Style-Explore Schema

--style-explore has two artifacts: candidates.json (input the agent writes) and rendered.json (output the script writes). One doc owns both.

• Owner skill: illustrations (Step 8 — Render the Exploration Grid)
• Location: both live in style-explore/ in the talk working directory

candidates.json — input

• Writer: the agent, after proposing candidate styles (Step 7) and computing the model shortlist (Step 6)
• Reader: generate-illustrations.py --style-explore

Schema (schema_version 1)

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "slides": { "FULL": 7, "IMG+TXT": 12 },
  "models": ["gemini-3-pro-image", "gemini-3.1-flash-image"],
  "styles": [
    {
      "name": "Blueprint Schematic",
      "anchors": {
        "FULL": "Full-bleed style anchor paragraph for this style.",
        "IMG+TXT": "Portrait anchor paragraph for this style."
      }
    }
  ]
}

Fields

• schema_version — integer, must be 1. The reader rejects other values.
• slides — maps each format to one representative slide number from the outline. The render pulls that slide's scene prompt and substitutes each style's anchor for the [STYLE ANCHOR] token. A format whose slide has no image prompt in the outline is skipped with a warning.
• models — the shortlisted model ids (from model_registry.py --shortlist), best-first. Each is rendered for every style × format. Codenames resolve via the registry alias map before dispatch.
• styles — candidate styles. Each needs a name and an anchors map of format → anchor text. A style that omits a format is skipped for that format.

Only schema_version 1 is accepted today — the reader rejects any other value. candidates.json is a transient per-talk input, not a persisted record, so there is no on-read migration. A future schema change bumps the version and teaches the reader to handle the new shape.

rendered.json — output

• Writer: generate-illustrations.py --style-explore (write_rendered_manifest)
• Readers: generate-illustrations.py --check-style-explore and the run_generate render-before-bake guard
• Purpose: the machine-readable record of what actually rendered, so the gate can confirm a baked model was rendered. index.md is the human contact sheet; rendered.json is the gate's source of truth.

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "outline": "outline.yaml",
  "outline_dir": "devnexus26-robocoders",
  "rendered_at": "2026-06-08T12:00:00Z",
  "models_rendered_ok": ["gemini-3-pro-image"],
  "cells": [
    {"style": "Blueprint Schematic", "format": "FULL",
     "model": "nano-banana-pro", "model_resolved": "gemini-3-pro-image",
     "status": "OK", "rel_path": "blueprint-schematic/full/gemini-3-pro-image.png"},
    {"style": "Blueprint Schematic", "format": "FULL",
     "model": "gpt-image-2", "model_resolved": "gpt-image-2-2026-04-21",
     "status": "FAIL", "error": "rate limited"}
  ]
}

Fields:

• outline — outline filename; outline_dir — talk-directory name. Together a per-talk discriminator.
• models_rendered_ok — human-readable summary of OK-rendered canonical ids.
• cells — one entry per rendered cell: model / model_resolved (codenames resolve via the registry alias map), format, style, status, and rel_path (relative to style-explore/) or error.

The render-before-bake gate's eligibility predicate — which cells count, the live-file evidence check, path containment, and the per-talk copied/stale checks — is owned by generate-illustrations.py check_style_explore (the source of truth); it is deliberately not restated here. The render overwrites rendered.json each run (idempotent), so it always reflects the latest grid.

The render also writes style-explore/<style-slug>/<format-slug>/<model>.<ext> per cell and style-explore/index.md, a contact sheet grouped by style linking each rendered image.