — the key actions and expression changes of the core character/object\n3. **Position or spatial change** — where the subject is, and how that relationship shifts\n4. **Audio** — sound effects, voices, background music for that shot\n\n**One primary camera move per shot** — see Camera below. `[official :1648]`\n\n## Subject binding — names + image indexes `[official :1488-1556]`\n\nEvery time a subject appears, it must be **explicitly referred to**. Two supported forms:\n\n- **Undefined subjects** — bind inline every mention: `<Subject_N>@<Image_N>`. Official example: **`Zhang San@Image 1`**. `[:1540]`\n- **Pre-declared subjects** — define once, then reuse the same label verbatim: *\"Define the tall man in **Video 1** as **police officer**, and define the other short man as **thief**\"*, then say \"police officer\" every time after. `[:1514]`\n\n**One subject spread across several assets** — bind them together: *\"Define `[…]` in **Image 1** and `[…]` in **Image 2** as `<Subject N>`.\"* `[:1514]`\n\n⚠️ **An Asset ID must never substitute for `<Image/Video_N>`.** `[:1546]` *\"the model cannot directly associate the Asset ID with the reference content.\"* Always cite by index.\n\nAlso official: keep descriptions concise, avoid redundancy, avoid semantic conflicts (contradictory traits for one subject), and prefer expressing spatial relationships through reference images rather than dense text. `[:1550-1556]`\n\n**`[slates]`** — the app composes this for you. `composeReferences()` cites each canonical character or environment reference inline as `Name (image N)` in the exact order it sends them, which is ByteDance's own duplicate-character format (*\"Zhang San (corresponding to image 1)\"* `[:1976]`). You never hand-write role labels or index numbers.\n\n## Action description `[official :1602-1621]`\n\n- **Body-part specificity + quantified degree.** Name hands, legs, head, shoulders, back — and supplement **range, speed, and force**. *\"slowly raise a hand\", \"quickly turn the head\", \"push hard off the ground\", \"slightly lower the head.\"*\n- **Prioritize slow, gentle, continuous small movements.** Avoid high-burst, large-dynamic actions — sprinting, big jumps, violent rolls. *\"walk slowly\", \"gently raise a hand\", \"sit down naturally with the motion.\"* **This is the official basis for the folk rule that \"fast\" degrades quality** — it is not a banned token, it is a class of motion the model handles badly.\n- **Supplement transitions between actions.** Specify inertia and continuity between consecutive beats so movement reads coherent: *\"use the inertia of turning around to naturally raise a hand\", \"naturally transition from a pause into raising a hand.\"*\n\n## Externalize emotion `[official :1623-1636]`\n\nReplace abstract emotion words (\"very sad\", \"extremely angry\") with **specific physical detail**. This is the highest-leverage single habit in the official guide:\n\n| Abstract | Externalized as actions and details |\n|---|---|\n| **Sadness** | head lowering, shoulders trembling slightly, eyes reddening, fingers unconsciously clutching the corner of clothing, tears welling but not falling |\n| **Joy** | corners of the mouth rising uncontrollably, brows and eyes relaxing, steps becoming light, unconsciously humming a tune |\n| **Nervousness / anxiety** | frequently checking the watch, fingers constantly tapping the tabletop, rapid breathing, eyes darting away |\n| **Anger** | both fists clenched, jawline tense, chest heaving, eyes sharp, squeezing words out through gritted teeth |\n| **Relief** | letting out a long breath, tense shoulders completely relaxing, a faint smile appearing, looking up toward the distance |\n\n## Camera `[official :1643-1648]`\n\n> *\"The model has a **strong understanding of camera movement terms**, so you can **directly use standard camera movement terminology**, such as 'medium shot, close-up, wide shot, slow push-in, smooth lateral tracking, fixed shot.'\"*\n\nThis is an **open vocabulary, not a fixed list** — and it explicitly includes **shot size** (close-up / medium / wide / long shot), which is as much a camera instruction as the move itself.\n\n> ⚠️ *\"Try to specify only 1 type of camera movement in a single shot. Do not require push, pull, pan, and move at the same time, as this will increase image instability.\"* `[:1648]`\n\n## Image quality, style, and constraints `[official :1656-1679]`\n\nThese three slots \"define creative boundaries for the model, unify image quality and artistic tone, and avoid visual flaws and random deviations.\"\n\n**1. Image quality** — define clarity, texture detail, and lighting quality. Official vocabulary: `HD` · `rich details` · `cinematic texture` · `natural colors` · `soft lighting`.\n\n> ⚠️ This is a **real slot with real vocabulary** — do not confuse it with Stable-Diffusion-era quality incantations. `8K` / `masterpiece` / `trending on artstation` remain banned slop tokens (see Part 3); *\"cinematic texture, rich details, natural colors\"* is the officially sanctioned way to ask for the same thing.\n\n**2. Style** — the overall art style and visual tone: `cyberpunk cool blue-purple tone` · `retro film` · `fresh Japanese style`.\n\n**3. Constraint words** — *\"Constraint words are very important. They can effectively avoid visual flaws, deformities, breakdowns, and unreasonable elements.\"* Official templates, verbatim:\n\n- **No subtitles** — \"keep it subtitle-free\" / \"avoid generating any text or subtitles\"\n- **No logo** — \"do not generate a logo\"\n- **No watermark** — \"do not generate a watermark\"\n\nSeedance has **no `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline in this slot. See Part 3 for the wider inline-negative kit.\n\n## 🔴 Duplicated characters — the twin problem `[official :1948-1994]`\n\n**Symptom:** in frames with **many characters**, where **three-view / multi-view character images** are supplied as references, two identical characters appear in the same generated frame.\n\n**Root causes** `[:1954-1959]`:\n1. Character subjects are not clearly defined in the prompt, so the model cannot distinguish roles.\n2. *\"When character **three-view / multi-view images** are used as reference assets, it is easy to confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"*\n\n**Official fixes, in their order** `[:1971-1994]` — ByteDance is explicit that these *reduce probability*, not eliminate it:\n\n1. **Bind each character to its image explicitly**, in a consistent format. Official example: *\"Zhang San (corresponding to image 1) throws the green passbook toward Li Si (corresponding to image 2), who is standing.\"*\n2. **Append the global constraint verbatim** at the end of the prompt `[:1982]`:\n   > *\"Throughout the video, characters with completely identical appearance, clothing, and accessories are prohibited. Do not generate duplicate avatars or a twin effect. Keep only a single corresponding character in the same frame, and do not reproduce repeated copies of characters.\"*\n3. **Optimize reference assets** `[:1988]` — *\"For character reference images, prioritize independent single-person photos. Three-view or multi-view assets are not recommended.\"*\n4. **Simplify the prompt** — do not paste a whole script; redundant copy confuses the model.\n\n**Scope this honestly.** This is troubleshooting for the twin problem in **multi-character frames**, not a blanket verdict on identity sheets. Practical rule for Slates:\n\n- **Multi-character Seedance shot** → bind every character to its image, append the anti-twin constraint, and prefer single-person / dominant-portrait references over multi-view sheets.\n- **Single-character shot** → the standard character-sheet flow is fine.\n\n**Too many reference people** `[official :2048-2052]` — past **4 reference people**, output stability drops (wrong headcount, duplicates). Official workaround: group the cast into images of ≤4 people each, generate those stills first, then drive the video from them.\n\n## Worked examples `[official :1689-1745]`\n\nThese are ByteDance's own end-to-end cases. Note the shape: an asset-binding preamble, then `Shot N` blocks in event order, then a trailing style + stability paragraph. No time stamps anywhere — 2.0 does not respond to them at all, which is version-scoped and reverses on 2.5.\n\n**Example 1 — dormitory emotional short drama (dialogue-focused).** Assets: `@Image 1` half-body photo of the female lead · `@Image 2` dormitory scene reference · `@Video 1` camera-movement reference · `@Audio 1` indoor ambience.\n\n> Use the girl in @Image 1 as the main character, use @Image 2 as the dormitory scene style reference, and refer to the camera movement in @Video 1.\n>\n> **Shot 1**: At dusk, **girl @Image 1** walks briskly to the **dormitory entrance @Image 2**. The camera follows steadily in a medium shot. Warm yellow sunlight spills into the hallway from the window. She pauses at the doorway, takes a deep breath, and looks slightly nervous.\n>\n> **Shot 2**: **Girl @Image 1** pushes the door open and enters the dormitory. The camera cuts to an indoor medium shot. Her roommates look up at her while organizing their books. One of them smiles and asks {How did the exam go? Did you pass?}. The camera slowly cuts between half-body close-ups of several people.\n>\n> **Shot 3**: **Girl @Image 1** first lowers her head with a dejected expression. The camera gives her a close-up. Then she raises her head, unable to hold back a smile, laughs out loud, and says {I was kidding}. Her roommates start chasing and play-fighting with her. The camera slowly pulls back and freezes on a wide shot of the dormitory filled with laughter.\n>\n> The entire video should have a high-definition cinematic documentary style, with warm tones and soft lighting. The character's face remains stable without deformation; movements are natural and smooth, with no stutter or flicker. The ambient sound blends naturally with @Audio 1.\n\n**Example 2 — ancient-style cliff confrontation (action/atmosphere-focused).** Assets: `@Image 1` female lead in red · `@Image 2` assassin in black · `@Image 3` cliff and bamboo forest · `@Video 1` martial-arts camera reference · `@Audio 1` drum beats.\n\n> Use the woman in red from @Image 1 as the female lead, use the woman in black from @Image 2 as the opponent, use the cliff and bamboo forest environment in @Image 3 as the scene reference, refer to the overall camera movement and action rhythm in @Video 1, and synchronize the background sound effects with @Audio 1.\n>\n> **Shot 1**: At dusk, the camera slowly pushes in from a side medium shot of **woman in red @Image 1**. She stands at the edge of the cliff and lifts a wine flask to drink. Her sleeves and robe hem sway gently in the mountain wind. The camera circles halfway around her, moving from the front to her back. In the distance, a figure in black is faintly visible in the bamboo forest.\n>\n> **Shot 2**: The camera zooms and fades into a long shot. From a drone perspective, it overlooks the entire cliff and bamboo forest. The two characters stand at opposite ends of the cliff. The mountain wind lifts their robe hems and dust, and the rhythm slightly accelerates with the drum beats.\n>\n> **Shot 3**: The camera cuts back to a ground-level close shot. The two slowly draw their swords and face off. **Woman in red @Image 1** shifts from a careless expression to a cold gaze. **Woman in black @Image 2** looks determined, and the sword tip trembles slightly. The camera steadily follows the two as they circle each other, finally freezing on a close-up of the instant before the two swords meet.\n>\n> The overall visual style should feel like a cinematic wuxia world in misty rain, with cool tones, low saturation, a film-grain texture, and rich light-and-shadow layers. The characters' faces and body proportions remain stable without deformation. Movements are continuous and natural, not stiff, with no clipping or stutter.\n\n## Other official notes\n\n- **On-screen text** `[official :1758]` — Seedance can render common text (ad slogans, subtitles, speech bubbles) and will auto-match style/colour from context, or take an explicit colour / style / timing / position. Prefer **common characters**; avoid rare glyphs and special symbols. (For *guaranteed* legible text, the start-frame route in Part 3 is still safer.)\n- **Extension degrades quality** `[official :2004-2024]` — using a generated video as the input for extension compounds degradation, with mottled colour blocks in face regions. Limit repeated continuations; prefer HD assets as input.\n- **Special effects that miss** `[official :2031-2044]` — when a described effect comes out wrong (a countdown that scrolls randomly), define it with a **reference video** instead of words: *\"the way the number '2999' appears should reference video 1.\"*\n\n---\n\n# Part 2 — Slates-specific `[slates]`\n\n## Reference media — caps and transport\n\nReference-to-video accepts up to **9 reference images, 3 reference videos, 3 audio clips** `[official :275-281]`. Text+audio-only and audio-only inputs are not supported.\n\n**Mutually exclusive:** first-frame/last-frame mode CANNOT be combined with reference images. The error reads `\"first/last frame content cannot be mixed with reference media content.\"` Pick one or the other. *(Official note `[:284]`: you can approximate first/last frames via prompt wording inside a multimodal call, but if the frames must be exact, use the dedicated first/last-frame route.)* The same rule covers reference VIDEO and AUDIO: they ride the reference endpoint, which has no frame parameters at all.\n\n### All three modalities go in ONE call\n\nThe caps are a shared budget, not three separate features: **12 files total on 2.0** (9 image + 3 video + 3 audio), **15 seconds of reference video combined**, **15 seconds of audio combined**. On 2.0 an audio reference needs at least one image or video alongside it; 2.5 accepts audio on its own.\n\nCite each by type and index, in the order they were attached — `image 1`, `video 1`, `audio 1`. The index is positional: reorder the attachments and the numbers move with them.\n\n```\nMarcus (image 1) performs the motion from video 1, in the workshop from image 2,\nspeaking the line in audio 1. Preserve his identity, appearance and outfit.\n```\n<!-- slates-only -->\n**Attaching a clip is NOT the same as editing it.** \"Add as reference\" puts it in the composer alongside everything else and wipes nothing; \"Edit with AI\" makes the clip the canvas and clears the tray for a fresh instruction. Two different jobs, two different menu entries — never infer one from the other.\n\n**Over the cap is REFUSED, never trimmed.** A reference video is priced into the quote before it is sent, so a clip silently dropped after the quote would be a clip you paid for and the model never saw. Remove one and retry.\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n### Motion transfer & lip-sync recipes (reference video / audio)\n\nThese aren't separate Seedance features — they're prompting strategies over reference media.<!-- slates-only --> The Slates tools (`slates_generate_motion_transfer` / `slates_generate_lip_sync` with the seedance engine) compose them for you. When driving them by hand through `slates_generate_video`:<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n- **Motion transfer:** subject image as a reference + the driving clip<!-- slates-only --> via `videoReferenceAssetId`<!-- /slates-only --> (2–15s) + `The character from image 1 performs the exact motion, choreography, and camera movement from video 1. Preserve the character's identity, appearance, and outfit.`\n- **Lip-sync / dialogue:** write the line in the prompt — `The person in video 1 says: \"…\"` — with audio generation on (always on in Slates). A **video** source's own voice is cloned natively; an **audio** reference (≤15s) drives speech from an existing recording: `…speaks the dialogue from audio 1 with accurate lip sync.`\n- **Voice + face from one clip (the talking-head recipe):** ONE unedited 2–15s clip of the person speaking (clear voice, no music, no cuts) as the video reference + prompt with the new script → their likeness AND voice deliver the new line.\n<!-- slates-only -->\n- **Billing:** a reference VIDEO switches the cost key to `seedance-2*-vref-{res}-{T}s` where T = clip seconds + output seconds — quote before confirming. Audio references are free (audio is included on every route).\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n<!-- slates-only -->\n## Faces — set `seedanceFace` for AI-character faces\n\nSeedance routes through **three tiers** depending on the face in the reference, exposed as the \"Face in Reference\" toggle plus the real-face params on `slates_generate_video`:\n\n- **Faceless / object / environment refs → default route (cheapest).** Leave `seedanceFace` off.\n- **An AI-character's FACE in a reference → `seedanceFace: true`.** The default route's baseline moderation rejects or degrades faces, so this reroutes to the face-capable provider. It costs **~45% more** — the cost key becomes `seedance-2-face-{res}-{N}s`, so the pre-flight quote already reflects it. Announce the face-route price, not the faceless one.\n- **A REAL person's photo (the user themselves, an actor) → the consent-gated premium route.** If a `seedanceFace` gen fails with `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]`, the provider classified the reference as a real person: confirm with the user that (a) they hold the rights/consent to the likeness and (b) they accept the higher price (cost key `seedance-2-realface-{res}-{N}s`, roughly 2× the AI-face rate — quote via `slates_estimate_generation_cost`), then retry with `seedanceRealFace: true` + `realFaceConsent: true`. Never set `realFaceConsent` without the user's explicit confirmation.\n\nRules:\n- **The real-vs-AI call is the PROVIDER'S, not yours.** ByteDance's classifier is probabilistic — some real photos pass the standard face route (billed at the cheap rate; fine), others get rejected with `[REAL_FACE_DETECTED]` (auto-refunded). Don't preemptively route to the real-face tier just because a photo looks real; try `seedanceFace: true` first and escalate only on the marked rejection. Public figures / celebrities fail on every route.\n- It's about the **reference, not the output.** If your character identity or generated portrait shows a face, turn it on. A product shot with no person stays off.\n- Don't toggle it on \"just in case\" — a faceless gen on the face route burns ~45% extra for nothing.\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n## Reference rules (the verified ones)\n\n<!-- @inject:references-read-literally -->\n> **The general law: the model reads a reference literally.**\n> A reference image is not a suggestion. Whatever is baked into it — lighting, medium, texture, symmetry, competing identities — is read as a **property of the subject** and reproduced downstream. A baked rim light tints every shot made from that sheet. A sheet that looks like a 3D game render gets animated like game footage. Two competing renderings of one face get averaged into a third face.\n\nEvery reference rule below is a corollary of that one sentence, which is why \"prep the reference\" beats \"prompt around the reference\" every time:\n\n- **Flat, plain identity refs** — because scene lighting in the sheet becomes scene lighting in the output (Slates' own receipt: a studio-lit sheet produced a subject that looked green-screen-pasted in front of mountains).\n- **One authoritative rendering per subject** — because the model cannot tell which panel is the real one. ByteDance documents this failure directly: multi-view character assets \"confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"\n- **No 3D-game-render look in a reference** — the model recognizes the render mood and inherits its motion character, so the *animation* comes out looking like game footage. This is not a taste rule; it is the same literal-reading mechanism applied to the temporal layer.\n- **Break perfect symmetry** — mirrored faces and dead-square framing read as synthetic, and the model preserves that reading rather than correcting it.\n\n**What this means in practice:** when output is wrong in a way that tracks the *subject* rather than the *scene* — the lighting is wrong the same way in every shot, the face drifts, the material looks synthetic everywhere — fix the reference, not the prompt. Prompting around a baked-in property is the expensive way to lose.\n<!-- @end:references-read-literally -->\n\n<!-- @inject:reference-rules-core -->\nIdentity = a few flat-lit neutral angles; one reference per role, named inline; 2-4 refs not 12; describe environments instead of feeding a grid.\n\n1. **2-4 strong references beat both extremes.** Not 1 (warps toward itself), not 12 (averages worse). Start with 2-3 focused refs — each one adds context AND another variable to balance.\n2. **One reference per ROLE, named in the prompt** — identity / style-grade / environment. The model does **not** infer a reference's role from its position in the list; the inline name carries it. Same-role competitors drift (two \"identity\" refs of different people blend into a third face). Slates composes the naming for you from your `@mentions` / `#tags` — you never hand-write role labels.\n3. **One identity sheet per character, named inline.** A character's identity is a single asset (dominant portrait + body panels), so attach that one asset rather than a pile of views: **fewer competing renderings of a face is better, because the model cannot tell which one is authoritative and averages them.** Slates cites it as `Marcus (image 1)`. **Do NOT hand-write a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block or role essays** (\"use for identity, ignore the outfit, render a neutral expression\") — that drags the sheet's studio lighting and wardrobe into a scene that asked for neither. The prompt leads; the user's words own wardrobe, expression, lighting, and action.\n4. **Flat-light identity refs.** Prep identity references with flat, even, shadowless lighting on a plain neutral background. A studio-lit or scene-lit character sheet bleeds its lighting into every generation — the failure looks like the subject was green-screen-pasted in front of the location. Reference prep beats prompting here.\n5. **Environment: describe it, don't feed a grid.** Default to describing the location in words and let the model build a space that fits the shot. Reserve an environment reference for a mandatory exact-match, and then use ONE clean establishing image with natural ambient light that reads as the location's real light — never a multi-panel grid fed whole.\n6. **Grids: explore, don't input.** Use grids to explore compositions cheaply, then pick a cell. Never feed a grid back in as a reference — the cells share a split detail budget and were generated jointly, so their flaws propagate.\n7. **Reuse the same refs across every shot** in a sequence. Lock a set and keep it; swapping references mid-sequence causes drift, because the model adapts each reference to the current prompt rather than copying it.\n8. **Legible in-shot text → bake it into a still start frame, never trust text-to-video.** Have an image model render the text, then animate from that locked frame. Video models smear type.\n9. **Working from existing media — describe ONLY what changes.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing, and performance; re-describing them fights the model. Narrate the delta. (Video lane: restyle your own clip while keeping the performance; delayed-VFX on \"video one\"; marker-object insertion; video-as-reference for a series.)\n10. **Style transforms happen in natural language.** By default the source's artistic medium and visual style are inherited. To change it, add a plain-text instruction (\"anime → real person\"). There are no preset pickers, and there is no style slider.\n<!-- @end:reference-rules-core -->\n\n### For Seedance specifically\n\n- **Describe the ACTION, never the reference's content.** With refs attached, prompt only what is *happening* — motion, change, camera. Never re-describe what's in the reference, and never say \"still / scene / from a movie / from the image.\" The model already sees the refs; narrating them wastes tokens and induces drift. Injection is stochastic — if a roll misses, **re-roll, don't re-engineer** (and a slow gen is not a failed one<!-- slates-only --> — see slates-cost-discipline<!-- /slates-only -->).\n- **Seedance's own idiom for rule 2 is `Reference <Subject_N> in <Image_N>`** `[official :1389]` — `Image_N` indexes the order the refs are attached, so the name plus the index carries the role. The full binding grammar is in Part 1 (Subject binding).\n- **Rule 3 has an official ceiling here.** The trend is MORE references (video and audio into Seedance), all addressed by name — but for **multi-character frames** see the twin-problem section above: bind every character to its image, append the anti-twin constraint, and prefer single-person references. Past 4 reference people, stability drops `[official :2048-2052]`.\n- **Rule 8 holds even though Seedance can render common text natively** `[official :1758]`. A baked NB2 start frame is still the reliable route for text that must be legible.\n- **Rule 5 pairs with the first/last-frame exclusion** — frames and reference images are mutually exclusive on this model (see Reference media above), so an environment you must match exactly costs you the frame lane.\n\n<!-- slates-only -->\n## Pre-flight: references arrive inline, refer by code\n\nWhen you call `slates_generate_video` with reference asset IDs (firstFrameAssetId, lastFrameAssetId, ingredientAssetIds), the first call returns those references **inline as image content blocks** alongside a cost estimate and `requires_confirm: true`. **Look at the references** — if they suggest a different framing, lighting, or motion than your current prompt captures, revise the prompt before re-calling with `confirm=true`.\n\nWhen talking to the user about the gen, refer to each reference by its short code: `IMG-A12 — Beach Sunset`. The user sees that code as a badge on the gallery thumbnail, so they can match what you're saying to what they're looking at.\n\n- ✅ \"I'm using **IMG-A12** as the first frame and **IMG-A15** as the last frame — the camera move is going to be a slow dolly forward through the gap.\"\n- ❌ \"I'm using the first beach image and the last one...\" (which? They have four.)\n<!-- /slates-only -->\n\n---\n\n# Part 3 — Community field notes `[community]`\n\nThird-party guides and Slates field experience. Useful heuristics — but if one of these ever appears to contradict Part 1, **Part 1 wins**.\n\n## Length\n\n**Sweet spot 60-150 words** for a single shot (not 150-300 — that's the upper bound). Multi-shot storyboards run longer; official Example 1 above is ~230 words across three shots.\n\n## Pin the subject in the first 20-30 words\n\nThe opening sentence is the **identity anchor**. If the subject isn't locked early, the model hallucinates new subjects mid-clip. (Compatible with Part 1: the binding preamble comes before `Shot 1`.)\n\n```\nA matte black earbud case sits on a polished obsidian surface...\n```\n\n## Lighting is a top quality lever\n\nLighting has an outsized impact on output quality — which is why it has its own slot in the official 8-slot formula. Describe it before or alongside the subject.\n\n```\nA cool-white diagonal beam from upper left, dust particles drifting through.\nSoft golden hour lighting from low west angle.\nDramatic rim light against dark background.\n```\n\n## Camera and subject motion — separate sentences\n\nMixing them is a common cause of glitchy / shaky output.\n\n❌ \"The camera speed ramps as the earbud rises.\"\n✅ \"The earbud rises smoothly. The camera tracks upward.\"\n\n## Slow-motion works; \"fast\" is a known bad token\n\nSpeed ramps and slow-motion are supported in natural language, and `fast` is widely reported as a quality-degrading keyword. **The official version of this rule is stronger and better founded** — prioritize slow, gentle, continuous small movements and avoid high-burst action (Part 1, Action description `[:1611-1615]`). Prompt the motion class, not the adjective.\n\n```\nthe lid opens in slow-motion · the blade whips through the air\n```\n\n**Slop tokens to avoid:** `epic`, `amazing`, `beautiful`, `lots of movement`, `8K`, `masterpiece`, `trending on artstation`. These are quality *incantations* — the officially sanctioned way to ask for quality is the image-quality slot vocabulary in Part 1 (`HD`, `rich details`, `cinematic texture`, `natural colors`, `soft lighting`).\n\n## Style block at the end\n\nOne primary anchor + 2-3 supporting details, as the trailing paragraph (both official examples do exactly this). End with `Single continuous take` if you want one shot with no cuts. **Never** write `no cut` or `seamless transition` — not in the training vocabulary.\n\n## ⚠️ Don't cross-pollinate image-model syntax\n\nNamed **lenses, apertures, film stocks, and camera bodies** — `85mm f/1.4`, `Kodak Portra 400`, `ARRI Alexa 65`, `shot on Sony A7S3` — are an **image-model lever** (correct and encouraged in `slates-prompting-nano-banana-2`) and a **Seedance anti-pattern**. ByteDance's guide uses shot sizes, camera moves, pacing words, and the image-quality/style vocabulary throughout, and never once mentions fps, shutter angle, f-stop, or lens millimetres.\n\nIf you are carrying a look over from an NB2 start frame, translate it: `85mm f/1.4, Portra 400` → `close-up, shallow depth of field, warm natural colors, cinematic texture, film-grain texture`.\n\n## Negative prompting — inline only\n\nSeedance has **no `negativePrompt` field**. Put negatives in the constraints slot, led by the three official templates (Part 1):\n\n```\nkeep it subtitle-free · do not generate a logo · do not generate a watermark\navoid jitter and bent limbs\navoid temporal flicker\navoid identity drift\nno distortion, no stretching\n```\n\nAlso fine: positive reframing (\"empty street\" not \"no cars\").\n\n## Image-to-video / first-frame guidance\n\n**Describe motion, not image.** The model already sees the visual; tokens spent re-describing appearance are wasted.\n\nStability phrases that help:\n- `preserve composition and colors`\n- `maintain exact appearance from reference image`\n- `consistent character throughout, no deformation or drift`\n\n**Cap I2V prompts under 60 words** when possible. Over 100 words frequently triggers silent generation failure.\n\n## Common failure modes + fixes\n\n| Failure | Fix |\n|---|---|\n| Hallucinated subject mid-clip | First 20-30 words = identity anchor |\n| Bent limbs / extra fingers | `avoid jitter and bent limbs` in Constraints |\n| Identity drift across multi-shot | Re-name the bound subject in **every** `Shot N` block `[official :1537]` |\n| Two identical characters in one frame | The twin fix in Part 1 — bind each character to its image + append the global anti-twin constraint |\n| Silent generation failure on I2V | Cut prompt under 100 words, single primary camera move |\n| Speech / motion conflict | Limit dialogue to one line per action shot |\n| Erratic/random pacing | You second-stamped. Remove all time markers and use `Shot N` `[official :1586]` |\n\n## Sources\n\n**Official (authoritative):**\n- BytePlus ModelArk — Seedance 2.0 prompting guide, archived at `research/seedance-2-modelark-docs.md` (all `:NNNN` refs above)\n\n**Community (secondary):**\n- [fal.ai — How to Use Seedance 2.0](https://fal.ai/learn/tools/how-to-use-seedance-2-0)\n- [apiyi.com — Seedance 2.0 Prompt Guide](https://help.apiyi.com/en/seedance-2-0-prompt-guide-video-generation-camera-style-tips-en.html)\n- [atlabs.ai — Ultimate Seedance 2.0 Prompting Guide](https://www.atlabs.ai/blog/the-ultimate-seedance-2.0-prompting-guide-47-prompts-2026)\n",
     "slates-prompting-seedream-5-lite": "---\nname: slates-prompting-seedream-5-lite\ndescription: How to prompt Seedream 5 Lite (ByteDance image model — the cheap volume option in Slates). Read before calling slates_generate_image with model seedream-5-lite, or slates_edit_image with editModel seedream-5-lite. Seedream front-loads attention, likes 30-100 focused words, and takes quoted strings for in-image text.\n---\n\n# Seedream 5 Lite — prompting\n\nByteDance's Seedream image model, Lite tier, routed via fal.ai. In Slates: `slates_generate_image` with `model: seedream-5-lite` (REQUIRES projectId — no headless path). **Flat-priced regardless of resolution** — the cheapest image model in Slates, which makes it the right default for high-volume drafting, storyboard exploration, and variant grids. Call `slates_estimate_generation_cost` for the current number; never quote prices from memory. Less censored than Nano Banana 2.\n\n**When to pick it:** lots of frames cheap (storyboard passes, 3-4 variant exploration), posters/layouts with text, quick look-dev. Step up to NB2 or FLUX.2 Max for the locked hero shot.\n\n## Core structure — five components, most important first\n\n```\nSubject + Style + Composition + Lighting/Atmosphere + Technical parameters\n```\n\nSeedream weights concepts mentioned **earlier in the prompt** more heavily. Lead with the subject; close with camera/technical details.\n\n**Length sweet spot: 30-100 words.** Unlike models that reward verbosity, Seedream gets confused by very long prompts. Focused beats exhaustive.\n\n## Style, composition, lighting vocabulary it responds to\n\n- **Style:** portrait photography, macro photography, cinematic, photorealistic, minimalist, oil painting, watercolor, digital art\n- **Composition:** symmetrical composition, rule of thirds, foreground detail with blurred background, wide-angle view, overhead perspective, medium shot, close-up\n- **Lighting:** golden hour lighting, dramatic side lighting, soft diffused light, moody low-key lighting, bright high-key lighting\n- **Technical:** shot on 85mm lens, shallow depth of field, high resolution\n\n## Worked examples\n\n**Portrait:**\n> \"Professional headshot of a female CEO with short blonde hair, confident expression, wearing a navy blue suit, neutral office background, studio lighting, shallow depth of field, high-end corporate photography style\"\n\n**Product:**\n> \"Modern smartphone floating in space, dark background with subtle blue gradient, product photography, studio lighting highlighting the glossy screen, ultra-detailed, commercial quality, photorealistic rendering\"\n\n## In-image text: double-quote it\n\nPut the exact string in double quotation marks — Seedream treats quoted text as render-this-verbatim:\n\n```\nA minimalist poster with the headline \"SUMMER SALE\" in bold sans-serif, centered\n```\n\nSeedream is one of the stronger models for layout-heavy work (posters, mockups, diagrams): call out the layout explicitly — \"centered headline, subtitle beneath, clean margins.\"\n\n## Edits: change one thing, lock the rest\n\nVia `slates_edit_image` with `editModel: seedream-5-lite`. Seedream edits respond well to instructions that name the change AND the preserved elements:\n\n```\nChange the bag to brown leather. Keep the person's face, pose, and the room unchanged.\n```\n\nNote: Seedream edits in Slates ignore extra `referenceAssetIds` — that path is Nano Banana 2 only.\n\n## Common failure modes + fixes\n\n| Failure | Fix |\n|---|---|\n| Subject inconsistent / mutates | Put the subject description first; break complex subjects into clear components |\n| Style drift | Reinforce the aesthetic with 2-3 related terms (\"cinematic, photorealistic, shallow depth of field\") |\n| Compositional confusion | Use photography terms (\"medium shot,\" \"overhead view\"); simplify the scene |\n| Garbled text | Double-quote the exact string; keep it short; state placement |\n| Mushy long-prompt output | Cut to under 100 words — Seedream rewards focus, not volume |\n\n## Iterate cheap, lock expensive\n\nFlat pricing makes Seedream the iterate-fast model: run the 3-strike loop here (draft → evaluate inline → one specific delta → regenerate), and only re-render the winning composition on a pricier model if the project's hero shot demands it. Cost rules live in `slates-cost-discipline` — the batch-authorization pattern applies when generating variant grids.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [fal.ai — Seedream Prompt Guide](https://fal.ai/learn/devs/seedream-v4-5-prompt-guide)\n- [BytePlus ModelArk — Seedream Prompt Guide](https://docs.byteplus.com/en/docs/ModelArk/1829186)\n",
     "slates-prompting-veo-3": "---\nname: slates-prompting-veo-3\ndescription: How to prompt Veo 3.1 (Google). Read before calling slates_generate_video with veo-3.1-fast or veo-3.1-standard. Veo is a NICHE pick, never the default (route per slates-model-selection — Kling is the general default, Seedance the premium tier) — reach for it only when native synchronized audio must generate WITH the video in one gen. 16:9 only. Different cinematography formula than Seedance/Kling. (no subtitles) is mandatory after every dialogue line.\n---\n\n# Veo 3.1 — prompting\n\nGoogle DeepMind's video model. Two tiers: `veo-3.1-fast` (cheaper, quick) and `veo-3.1-standard` (higher quality). 4k variants exist for both (4K video requires Slates Pro).\n\n**Native single-shot duration: 4, 6, or 8 seconds.** Longer durations require chaining clips via Extend / last-frame reuse — quality degrades if naively requested past 8s in a single generation. Aspect ratio: **16:9 only** — `slates_generate_video` locks Veo to 16:9; anything else is ignored or fails. For 9:16 vertical, use Kling or Seedance instead.\n\nNative synchronized audio at 48kHz: dialogue, SFX, ambient — generated WITH video, not added after.\n\n## Official Google formula\n\n```\n[Cinematography] + [Subject] + [Action] + [Context] + [Style & Ambiance]\n```\n\nSweet spot length: 50-150 words. Cloud's official benchmark is ~50 words.\n\nVerbatim official benchmark:\n> \"Medium shot, a tired corporate worker, rubbing his temples in exhaustion, in front of a bulky 1980s computer in a cluttered office late at night. The scene is lit by the harsh fluorescent overhead lights and the green glow of the monochrome monitor. Retro aesthetic, shot as if on 1980s color film, slightly grainy.\"\n\n## Cinematography vocabulary (Vertex AI docs)\n\n**Lenses:** wide-angle, telephoto, fisheye, anamorphic, 35mm, 85mm, shallow/deep depth of field\n\n**Lighting:** Rembrandt lighting, volumetric lighting, backlighting, golden hour glow, lens flare, rack focus, **vertigo effect** (dolly zoom)\n\n**Camera moves:** dolly (in/out), truck (left/right), pan, tilt, crane, aerial/drone, handheld, whip pan, arc shot, zoom\n\n## Texture-realism phrases (counter the AI-plastic look)\n\n```\nfine skin pores · visible fabric weave · subtle contrast, no gloss or sharpening\n```\n\nSpecify materials concretely: `charcoal cotton hoodie`, `matte concrete`, `silk lapel`. Generic \"smooth, beautiful\" rendering is the failure mode you're avoiding.\n\n## Dialogue — `(no subtitles)` is mandatory\n\nEvery dialogue line you don't want burned in as text overlay needs `(no subtitles)`. Verbatim from the founder talking-head benchmark:\n\n```\nThe founder says, \"This update cuts setup time in half, helping teams get started faster.\" (no subtitles).\n```\n\nWithout this, Veo will overlay subtitle text on top of your generation.\n\n## Voice direction — keep it terse\n\nVeo is less responsive to long voice-direction blocks than Kling. Use brief modifiers:\n\n```\nsays in a weary voice\nwhispers\nshouts\nmutters\n```\n\nMulti-character: handles 2-3 speakers natively. Past 3, sync degrades — use first-frame/last-frame chaining for 4+.\n\n## SFX with cause\n\n```\n✅ SFX: thunder cracks in the distance\n❌ SFX: thunder\n```\n\nAlways specify direction or distance.\n\n## Ambient is mandatory\n\nAlways include an ambience line per scene. Without it, the audio mix feels dead.\n\n```\nSoft office ambience.\nWind on the open ridge.\nDistant city hum.\n```\n\n## First-frame + last-frame workflow (Veo's strength)\n\n1. Generate start frame (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image is the recommended pair — Slates' Nano Banana 2 works)\n2. Generate end frame\n3. Animate with both frames as anchors\n\n**Motion-Lock hack:** Keep ~60% of the same background pixels between start and end frames. Prevents latent drift across the clip.\n\nVerbatim arc-shot example:\n> \"The camera performs a smooth 180-degree arc shot, starting with the front-facing view of the singer and circling around her to seamlessly end on the POV shot from behind her on stage. The singer sings 'when you look me in the eyes, I can see a million stars.'\"\n\n## Ingredients-to-Video (multiple references)\n\nVerbatim example:\n> \"Using the provided images for the detective, the woman, and the office setting, create a medium shot of the detective behind his desk. He looks up at the woman and says in a weary voice, 'Of all the offices in this town, you had to walk into mine.'\"\n\n## Reference discipline (character / environment refs)\n\n<!-- @inject:references-read-literally -->\n> **The general law: the model reads a reference literally.**\n> A reference image is not a suggestion. Whatever is baked into it — lighting, medium, texture, symmetry, competing identities — is read as a **property of the subject** and reproduced downstream. A baked rim light tints every shot made from that sheet. A sheet that looks like a 3D game render gets animated like game footage. Two competing renderings of one face get averaged into a third face.\n\nEvery reference rule below is a corollary of that one sentence, which is why \"prep the reference\" beats \"prompt around the reference\" every time:\n\n- **Flat, plain identity refs** — because scene lighting in the sheet becomes scene lighting in the output (Slates' own receipt: a studio-lit sheet produced a subject that looked green-screen-pasted in front of mountains).\n- **One authoritative rendering per subject** — because the model cannot tell which panel is the real one. ByteDance documents this failure directly: multi-view character assets \"confuse the model's character recognition, causing it to generate duplicate characters of the same appearance.\"\n- **No 3D-game-render look in a reference** — the model recognizes the render mood and inherits its motion character, so the *animation* comes out looking like game footage. This is not a taste rule; it is the same literal-reading mechanism applied to the temporal layer.\n- **Break perfect symmetry** — mirrored faces and dead-square framing read as synthetic, and the model preserves that reading rather than correcting it.\n\n**What this means in practice:** when output is wrong in a way that tracks the *subject* rather than the *scene* — the lighting is wrong the same way in every shot, the face drifts, the material looks synthetic everywhere — fix the reference, not the prompt. Prompting around a baked-in property is the expensive way to lose.\n<!-- @end:references-read-literally -->\n\n<!-- @inject:reference-rules-core -->\nIdentity = a few flat-lit neutral angles; one reference per role, named inline; 2-4 refs not 12; describe environments instead of feeding a grid.\n\n1. **2-4 strong references beat both extremes.** Not 1 (warps toward itself), not 12 (averages worse). Start with 2-3 focused refs — each one adds context AND another variable to balance.\n2. **One reference per ROLE, named in the prompt** — identity / style-grade / environment. The model does **not** infer a reference's role from its position in the list; the inline name carries it. Same-role competitors drift (two \"identity\" refs of different people blend into a third face). Slates composes the naming for you from your `@mentions` / `#tags` — you never hand-write role labels.\n3. **One identity sheet per character, named inline.** A character's identity is a single asset (dominant portrait + body panels), so attach that one asset rather than a pile of views: **fewer competing renderings of a face is better, because the model cannot tell which one is authoritative and averages them.** Slates cites it as `Marcus (image 1)`. **Do NOT hand-write a \"Reference Image Instructions\" block or role essays** (\"use for identity, ignore the outfit, render a neutral expression\") — that drags the sheet's studio lighting and wardrobe into a scene that asked for neither. The prompt leads; the user's words own wardrobe, expression, lighting, and action.\n4. **Flat-light identity refs.** Prep identity references with flat, even, shadowless lighting on a plain neutral background. A studio-lit or scene-lit character sheet bleeds its lighting into every generation — the failure looks like the subject was green-screen-pasted in front of the location. Reference prep beats prompting here.\n5. **Environment: describe it, don't feed a grid.** Default to describing the location in words and let the model build a space that fits the shot. Reserve an environment reference for a mandatory exact-match, and then use ONE clean establishing image with natural ambient light that reads as the location's real light — never a multi-panel grid fed whole.\n6. **Grids: explore, don't input.** Use grids to explore compositions cheaply, then pick a cell. Never feed a grid back in as a reference — the cells share a split detail budget and were generated jointly, so their flaws propagate.\n7. **Reuse the same refs across every shot** in a sequence. Lock a set and keep it; swapping references mid-sequence causes drift, because the model adapts each reference to the current prompt rather than copying it.\n8. **Legible in-shot text → bake it into a still start frame, never trust text-to-video.** Have an image model render the text, then animate from that locked frame. Video models smear type.\n9. **Working from existing media — describe ONLY what changes.** The source already carries its composition, motion, timing, and performance; re-describing them fights the model. Narrate the delta. (Video lane: restyle your own clip while keeping the performance; delayed-VFX on \"video one\"; marker-object insertion; video-as-reference for a series.)\n10. **Style transforms happen in natural language.** By default the source's artistic medium and visual style are inherited. To change it, add a plain-text instruction (\"anime → real person\"). There are no preset pickers, and there is no style slider.\n<!-- @end:reference-rules-core -->\n\n### For Veo specifically\n\n- **Veo's idiom for rule 2 is plain-English role naming in the sentence itself** — *\"Using the provided images for the detective, the woman, and the office setting, create a medium shot of…\"* (see Ingredients-to-Video above). The role rides in the noun phrase, not in a separate label block.\n- **Rule 8 has a second reason to matter here:** Veo bakes subtitle text into the frame unless every dialogue line carries `(no subtitles)`. Text you did not ask for is the failure mode, not just text you did.\n\n## Negative prompting — nouns, not instructions\n\nVeo has a `negativePrompt` field. **Verbatim Vertex AI rule:**\n> \"Describe unwanted elements as nouns rather than instructions. Use 'wall, frame' instead of 'no walls' or 'don't show walls.'\"\n\nInline: positive reframing in the body too.\n- ✅ `\"a desolate landscape with no buildings or roads\"`\n- ❌ `\"no man-made structures\"`\n\n## Common failure modes + fixes\n\n| Failure | Fix |\n|---|---|\n| Subject identity shifts mid-clip | Front-load identity at prompt start; use material cues (`charcoal canvas`, `cotton`, `silk`) to stabilize |\n| Floaty / weightless motion | Weight verbs (`trudges`, `drops heavily`), ground contact (`boots crunch on gravel`) |\n| AI-plastic look | `fine skin pores`, `visible fabric weave`, `subtle contrast` |\n| Subtitles baked into video | `(no subtitles)` after every dialogue line |\n| Rushed dialogue | Lines fit one natural breath in 8s |\n| Mismatched ambience | Always include an ambience line |\n| Warped geometry | `photorealistic stability` |\n\n## Timestamp shot syntax (for chained / multi-beat scenes)\n\nVeo accepts `[00:00-00:02]` brackets for timed sequences within an 8s clip. **Do NOT cross syntaxes** — Veo timestamps in a Seedance prompt cause subject drift; Seedance \"single continuous take\" in a Veo prompt suppresses cuts.\n\nVerbatim multi-beat:\n> \"[00:00-00:02] Medium shot from behind a young female explorer with a leather satchel and messy brown hair in a ponytail, as she pushes aside a large jungle vine to reveal a hidden path.\n> [00:02-00:04] Reverse shot of the explorer's freckled face, her expression filled with awe as she gazes upon ancient, moss-covered ruins. SFX: The rustle of dense leaves, distant exotic bird calls.\n> [00:04-00:06] Tracking shot following the explorer as she steps into the clearing and runs her hand over the intricate carvings on a crumbling stone wall.\n> [00:06-00:08] Wide, high-angle crane shot, revealing the lone explorer standing small in the center of the vast, forgotten temple complex, half-swallowed by the jungle. SFX: A swelling, gentle orchestral score begins to play.\"\n\n## Benchmark prompt — founder talking head (full)\n\n> \"Camera locked at eye level, medium close-up on a 35mm lens: a startup founder in his late 30s with short black hair and light stubble, wearing a charcoal cotton hoodie, speaking directly to camera, leaning slightly forward as he speaks, lifting one hand to emphasize a point, then relaxing back to neutral, in a quiet office during late afternoon, with blurred monitors glowing faintly in the background, lit by soft daylight from a side window with gentle fill on the opposite side and natural falloff across his face. Style: fine skin pores, visible fabric weave, subtle contrast, no gloss or sharpening. Audio: The founder says, 'This update cuts setup time in half, helping teams get started faster.' (no subtitles). Soft office ambience.\"\n\n## Pre-flight: references arrive inline, refer by code\n\nWhen you call `slates_generate_video` with `firstFrameAssetId` / `lastFrameAssetId` / `ingredientAssetIds`, the first call returns those references **inline as image content blocks** alongside a cost estimate and `requires_confirm: true`. Veo's strongest move is first-frame + last-frame; the pre-flight is where you confirm the two frames actually anchor the motion you wrote. Revise the prompt before `confirm=true` if needed.\n\nWhen talking to the user about the gen, refer to each reference by its short code: `IMG-A12 — Founder Headshot`. The user sees that code as a badge on the gallery thumbnail, so they can match what you're saying to what they're looking at.\n\n- ✅ \"I'm anchoring on **IMG-A12** as the open shot and **IMG-A18** as the close — the 180° arc lands on her looking offscreen left.\"\n- ❌ \"I'm using two of the founder shots...\" (which two? They have six.)\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Google Cloud — Ultimate Prompting Guide for Veo 3.1](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/ultimate-prompting-guide-for-veo-3-1)\n- [Google DeepMind — Veo Prompt Guide](https://deepmind.google/models/veo/prompt-guide/)\n- [Google Cloud Docs — Vertex AI Video Generation Prompt Guide](https://docs.cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/video/video-gen-prompt-guide)\n- [Atlas Cloud — Veo 3.1 Master Guide](https://www.atlascloud.ai/blog/guides/google-veo-3-1-guide-master-image-to-video-ai-with-native-sound-and-4k-realism)\n- [Invideo — Veo 3.1 Prompt Guide](https://invideo.io/blog/google-veo-prompt-guide/)\n",
     "slates-storyboard-from-script": "---\nname: slates-storyboard-from-script\ndescription: Turn a script or treatment into a Slates storyboard with scenes and frames. Use when the user has a script, treatment, shot list, or scene-by-scene description and wants to materialize it as a Slates storyboard, optionally generating frame images per shot.\n---\n\n# Storyboard from script — Slates workflow\n\nThe user has a script, treatment, or shot list. You're turning it into a Slates storyboard with scene → frame structure, optionally generating images for each frame.\n\n## Workflow\n\n### 1. Parse the script\nRead the user's script. Decide:\n\n- **Scene count** — usually 1 scene per location/setting change. Don't fragment into one-frame scenes.\n- **Frames per scene** — match the shot list. Default is 3-6 frames per scene unless the script specifies more.\n- **Shot labels** — pull them from the script (e.g., \"Wide\", \"Close-up\", \"Over-the-shoulder\").\n\nIf the user hasn't named the storyboard, suggest one based on the project tone.\n\n### 2. Materialize the structure first (no generation yet)\n- `slates_create_storyboard` with the chosen name.\n- For each scene: `slates_add_scene` with a descriptive name and order.\n- For each frame: write a *visual-only* prompt (image, not action), the shot label, and any director notes. **Don't generate yet.**\n\nSurface the planned structure back to the user as a tight summary:\n> Storyboard \"X\" • 4 scenes • 12 frames total\n>   Scene 1: Forest opening (3 frames)\n>   Scene 2: Confrontation (4 frames)\n>   ...\n\n**Surface a decision log alongside that summary.**\n\n<!-- @inject:decision-log -->\nWhen you surface the plan, include a short **decision log** — one line per decision *you* made that the user did not specify:\n\n```\nsource phrase or declared default → what you wrote → what it resolves\n\"in a diner\"        → chrome-and-vinyl booth, 3/4 on the counter   → fixes the anchor so blocking is repeatable\n(no time of day)    → late afternoon, low warm key                 → default; say the word and it changes\n(no camera)         → slow push-in, single move                    → one move per shot; stacking increases instability\n```\n\n**Hard rule: never silently add weather, props, style, or camera movement.** If it wasn't in the brief and you added it, it goes in the log. This is the \"why did you add that?\" affordance — for an agent that writes prompts on the user's behalf and spends their credits, it is what keeps the model in assembly and the user in the director's chair.\n\n> ❌ **Do NOT turn this into a question gate.** Clarifying questions before optimizing directly fight the locked fast-path rule: *if intent is clear, generate immediately with sane defaults, don't ask questions; only ask for production intent, and batch every question into one message.* Log the decisions, then go. The log is an **output**, not an interrogation — surfaced alongside the plan, never as a separate ceremony, and never as a reason to wait.\n<!-- @end:decision-log -->\n\nTurning a script into *visual* frame prompts means resolving things the script left open — what the room looks like, where the light comes from, how the shot is framed. Those are your decisions, not the writer's; name them.\n\nAsk: **\"Generate frame images now? (y/N)\"**\n\n### 3. Generate frames if requested\nFor each frame:\n- Estimate cost (`slates_estimate_generation_cost`, `count = total frames`). Confirm with user if total > ~17 credits.\n- Generate sequentially, with character/environment/style references attached when present in the project (`slates_list_characters`, `slates_list_environments`).\n- Each result returns inline. Evaluate. If wrong, refine prompt + regenerate (charge once, not multiple).\n- Bind to the frame via `slates_add_frame`.\n\n### 4. Hand back\n- Total frames generated, total credits spent, storyboard id.\n- Suggest next steps: review via `slates_get_storyboard_with_frames`, or take the frames to motion — `slates_generate_video` per frame (`firstFrameAssetId`, `background: true`, poll `slates_get_generation_status`), then `slates_add_clip_to_timeline` in story order and `slates_export_video`. The full frames-to-film pipeline (batch cost authorization, model mixing) is `slates-one-prompt-film`.\n\n## Anti-patterns\n\n- **Don't** auto-generate without asking. Generation is the expensive step. Always confirm first.\n- **Don't** invent shot details the script doesn't mention. If the script says \"they argue,\" ask what the shot looks like, don't fabricate \"she clenches her fists in a wide shot.\"\n- **Don't** mix scene structure and frame generation in one pass — building the skeleton first lets the user catch errors before spending credits.\n",

package/exports/slates-prompt-builder/generated/reference-seedance.md

@@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ Seedance has **no `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline in this slo
 
 ## Worked examples `[official :1689-1745]`
 
-These are ByteDance's own end-to-end cases. Note the shape: an asset-binding preamble, then `Shot N` blocks in event order, then a trailing style + stability paragraph. No time stamps anywhere.
+These are ByteDance's own end-to-end cases. Note the shape: an asset-binding preamble, then `Shot N` blocks in event order, then a trailing style + stability paragraph. No time stamps anywhere — 2.0 does not respond to them at all, which is version-scoped and reverses on 2.5.
 
 **Example 1 — dormitory emotional short drama (dialogue-focused).** Assets: `@Image 1` half-body photo of the female lead · `@Image 2` dormitory scene reference · `@Video 1` camera-movement reference · `@Audio 1` indoor ambience.
 

package/exports/slates-prompt-builder/generated/slates-prompt-builder-manifest.json

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
     },
     {
       "path": "skills/slates-prompting-seedance.md",
-      "sha256": "81ba0d25c52ef503500d532d9376898400c0a192c63c6ce2af566a5176c92050"
+      "sha256": "ad9f3d5a20ef3bf52ebe916c81f67b9570fe1a43b54d64819da8b73972eb1a8e"
     },
     {
       "path": "skills/slates-prompting-kling-v3.md",
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
     },
     {
       "path": "src/prompts/model-facts.ts",
-      "sha256": "b55054947d0286024f0bf0565968cf5b0a5c5e0d786aa5b2b78aed7e7be9706b"
+      "sha256": "e32e844562164293983eabb853a6cee58bd9bba2ec3679699f9cd2f81716b5e0"
     }
   ],
   "outputs": [
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
     },
     {
       "path": "reference-seedance.md",
-      "bytes": 32473,
-      "sha256": "0175afc387d27ca47439dfa2a33d6f96394a369044b4539928ff4f36fbf8126d"
+      "bytes": 32558,
+      "sha256": "29b9408feec4ba91e5cd6f048ff6e6771fd2d96120378d4b6d52dec2a35eacd3"
     },
     {
       "path": "reference-kling.md",
@@ -65,8 +65,8 @@
   ],
   "archive": {
     "path": "slates-prompt-builder.skill",
-    "bytes": 38258,
-    "sha256": "66c29297ee18dab6f429b48b75f47bb53d8180e35674adf03f3290ee84a7779b",
+    "bytes": 38295,
+    "sha256": "2cfe2ee4f80b0f64b53704a377c35d95ad15bedd5af3314f6b5242c8f6fb9bf1",
     "entries": [
       "SKILL.md",
       "reference-character.md",

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@slatesvideo/shared",
-  "version": "0.5.7",
+  "version": "0.5.9",
   "description": "Shared operations layer for the Slates MCP server and CLI: auth, cloud/desktop clients, and the single tool surface both consume. Most users want @slatesvideo/mcp-server or @slatesvideo/cli instead.",
   "license": "MIT",
   "type": "module",

package/skills/_partials/seedance-25-timestamps-short.md

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+<!-- consumer:ts -->
+Seedance 2.0 ignores timing and answers only to "Shot 1 / Shot 2"; 2.5 acts on whole-second timestamps, and that is what makes a 30-second take controllable rather than just long. Three forms work: intervals ("0-3 seconds…3-7 seconds"), a point ("at the 5-second mark"), or relative ("after 3 seconds"). Whole seconds only, no gaps between intervals, and never to choreograph fast repeated motion. They work on edits too, where a range scopes the change: "…from 4-6 seconds…".

package/skills/_partials/seedance-25-timestamps.md

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+**2.0 does not respond to timestamps and answers only to shot numbers. 2.5 responds to
+integer-second timestamps.** That is ByteDance's own first line under "Differences from Seedance
+2.0", and it is why a 30-second take is usable at all: the length is only worth buying if you can
+say *when* things happen inside it.
+
+Both formats are valid on 2.5, and you can mix them — `Shot N` blocks for a storyboard whose
+pacing you are happy to leave to the model, timestamps when a beat has to land at a moment.
+
+**Three ways to control time, all first-party:**
+
+| Form | Write it like |
+|---|---|
+| **Interval** | `0-3 seconds… 3-7 seconds… 7-15 seconds` or `[1s-4s]… [4s-8s]… [8s-12s]` |
+| **Time point** | *"Quick left sideways transition at the 5-second mark."* |
+| **Relative** | *"After 3 seconds, everyone around him shakes their head."* · *"The frame freezes for 1 second after he presses the shutter."* |
+
+**The rules that come with them:**
+
+- **One second is the smallest unit.** Integers only — no `2.5s`, no frames.
+- **No gaps in the timeline.** `0-3s… 5-6s…` leaves 3-5s unspecified and the model fills it however
+  it likes. Intervals must abut: `0-3s`, `3-7s`, `7-15s`.
+- **Budget the plot to the seconds.** Too little content in a range and the model improvises to
+  fill it; too much and you get extra cuts or dropped beats. This is the actual craft of a 30s take.
+- **Never time-code a high-frequency action.** *"Shake your head three times per second"* is
+  explicitly called out as a misuse — timestamps schedule beats, they don't choreograph frames.
+- **Transitions want both halves:** the moment AND the method — *"At the 5-second mark, the camera
+  transitions leftward with a left wipe into a natural dissolve."*
+- **Timestamps work on an EDIT too**, and that is where they earn the most: they scope a change in
+  time as well as in content — *"Change the man's action from drinking coffee to mopping the floor
+  from 4-6 seconds in Video 1, and leave the rest of the content unchanged."* Without a range, a
+  whole-clip instruction is applied to the whole clip.
+
+Do **not** carry this back to 2.0, and do not carry Veo's `[00:00-00:02]` bracket syntax into
+either — 2.0 ignores time entirely, and the cross-model syntax swap is its own known failure.

package/skills/slates-model-selection.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: slates-model-selection
-description: Which model to pick for a given job — the routing doctrine. Read BEFORE choosing any video or image model, before quoting a plan, and before defaulting anywhere. Kling 3.0 is the general-purpose video default; Seedance 2.0 is the premium tier for anything where physics, effects, or scale remotely matter; Seedance 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT beside 2.0 (30s takes and 30 references, but 480p/720p only — never an upgrade); Veo 3.1 is a narrow niche (native synced audio in one gen, 16:9 only) and never the default.
+description: Which model to pick for a given job — the routing doctrine. Read BEFORE choosing any video or image model, before quoting a plan, and before defaulting anywhere. Kling 3.0 is the general-purpose video default; Seedance 2.0 is the premium tier for anything where physics, effects, or scale remotely matter; Seedance 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT beside 2.0 (30s takes, 30 references and timestamp control, but 480p/720p only — never an upgrade); Veo 3.1 is a narrow niche (native synced audio in one gen, 16:9 only) and never the default.
 ---
 
 # Model selection — the routing doctrine
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ The tables below are a snapshot. This roster churns constantly (NB2 Lite, Omni F
 | Multi-character dialogue / audio co-generation | Kling 3.0 omni | Dialogue syntax, voice direction, language codes, `@element` refs. |
 | **Anything with remotely important physics** — effects, destruction, water/fire/smoke/cloth, creature motion, scale, complex simultaneous action | **Seedance 2.0** | The premium tier. Physics and effects are its whole edge; up to 9 ingredient refs, first+last frame, native 4K (4K video is Pro-only). |
 | The premium hero shot a piece hangs on | Seedance 2.0 | Spend where it shows. |
-| **One take longer than 15 seconds**, or a shot needing more than 9 image references, or an AUDIO-ONLY reference | **Seedance 2.5** | A SECOND SEAT beside 2.0, never an upgrade: 4–30s in one take, 30 image + 10 video + 10 audio references, audio-only refs — and **480p/720p ONLY, no 1080p and no 4K on any provider**. If resolution matters at all, stay on 2.0. 🚨 Two live hazards: (a) with references attached, the words *add / remove / replace / change / extend / continue* make it reclassify the request as a video EDIT and fail AFTER the job queues — describe the finished frame, or use `seedance-2.5-edit`; (b) 720p is NOT the cheap seat here — a 30s 720p face gen is 484 credits, more than a 15s 1080p Seedance 2.0 face gen (411), against a 1,000-credit welcome grant. Quote before any take over ~10s. |
+| **One take longer than 15 seconds**, or a shot needing more than 9 image references, or an AUDIO-ONLY reference, or **beats that have to land at a named second** | **Seedance 2.5** | A SECOND SEAT beside 2.0, never an upgrade: 4–30s in one take, 30 image + 10 video + 10 audio references, audio-only refs, and the only Seedance seat that **acts on timestamps** (rules in `slates-prompting-seedance-2-5` § Timestamps) — and **480p or 720p on every route Slates offers, no 1080p and no 4K**. If resolution matters at all, stay on 2.0. 🚨 Two live hazards: (a) with references attached, the words *add / remove / replace / change / extend / continue* make it reclassify the request as a video EDIT and fail AFTER the job queues — describe the finished frame, or use `seedance-2.5-edit`; (b) 720p is NOT the cheap seat here — a 30s 720p face gen is 484 credits, more than a 15s 1080p Seedance 2.0 face gen (411), against a 1,000-credit welcome grant. Quote before any take over ~10s. |
 
 ### Named Seedance escalation triggers
 

package/skills/slates-prompting-seedance-2-5.md

@@ -1,23 +1,25 @@
 ---
 name: slates-prompting-seedance-2-5
-description: How to prompt Seedance 2.5 and Seedance 2.5 Edit. Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2.5, or slates_edit_video with model seedance-2.5-edit. 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT next to 2.0, not an upgrade — it buys 30-second takes, 30 image references and audio-only references, and it gives up 1080p and 4K entirely. Shares 2.0's prompt grammar (read slates-prompting-seedance for the shot structure, subject binding, camera and constraint vocabulary); this file covers only what is different, plus the two hazards unique to 2.5 — the prompt-intent task classifier and the cost trap at 720p.
+description: How to prompt Seedance 2.5 and Seedance 2.5 Edit. Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2.5, or slates_edit_video with model seedance-2.5-edit. 2.5 is a SECOND SEAT next to 2.0, not an upgrade — it buys 30-second takes, 30 image references, audio-only references and INTEGER-SECOND TIMESTAMPS, and it gives up 1080p and 4K — it is 480p or 720p on every route Slates offers. Timestamps are the one grammar difference that matters: 2.0 ignores them and answers only to shot numbers, 2.5 acts on them. Otherwise it shares 2.0's grammar (read slates-prompting-seedance for subject binding, camera and constraint vocabulary); this file covers what is different, plus the two hazards unique to 2.5 — the prompt-intent task classifier and the cost trap at 720p.
 ---
 
 # Seedance 2.5 — prompting
 
 **Read `slates-prompting-seedance` first.** The prompt GRAMMAR is the same model family: the
-8-slot advanced formula, the `Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3` storyboard, subject binding by
-`<Subject_N>@<Image_N>`, camera vocabulary, externalised emotion, inline constraint words, the
-anti-twin fix. None of it is restated here. This file is only what 2.5 changes.
+8-slot advanced formula, subject binding by `<Subject_N>@<Image_N>`, camera vocabulary,
+externalised emotion, inline constraint words, the anti-twin fix. None of it is restated here.
+This file is only what 2.5 changes — and the biggest change is that **2.5 acts on timestamps
+where 2.0 ignores them.**
 
 ---
 
 ## The one fact that decides whether you use it at all
 
-**Seedance 2.5 is 480p or 720p. There is no 1080p and no 4K, on any provider.**
+**Seedance 2.5 is 480p or 720p on every route Slates offers — no 1080p, no 4K.**
 
-That is not a Slates limitation or a tier gate — the model does not produce those resolutions.
-So 2.5 does not replace 2.0; it sits beside it:
+Treat that as the current ceiling on our routes, not a claim about the model everywhere. It is not a
+tier gate either: no Slates plan unlocks a higher resolution on 2.5. So 2.5 does not replace 2.0;
+it sits beside it:
 
 | | Seedance 2.0 | Seedance 2.5 |
 |---|---|---|
@@ -26,6 +28,8 @@ So 2.5 does not replace 2.0; it sits beside it:
 | Reference budget | 15 (9 image + 3 video + 3 audio) | **50 (30 image + 10 video + 10 audio)** |
 | Combined reference video/audio | ≤15s | **≤30s** |
 | Audio-only reference | ✗ (needs an image or video alongside) | **✓** |
+| **Timestamps in the prompt** | **✗ — ignored; shot numbers only** | **✓ — integer seconds, acted on** |
+| Multi-view image as ONE subject reference | ✗ (not recommended) | **✓ (up to 5 subjects)** |
 | Video edit as its own task type | ✗ | **✓ (`seedance-2.5-edit`)** |
 | Default video model | **yes** | no |
 
@@ -47,10 +51,10 @@ does it fail.
 
 The trigger words are ordinary English:
 
-| Reclassified as | Words that do it |
+| Reclassified as | Words that do it (ByteDance's own list) |
 |---|---|
-| **video edit** | `add` · `remove` · `replace` · `change` · `edit the video` |
-| **video extend** | `extend` · `continue` · `continue the story` |
+| **video edit** | `edit video` · `add` · `insert` · `remove` · `delete` · `modify` · `replace` · `change to` |
+| **video extend** | `extend forward` · `extend backward` · `continue` · `continue from` · `extend the story` |
 
 So a perfectly legitimate reference-to-video prompt — *"a wide shot of the workshop, **remove** the
 tripod from frame"* — gets classified as an edit and fails on constraints it never set.
@@ -98,8 +102,12 @@ real-face route has spent 71% of their welcome grant on one clip.
 
 - **Always quote with `slates_estimate_generation_cost` before a take over ~10 seconds,** and say
   the number out loud before generating.
-- **Draft at 480p and 4–8 seconds.** Prove the composition, the motion and the identity first;
-  spend the length only on the take you already know works.
+- **Find the shot at short LENGTH, not at low resolution.** Length is what moves the price, so cut
+  seconds while you are still exploring — 4–8s — and stay at the resolution you actually want.
+  **A 480p pass does not de-risk a 720p render.** Generation is stochastic: the 720p run is a
+  different take, not the same shot rendered better. So a 480p draft that looks right buys you no
+  guarantee, and one that looks wrong may have been fine at 720p — you paid 22 credits to learn
+  nothing, when 48 would have bought a real candidate.
 - **Length is a creative decision, not a default.** 30 seconds is available; it is rarely the right
   answer for a single shot. Multi-shot storyboards inside one 30s generation are what the length is
   actually for.
@@ -107,12 +115,64 @@ real-face route has spent 71% of their welcome grant on one clip.
 
 ---
 
+## Timestamps — the one grammar change
+
+<!-- @inject:seedance-25-timestamps -->
+**2.0 does not respond to timestamps and answers only to shot numbers. 2.5 responds to
+integer-second timestamps.** That is ByteDance's own first line under "Differences from Seedance
+2.0", and it is why a 30-second take is usable at all: the length is only worth buying if you can
+say *when* things happen inside it.
+
+Both formats are valid on 2.5, and you can mix them — `Shot N` blocks for a storyboard whose
+pacing you are happy to leave to the model, timestamps when a beat has to land at a moment.
+
+**Three ways to control time, all first-party:**
+
+| Form | Write it like |
+|---|---|
+| **Interval** | `0-3 seconds… 3-7 seconds… 7-15 seconds` or `[1s-4s]… [4s-8s]… [8s-12s]` |
+| **Time point** | *"Quick left sideways transition at the 5-second mark."* |
+| **Relative** | *"After 3 seconds, everyone around him shakes their head."* · *"The frame freezes for 1 second after he presses the shutter."* |
+
+**The rules that come with them:**
+
+- **One second is the smallest unit.** Integers only — no `2.5s`, no frames.
+- **No gaps in the timeline.** `0-3s… 5-6s…` leaves 3-5s unspecified and the model fills it however
+  it likes. Intervals must abut: `0-3s`, `3-7s`, `7-15s`.
+- **Budget the plot to the seconds.** Too little content in a range and the model improvises to
+  fill it; too much and you get extra cuts or dropped beats. This is the actual craft of a 30s take.
+- **Never time-code a high-frequency action.** *"Shake your head three times per second"* is
+  explicitly called out as a misuse — timestamps schedule beats, they don't choreograph frames.
+- **Transitions want both halves:** the moment AND the method — *"At the 5-second mark, the camera
+  transitions leftward with a left wipe into a natural dissolve."*
+- **Timestamps work on an EDIT too**, and that is where they earn the most: they scope a change in
+  time as well as in content — *"Change the man's action from drinking coffee to mopping the floor
+  from 4-6 seconds in Video 1, and leave the rest of the content unchanged."* Without a range, a
+  whole-clip instruction is applied to the whole clip.
+
+Do **not** carry this back to 2.0, and do not carry Veo's `[00:00-00:02]` bracket syntax into
+either — 2.0 ignores time entirely, and the cross-model syntax swap is its own known failure.
+<!-- @end:seedance-25-timestamps -->
+
+---
+
 ## What the extra reference budget is actually for
 
 30 image references (up from 9) does **not** mean "attach 30 images". Every rule in
-`slates-prompting-seedance` about references still holds — 2–4 strong references beat both extremes,
-one reference per role, one authoritative rendering per subject, and past **4 reference people**
-output stability drops regardless of the cap.
+`slates-prompting-seedance` about references still holds — 2–4 strong references beat both
+extremes, and one reference per role.
+
+**Where 2.5 moves the ceiling, per ByteDance's own input recommendations:**
+
+| | Stable | Works, but expect re-rolls |
+|---|---|---|
+| Subjects bound by IMAGE reference | 1–8 | 9–12 |
+| Subjects bound by VIDEO or AUDIO reference | 1–5 | 6–10 |
+| Reference clip length, per subject | 5–10s | longer drops stability |
+
+**Multi-view images of one subject are supported on 2.5** — a turnaround sheet can be a single
+reference image, where 2.0 wanted one authoritative rendering per subject. Past **5 subjects**,
+go back to single-view images, one per view, rather than one image carrying several viewpoints.
 
 The larger budget earns its keep in exactly two places:
 
@@ -172,11 +232,17 @@ Kling O3 Edit is the one that takes element and style reference images.
 
 - **Output length follows the SOURCE clip**, and the bill is the ceiled source length. The provider
   requires an automatic duration on this task type, so there is no length knob — the clip you attach
-  is the quote.
+  is the quote. The returned clip can differ from the source by up to ~0.3s, which only compresses
+  transition frames; a clip that 2.5 itself generated comes back at exactly its input length.
+- **Source clips under 20 seconds edit more reliably.** 4–30s is what the task type accepts;
+  ByteDance's own recommendation is to stay inside 20 for quality. A 28-second source is legal and
+  will need more attempts.
 - **The aspect ratio follows the source clip too.** No ratio control; the frame is the clip's frame.
 - **480p or 720p output**, native audio.
-- **Prompt and source clip only** on this op — no character or style reference images. If the edit
-  needs a reference image to lock an identity, that is Kling O3 Edit's job.
+- **Prompt and source clip only** on this op. The MODEL takes reference images on an edit
+  (ByteDance recommends 1–5 — *"replace the man in dark clothing in @Video 1 with @Image 2"*);
+  **Slates has not wired that path**, so today an edit that must lock an identity from a photo
+  goes to Kling O3 Edit. Constraint of our build, not of the model — worth revisiting.
 - **An edit bills roughly DOUBLE a plain 2.5 generation of the same length**, because every provider
   charges an edit on input + output seconds. Read the confirm gate's number; do not reason from the
   generation rate.
@@ -192,6 +258,21 @@ them fights the model. Use Seedance's own edit grammar from `slates-prompting-se
 **never** write *"reference video 1"* in an edit — the official guide is explicit that this phrasing
 gets the request reclassified as a reference task, which is the same landmine as Hazard 1.
 
+Two things sharpen an edit prompt, both first-party:
+
+- **Say it as A → B, not as an outcome.** *"Change the man's action from drinking coffee to mopping
+  the floor"* beats *"the man mops the floor"* — naming what it currently is tells the model what
+  to overwrite.
+- **Timestamp a partial edit** — the edit task type reads the same integer-second timestamps the
+  generation path does. Rules and forms are in § Timestamps above; this is the single most useful
+  thing they buy.
+
+**Audio is editable too, and it is the least obvious use of this row.** The same op rewrites what
+is heard while the picture stays put: change a spoken line, change the accent, translate the
+dialogue and re-fit the lip movement, strip or replace the BGM or a sound effect. *"Only edit the
+man's dialogue in Video 1: change it to 'Don't come over here,' in an American accent"* is an edit,
+not a lip-sync job. Bill it like any other edit — on the source clip's length.
+
 ---
 
 ## Faces, and what does NOT change
@@ -205,11 +286,10 @@ including why the real-vs-AI call is the provider's and not yours, are in
 
 Also unchanged, and worth restating because 2.5's length makes each one more expensive to get wrong:
 
-- **No time stamps.** `Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3`, ordered by when events occur, pacing left to the
-  model. A 30-second take makes this rule matter more, not less — it is more shots, not longer
-  segment labels.
 - **One primary camera move per shot.**
 - **No lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary.** That is image-model syntax and a Seedance
   anti-pattern.
-- **No `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline.
+- **No `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline, and 2.5 acts on negative phrasing in
+  exactly two dimensions: subtitles (*"no subtitles"*) and audio (*"no BGM; environmental and
+  action sounds only"*, *"no audio"*). Everywhere else, describe what you want, not what you don't.
 - **Legible in-shot text still belongs in a baked start frame**, not in the video prompt.

package/skills/slates-prompting-seedance.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: slates-prompting-seedance
-description: How to prompt Seedance 2.0 (ByteDance video model). Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2. Seedance structures multi-beat prompts as a "Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3" storyboard against an 8-slot advanced formula — never per-second time stamps. Its syntax differs from Kling, Veo and the image models; don't cross-pollinate (in particular, no lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary).
+description: How to prompt Seedance 2.0 (ByteDance video model). Read before calling slates_generate_video with model seedance-2. Seedance 2.0 structures multi-beat prompts as a "Shot 1 / Shot 2 / Shot 3" storyboard against an 8-slot advanced formula — never per-second time stamps, which 2.0 does not respond to (Seedance 2.5 does; see slates-prompting-seedance-2-5). Its syntax differs from Kling, Veo and the image models; don't cross-pollinate (in particular, no lens / aperture / film-stock vocabulary).
 ---
 
 # Seedance 2.0 — prompting
@@ -162,7 +162,7 @@ Seedance has **no `negativePrompt` field** — constraints go inline in this slo
 
 ## Worked examples `[official :1689-1745]`
 
-These are ByteDance's own end-to-end cases. Note the shape: an asset-binding preamble, then `Shot N` blocks in event order, then a trailing style + stability paragraph. No time stamps anywhere.
+These are ByteDance's own end-to-end cases. Note the shape: an asset-binding preamble, then `Shot N` blocks in event order, then a trailing style + stability paragraph. No time stamps anywhere — 2.0 does not respond to them at all, which is version-scoped and reverses on 2.5.
 
 **Example 1 — dormitory emotional short drama (dialogue-focused).** Assets: `@Image 1` half-body photo of the female lead · `@Image 2` dormitory scene reference · `@Video 1` camera-movement reference · `@Audio 1` indoor ambience.