Verify (look at it, don't just read it)

Read .styleseed/effective-rules.md and .styleseed/manifest.json; invoke /ss-resolve or $ss-resolve first when they are missing or stale. Judge pixels against that compiled method. A lock value cannot excuse a core failure, and a recipe/profile cannot replace the output grammar.

/ss-score reads the code and scores it. But some of the worst "AI-made" tells never appear in source — they only exist in pixels: a hero that doesn't actually dominate, a lower third of dead whitespace, cramped cards, a web font that silently failed to load and fell back to Times, two colors that look like two accents once rendered, text that's unreadable on its real background. A human sees these in half a second; a code-reading gate misses all of them.

/ss-verify closes that gap: it renders the UI, screenshots it, and you look at the image — then score the same StyleSeed gate against what you see, fix, and re-render. This is the gate that most predicts whether a real user will say "this looks designed."

Run it as the final gate after /ss-score passes — code-clean is necessary but not sufficient; pixel-clean is the real bar.

When NOT to use

• Nothing renderable yet (pure logic/config, or a component with no host page) → use /ss-score.
• No way to render at all (no browser, no Playwright, headless blocked) → say so, fall back to /ss-score, and tell the user the visual gate was skipped. Never claim you verified visually if you didn't actually see a screenshot.
• A quick pre-commit pass → /ss-lint. /ss-verify is heavier (it boots a renderer).

Step 1 — Render it through the active adapter

For social-carousel, slide-deck, document-report, or single-frame, use the companion renderer and open every required exported frame/page at readable resolution. Verify dimensions, crop/safe zones, font availability, asset placement, and the export manifest. Do not force a browser workflow onto a PIL, slide, PDF, or image renderer.

For product-ui, get a real screenshot in priority order:

A. Running project (Next / Vite / etc.) — the normal case.

1. Start the dev server in the background (npm run dev / pnpm dev / framework command); wait for the ready line and capture the port.
2. Screenshot the route with headless Chromium via Playwright. If the project has playwright in node_modules, use it; else use a globally cached Chromium. Minimal script:

   import { chromium } from "playwright";           // or an absolute path into node_modules
   const b = await chromium.launch();
   const c = await b.newContext({ viewport: SURFACE, deviceScaleFactor: 2 });
   const p = await c.newPage();
   await p.goto(URL, { waitUntil: "networkidle" });
   await p.evaluate(() => document.fonts.ready);      // don't shoot before fonts load
   await p.waitForTimeout(400);
   await p.screenshot({ path: OUT, fullPage: true });
   await b.close();
   

   Surface viewports: mobile {width:390,height:844} · desktop {width:1440,height:900}. Pick from the lock's Surface, or --surface.
3. If a browser MCP (claude-in-chrome) is available instead, navigate + screenshot with that.

B. Static HTML file → open it directly with file://… and screenshot (same script).

C. Isolated component (no host page) → render it into a minimal throwaway page that imports the component with realistic props, then screenshot that.

Then actually READ the screenshot back (Read the PNG). You must see it. Shoot at deviceScaleFactor: 2 so text is crisp enough to judge.

Step 2 — Score what you SEE (the visual gate)

Look at the image and run the StyleSeed gate perceptually. These are the checks that need eyes, not source:

□ Squint test    — blur your focus / imagine it at 50%. Does it still read "AI-generated"?
                   (bland gradient, pill button + generic sans, icon-chip row, even flat grid) → FAIL
□ Focal          — does ONE element actually dominate at a glance? If your eye lands nowhere,
                   or on an all-even grid, the focal point failed regardless of what code intended
□ Balance        — dead whitespace (a lower third of empty), or cramped/colliding elements?
                   Is the visual weight distributed, or all top-left / all-centered?
□ Fonts loaded   — is the intended typeface actually rendering, or a Times/Arial fallback?
                   (a silent font-load fail is a top "looks cheap" tell — invisible in code)
□ One accent (seen) — count the hues you actually SEE. Two things competing for "the color" = FAIL,
                   even if the code named one token
□ Contrast (seen) — any text you have to strain to read on its real rendered background?
                   Light-grey-on-white labels, low-contrast on a colored/照片 panel
□ Rhythm/optics  — are edges aligned, gaps consistent, cards optically even? Off-by-a-few-px
                   misalignments that read as "sloppy" but pass a code check
□ Type scale fit — on desktop, does the body text look too small for the canvas? does the hero
                   feel undersized? (the surface-scale tell, judged by eye)
□ Grammar fit   — does the screen visually serve the selected grammar's user job, attention
                   model, composition, density, action hierarchy, and characteristic tells?
□ Recipe fit    — do geometry, containment, controls, collections, navigation, density, and
                   motion visibly match the selected recipe rather than the old universal soft-card look?
                   Would the same layout still appear if the product changed? If yes, FAIL
□ Motion (if any) — capture before/after or a mid-transition frame; is it purposeful, or the
                   "cheap fade/bounce on everything" tell? does it block the first read?

Step 3 — Render states or sequence variants too

The happy-path screenshot hides the most common real-world failure: no empty / loading / error state. Where the surface has a data view, render those variants (a query param, a mock, a forced prop, or temporarily emptying the data) and screenshot each. A blank white void for "no data" is a fail you can only catch by looking at the empty state. (Static marketing pages with no data surface → N/A, note it.)

For sequential artifacts, inspect the cover/first frame, every content frame, and close/CTA as a set: continuity, progression, one message per frame, repeated-template fatigue, source labels, folios, and safe-zone survival. For documents/decks, inspect every page/slide plus a representative thumbnail or overview view.

Step 4 — Fix, re-render, repeat

For each visual failure, fix the code, then re-render and look again — don't assume the fix worked from the diff (the whole point is that code ≠ pixels). Loop up to ~3×. Present only when the screenshot passes, with the final image, the effective rule set, a one-line "fixed: …", and the gate result.

Rules

• You must actually see the rendered artifact. No render, no visual verdict — fall back to /ss-score and say the visual gate was skipped. Never fabricate "looks good."
• Re-render after every fix. The reason this skill exists is that source and pixels diverge; verifying a visual fix by reading the diff defeats it.
• Both gates, in order: /ss-score (code) first to catch structural issues cheaply, then /ss-verify (pixels) as the final bar. /ss-build runs code-gate in its loop; finish a renderable screen with /ss-verify.
• Clean up: stop the dev server you started; delete any throwaway harness/mock files.
• Shoot at 2× and at the locked surface's viewport — judging a desktop app on a 390px shot (or vice-versa) invalidates the type-scale and balance checks.