rig-c/create

Every rig starts as a project, and every project starts with the user's direction.

This repository is where the rig-c project layer is built: the folder a rig is made in, the interview that comes before any rigging, the plan the user signs, and the guide an agent reads before it touches anything. It does not cut parts (rig-c/parts does) and it does not compile or gate rigs (rig-c/core does). It decides what and why; those packages do how.

Why it exists

An agent rigging a painting passes through the same places every time: the layer split, the cut of each part, the bones, what deforms and what stays rigid, what gets physics or wind, which motions it plays. Left alone at each of those places, it guesses — and a guessed direction is only found out when a person watches the result and sends it back. A precise direction, given before the work, is done in one pass.

So the user gives direction at those places, in their own sentences, before the work starts:

1. Base motion — the cut, the bones, what deforms, physics, the motions. Reviewed on a still frame, the rig alone.
2. Direction — camera, depth and timing, applied after the rig is accepted. Reviewed as a take. Camera keys and timing are authored with rig-create direction in a hash-bound direction document; depth and turn remain in parts.
3. Polish — what the user says after seeing a result, kept word for word and tied to the place it is about.

Choosing "auto" at any place is allowed. It is recorded as the user handing that decision to the agent, never left blank for the agent to fill.

What will live here

• A project scaffold: one folder per rig, one record of its direction, sign-offs and versions, and data split by lifetime (inputs and evidence kept; derived data, outputs and scratch rebuilt or discarded).
• The interview, organised by the places the rig work always passes through.
• Translation of the user's sentences into checks the rig must keep, enforced by rig-c's invariants and named failures.
• Collections: several rigs that belong together, sharing direction and pinned to exact member builds.
• The guide an agent starts from, pointing at the installed packages' own documentation rather than copying it.

Nothing is published yet. The structure is being piloted by hand first; the issues here track what moves in, in order.

Recording approvals

rig-create signoff plan-approved --by user --verbatim-file approval.txt <project dir>
rig-create parts-review <project dir> --draft <id> --from-review-cli --by user -- <rig-review parts arguments>
rig-create structure-snapshot <project dir> --draft <id> --out evidence/structure-decisions.json
rig-create diff-classes <project dir> --diff-report <report> --triage-file <triage> --by agent
rig-create signoff parts-review --by user --draft <id> --structure-file evidence/structure-decisions.json --verbatim-file approval.txt <project dir>
rig-create signoff rigging --checkpoint constraints --by user --verbatim-file approval.txt <project dir>
rig-create signoff post-interview --by user --steps camera,timing --verbatim-file - <project dir>
rig-create review 2 --verdict accepted --by user --review rig-review --source note --verbatim-file feedback.txt --at 2026-11-04T12:00:00Z --answers-feedback 1:0 <project dir>

signoff records without moving the stage. It uses the clock, signs all steps of the stage's phase unless --steps narrows them, fills null checkpoints from the draft and preserves existing answers and delegations. Input is UTF-8 and keeps every byte, including spaces and final newlines. Omitting --verbatim-file reads stdin. Review also supports the existing --verbatim option. See the record contract.

The clock

Every command, writer and check takes the instant it runs at as an explicit now (milliseconds since the epoch). That one value dates what a writer records and bounds every "not in the future" refusal. The process entry in src/cli.ts is the only place create reads the wall clock; it passes Date.now() to main.

Tests and generators never read or replace the global clock. Generators pass their declared example instants. Tests call create through tests/clock.ts, which passes the suite's instant, by default twelve hours after the latest *_SINCE date; testClock.set moves it for the next call. A test that needs a real process spawns tests/cli-at.ts with that instant. The only test that reads the real clock is tests/contract-dates.test.ts: it fails, naming the constant, when a *_SINCE date is still in the future.

Docs

• docs/PROJECT.md — the project folder, data by lifetime, stages and sign-offs, the plan, versions.
• docs/INTERVIEW.md — the three user steps, answer states and shape, waypoints, post-production, provenance, polish feedback.
• docs/CHECKS.md — rig-create interview --check: every refusal code, what fires it, how to clear it.
• docs/COLLECTIONS.md — several rigs that belong together: inherited answers, the reference member, composition, pins.
• docs/CRAFT.md — craft notes: the default proposed at each waypoint, and execution defects handed to rig-c/parts gates.
• docs/SOURCE.md — the layer split and the cut: what to do, in what order and why, read before seethrough and assemble.
• docs/LESSONS.md — the self-check every version passes before anyone looks, and the review lessons behind it.
• templates/ — the empty project.json and collection.json skeletons, and a worked example (example-interview.md, example-project.json) on a made-up painting. Its sign-offs and the reopened variant's reopen are synthetic fixture records, not a person's approval (why).

Licence

MIT.

New projects ask a separate multiple-choice question for each applicable ask, with a reasoned agent recommendation, Other and explicit delegation. The shown option file is retained by raw sha256. Record it with interview-options, then use interview-answer --pick or fetch Review's finalized act with --from-review <actId>; interview-decision records only the explicitly delegated asks. See the choice contract and the generated consumer fixture. Existing @1 projects keep their sentence history; adopt choices explicitly with interview-options --adopt, without re-dating old answers.