Anti-template move bank

Curated bank of non-template moves Discipline 3 draws from when a per-page surprise tier is medium or high. Each move is a substitution for a captured cliché pattern; pages declare the move they're applying in <slug>-shape.md#surpriseMoves[] with a captured-source citation.

The bank is a set of worked exemplars, not a closed set — a new move is admissible per § Extension rule below. A move that proves out across runs earns a permanent entry here with its worked example.

See stardust/reference/divergence-toolkit.md § Non-template move bank for the move list summary; this file is the implementation reference with worked examples.

1. Typographic substitution

Replace a tile / card grid with a text-only document register — ledger row, running list, typed index, or marquee parade.

When it fits

• Captured pattern: 3-up / 4-up / 5-up image-card grid where the image is decorative rather than load-bearing.
• Captured trait amplified: the brand's vernacular naming (a product line whose names carry the poetry) or catalog density (more items than fit comfortably in cards).

Cliché replaced

5-up image-card grid as category nav (the universal AI silhouette for catalog landings).

Worked example — beers-B (wasatch dry-run)

Variant B of /beers amplified the vernacular-naming captured trait. Where variant A renders 6 image-card entries in a 3-column grid, variant B renders them as a typographic parade: each beer name at clamp(5rem, 12vw, 8rem) running down the column, metadata in a side rail, photo as a 180px framed thumbnail rather than the column's lead.

Brief excerpt:

surpriseMoves:
  - move: typographic-substitution
    cliche: "5-up image-card grid"
    capturedSource: "Lambrate's product names are the poetry of the brand
      (Ghisa, Montestella, Sant'Ambrogio, Domm); rendered as a parade rather
      than a grid lets the names carry the visual weight"
    rationale: "The captured site renders names at body scale inside small
      cards; the parade restores the names to the brand's actual poetry-scale"

Refusal patterns

• Substituted text-only register WITHOUT amplifying a naming / catalog-density trait fails Discipline 2 (anti-template pass): the move is template-shaped in the other direction (text-only list is a recognisable archetype too).

2. Substrate-promotion

Promote a brand color from accent (≤ 10% of surface area) to page ground (≥ 50%). The accent becomes the substrate; the prior ground becomes the accent.

When it fits

• Captured pattern: white / pale-neutral ground with a saturated accent that recurs across the site as the brand's signature color.
• Captured trait amplified: brand-color-as-environment — when the accent IS the brand identity, making it the substrate makes the page feel like the brand rather than displaying the brand.

Cliché replaced

Stark-white / cream / pale-gray ground with brand color rationed to CTA fills and accent borders.

Worked example — wasatch home C2

Promotes brand black from text color to page ground. The page is ink-dark by default; cream text and yellow eyebrow tile float as elements on the black substrate. Hero photo full-bleed within a black frame; section transitions are color-keyed rather than white-rules.

surpriseMoves:
  - move: substrate-promotion
    cliche: "white ground + brand black for text only"
    capturedSource: "wasatch's beer-bottle photography is shot on dark
      backgrounds; the brand's visual register is night-mode-leaning
      even though the captured site renders on white"
    rationale: "promoting black to substrate aligns the digital surface
      with the photographic register of the captured can artwork"

Refusal patterns

• Promoting a color the captured site uses sparingly (alarm-red for error states, banner-yellow for promo eyebrow) as the page ground is a misuse — the role-rarity is itself a brand decision. Refuse and look for a different captured trait to amplify.

3. Inversion

Negative-space dominant where original was content-dominant. The hero is mostly empty; the headline anchors a composition framed by ground rather than supporting copy.

When it fits

• Captured pattern: dense hero with headline + subhead + CTA pair
  • hero image + trust bar all above the fold.
• Captured trait amplified: editorial confidence — the brand is sure enough of its position that it doesn't need a thicket of supporting elements.

Cliché replaced

Centered-stack hero with two-button CTA pair (the Generic-2026-SaaS silhouette per divergence-toolkit.md § 1).

Worked example

A pricing page that swaps a 3-tier comparison table for a single question ("What's it worth to you?") on an otherwise-empty viewport, with tier details below the fold. The captured comparison table was 70% of above-the-fold content; the inversion makes it 0%.

surpriseMoves:
  - move: inversion
    cliche: "dense hero with comparison table above fold"
    capturedSource: "the brand's voice samples consistently lead with a
      provocative question rather than a feature list — the inversion
      restores that voice to the hero"
    rationale: "matches captured voice register"

Refusal patterns

• Inversion on a high-traffic conversion page (donate, buy, signup) conflicts with IA-priority preservation (§ 8 of intent- dimensions.md). The IA priority must stay above the fold — inversion is fine for editorial / about / story pages but not for conversion paths.

4. Document-shape

Replace a card grid with a table / ledger / index card / poster / docket / zine spread. The page adopts the document's structural rhythm (per-block substrate, per-spread layout, per-row typography).

When it fits

• Captured pattern: card / grid surface for a content set whose shape is genuinely tabular, sequential, or document-like.
• Captured trait amplified: content-as-document — the catalog IS a catalog, the schedule IS a timetable, the team page IS a list of cards from a card-catalog.

Substrate-keyed sub-kinds (friction #2)

Document-shapes that are substrate-keyed carry a per-section substrate citation. The ≤ 2-substrate-transition cap (Discipline 4) does not apply when each transition carries a per-section captured-source citation:

• zine — per-spread substrate keyed to per-SKU label color or per-section theme color
• catalog-card — per-card substrate keyed to per-product category or per-SKU dominant color
• poster-sequence — per-poster substrate keyed to per-event theme or per-month seasonal palette

Worked example — beers-C (wasatch dry-run, approved)

Variant C of /beers amplified the label-color-as-design captured trait. Where variant A renders 6 entries on a uniform black ground, variant C renders 6 per-SKU color-block zine spreads, each substrate cited to the dominant color of the generated can artwork:

Brief excerpt:

surprise: high
dominantDimension: ground-family/label-substrate-zine
surpriseMoves:
  - move: document-shape
    subkind: zine
    cliche: "uniform-substrate vertical list"
    capturedSource: "Lambrate cans are always shot on wallpaper-colored-to-match
      per-SKU label color — the per-SKU substrate IS the brand's product-
      photography convention rendered to digital"
    rationale: "substrate-per-section IS the captured trait, not a slider-pushed
      extreme; each substrate carries a per-SKU label-color citation"

This is the worked example of friction carve-out #2 — six substrate transitions exceed Discipline 4's ≤ 2 cap, justified by the substrate-keyed document-shape exception with per-section captured-source citations.

Refusal patterns

• Document-shape WITHOUT a captured-source citation per section (when substrate-keyed) re-engages the ≤ 2 cap. Decorative per-section substrates without citation fail Discipline 4.
• Document-shape applied to content that is NOT actually document- shaped fails Discipline 2 (anti-template pass): a 3-item testimonial section dressed up as a "docket" reads as cosplay.

5. Scale-displacement

One element rendered at 4–8× normal size; others at 0.5×. The display headline becomes the page's primary structural element, with body text receding to caption scale.

When it fits

• Captured pattern: balanced section hierarchy where every section is roughly the same visual weight.
• Captured trait amplified: single-statement confidence — one beat carries the page, supported by caption-density surrounding material.

Cliché replaced

Hero-then-bands silhouette where every band has equal headline weight.

Worked example

A wordmark-as-page treatment: the brand name at clamp(8rem, 24vw, 20rem) consumes 70% of the viewport, with body sections rendered at caption scale (var(--t-11)–var(--t-13)) running below as a single dense column.

surpriseMoves:
  - move: scale-displacement
    cliche: "balanced-band hero"
    capturedSource: "the brand mark is unusually expressive and the captured
      site under-renders it (logo at 180px next to a generic hero photo);
      promoting the wordmark to page scale restores its primacy"
    rationale: "wordmark-as-display is the brand's most under-utilized asset"

Refusal patterns

• Scale-displacement applied for emphasis-without-warrant (the captured site doesn't actually have a brand asset that warrants this treatment) fails Discipline 2: the move reads as "size-as-personality" — a C-cliff failure pattern per direct/SKILL.md § C-cliff failure mode.
• Scale-displacement on a page whose IA priority depends on multiple beats (conversion path with steps) conflicts with the IA preservation rule and refuses.

How the bank composes

A page brief may declare multiple moves at surprise: high, typically a document-shape paired with substrate-promotion (the zine pattern is the canonical pair). At surprise: medium, exactly one move from the bank is applied. At surprise: low, no moves from the bank are applied (variant A / A1 / A2 / A3 all operate on this tier).

The pairing rules:

• document-shape + substrate-promotion — natural pair; the document-shape's structural rhythm IS the substrate sequence.
• inversion + scale-displacement — natural pair; both amplify "single statement" register.
• typographic-substitution + substrate-promotion — works when the substrate IS the typographic register (a ledger page on cream substrate).
• typographic-substitution + document-shape — works when the document IS typographic (an index card; a railway timetable).

Pairings that fight:

• inversion + document-shape — inversion wants emptiness; document-shape wants per-block structure. Pick one.
• scale-displacement + document-shape — same conflict; document-shape's per-block rhythm fights one-element-at-8×.

Extension rule

A new non-template move — one not among the five above — is admissible when it carries the same evidence shape as the bank entries:

1. Captured-trait citation — the captured-but-underused trait the move amplifies, cited into the capture the way every surpriseMoves[] entry above cites capturedSource.
2. A refusal-patterns list — the conditions under which the move must NOT be applied (every bank entry carries one; a move without exclusions is too broad to trust).
3. Degradation fallbacks — how the move degrades when its mechanism is unavailable (for any motion-bearing move: prefers-reduced-motion and no-JS behavior).

Record the extension in the brief's surpriseMoves[] entry with extension: true and a rationale for why no bank move fits. Extensions count against the same surprise-tier allowances as bank moves.