---
name: tasteforge-video
description: Use for file-driven multimodal image, video, and 3D-asset discovery; taste interviews; distill or apply workflows; style-pack validation; editable EDL/FCPXML export; provenance audits; and offline planning that must fail closed before provider generation.
metadata:
  origin: ECC
---

# TasteForge Video

For the complete standalone creative pipeline, use `taste-distillation` then
`taste-application`. Those ECC skills ship their Python scripts directly:
measure references, generate or pass through existing takes, grade, cut,
composite, verify, and hand off to Blender and Resolve. No separate video
repository is required for that flow. This skill documents ECC's packaged offline engine and its strict evidence contract.

TasteForge turns "make it feel like this reference" into a repeatable,
inspectable workflow: interview taste, distill it into a structured style
pack, validate the pack, apply its measured cadence and look to local media,
and export an editable timeline. The canonical implementation is the
`tasteforge` package shipped inside ECC at
`skills/taste-application/scripts/tasteforge/`. `Ito-Markets/ito-video` is an
example project that consumes the packaged ECC engine.

## When to Use

- The user asks to **interview for video taste** before any footage is made
  ("ask me about the look", "interview me about aesthetic direction").
- The user wants to **distill an aesthetic into structured constraints** — a
  reusable style pack rather than vibes ("turn these references into a pack").
- The user wants to **validate a style pack** (is the metadata complete,
  schema-valid, cadence measured, spec distilled?).
- The user wants to **apply a style pack to local footage** — plan a cut from
  the pack's measured cadence over local clips, deterministically.
- The user wants to **export EDL/FCPXML** — an editable, frame-exact handoff
  to DaVinci Resolve / Premiere / Final Cut.
- The user asks for a **generated-media provenance audit** — where did this
  pack, spec, or cut come from; what was measured locally versus generated by
  a provider; what was dry-run.
- The user asks to **discover or plan file-driven multimodal image, video, or
  3D-asset outputs** from local reference files, including separate manifests,
  subject-anchored CV effects, or Resolve effect recipes.
- The user mentions TasteForge, style packs, flashethereal, taste distillation,
  cadence/rhythm planning, multimodal discovery, distill/apply workflows, or a
  taste interview for video.

## Local Deterministic Operations vs Provider Generation

This boundary is the core of this compatibility skill. Its operations are
**local, deterministic, and offline**:

| Operation | Deterministic? | ECC may run |
|---|---|---|
| Taste interview → profile | yes (offline) | yes |
| Pack inspect / validate against schemas | yes | yes |
| Distill profile (+ measured grounding) → spec | yes (dry-run semantics) | yes |
| Apply pack cadence to local media → report + timeline | yes | yes |
| Export EDL (CMX3600) / FCPXML 1.9 | yes | yes |
| Provenance / lineage report | yes | yes |
| Vision-model distillation of stills | **provider generation** | **no** |
| Reference-to-video, image-to-3D, hosted compose | **provider generation** | **no** |

**Provider generation must fail closed in ECC.** Any live Fal (or other
provider) call — generating shots, minting prop meshes, hosted VLM
distillation — requires explicit separately authorized execution under a
separate lane with its own review. In this compatibility lane, ECC never calls Fal, never reads any API
key or other credentials (`FAL_KEY` included), uploads no media, and mutates
no provider account state. When a request needs provider generation, state
exactly that boundary, run the local half (interview, pack validation,
planning, export), and stop.

**Never claim a Fal workflow is saved.** A local reference to a Fal endpoint,
model id, or dry-run URL (they appear inside pack metadata) is
**reference-only**: it never means a provider-side workflow was saved,
persisted, or is authorized to run. Anything produced offline carries
dry-run/dry_run semantics — say "dry-run spec" or "deterministic plan", never
"generated by the model".

## Canonical Implementation

- Repository: `affaan-m/ECC`; Python distribution `ecc-tasteforge`, package
  directory `skills/taste-application/scripts/tasteforge/`. Install from the
  extracted ECC package with `python3 -m pip install ./skills/taste-application/scripts`.
  The example project `Ito-Markets/ito-video` pins a specific ECC commit.
- CLI: `python3 -m tasteforge <command>` — `provenance`, `inspect`, `validate`,
  `interview`, `distill`, `apply`, `export`, `multimodal`. `--live` flags exit
  with code 2 and refuse.
- Schemas are the contract: taste profile, pack manifest, grade, cadence,
  spec, timeline events, application reports (`provider` is enum-locked to
  `"none"`; `dry_run` to `true`).
- Recovered-source lineage and deliberate exclusions live in the repo's
  `skills/taste-application/SOURCE.md`. Run `python3 -m tasteforge provenance` for the machine-
  readable version.

Use the installed ECC engine for local deterministic commands and interpret
its JSON. Install the packaged engine if absent; do not reconstruct its logic
inline. `taste.resolve` is a compatibility import of `tasteforge.resolve`, so
the creative scripts and example project share one verified Resolve adapter.

The `python3 -m tasteforge` CLI uses the installed `ecc-tasteforge` distribution. The standalone `taste-distillation` and `taste-application`
scripts ship in ECC's opt-in media-generation module with their own Python
requirements. Neither path requires publishing the user's repository or media.

Before resuming a saved checkout, record its commit and inspect local branches
and worktrees for later implementation fixes. Run the canonical package's tests
and `python3 -m tasteforge apply --help`; ECC's text and fixture tests do not
prove that the selected Python checkout implements this contract.

## Chaining the Creative Skills

| Stage | Owner | Reviewable result |
|---|---|---|
| Creative direction | `taste` | Named genres, reference observations, chosen look and avoid list |
| Distillation and planning | `tasteforge-video` | Measured evidence, separate genre specs, dry-run manifests and cadence plan |
| Editing and effects | `video-editing`, with the chosen renderer such as Remotion, Manim, or Fusion | Applied footage, actual tracks, editable effects and timeline |
| Optional generated assets or voice | `fal-ai-media` or the selected audio workflow, under its own authorization | Provider receipt and inspected output |
| Delivery | Editing workflow, then `content-engine` when requested | Reviewed exact export and distribution copy |

Use only the stages the project needs. The `taste` skill's historical
angelcore/cloud-trance palette and beat grammar are optional creative examples;
they must not override the current brief or merge distinct numbered genres.
Use each genre's actual references for its direction, including 3D Cyber Glitch
and Fluid Sketch. TasteForge does not replace these skills or require every
renderer. Keep 3D materials, geometry, wireframe behavior,
motion, and composition explicit in the genre signature. A 3D request manifest
is a plan for an asset; it is not a mesh. A subject-anchor descriptor names a
tracking requirement; it is not evidence that a subject was detected or tracked.
Inspect actual tracks, track-loss behavior, and rendered subject frames before
claiming that CV effects have been applied reliably.

## Workflow

1. **Interview** (`interview`): collect answers for the look axes — palette,
   grain, lighting, focal length, camera motion, subject framing, grade,
   mood adjectives, avoid list — and separately the content brief. Keep look
   and content separate; merging them is the classic failure.
2. **Distill** (`distill`): map the profile onto the spec schema offline,
   embedding the pack's measured grounding (black/white point, contrast,
   per-zone chroma, palette, cut rhythm) when a pack is supplied. The result
   is a dry-run spec: deterministic, provider `"none"`.
3. **Validate** (`validate` / `inspect`): check the pack against its schemas;
   report errors vs warnings (missing stills in a metadata-only pack are a
   warning, not an error).
4. **Apply** (`apply`): plan shot durations from the pack's measured cadence
   (seeded, deterministic) over the user's local clips; produce the
   application report and frame-exact timeline events.
5. **Export** (`export`): write CMX3600 EDL + FCPXML 1.9 with rational,
   NTSC-safe times for import into a real NLE.
6. **Audit** (`provenance`): report lineage — recovered-source digests,
   generation history, fixture provenance, provider references as
   pointer-only records.

### Applying Real Footage Without Repeated Sources

When the brief requires no repeated clips, use a canonical checkout supporting
`apply --no-repeat --fps`, and set the output frame rate explicitly. If those
flags are absent, report the implementation gap rather than silently using
legacy round-robin selection. Strict mode uses each normalized source path at
most once in manifest order and rejects insufficient or too-short sources.
Prepare enough reviewed selects to fill the cadence plan. This is source-level
uniqueness, not support for distinct in/out ranges from the same recording.

The application report is a cut plan. It does not perform visual shot ranking,
grade footage, apply a LUT, render overlays, or import a Resolve project.
Keep the pack's measured reference cadence separate from the output frame rate.

The export CLI expects `{"clips": [...]}`. Wrap the application's
`timeline_events` under `clips` before exporting, and pass the same `--fps`
used for application; export's default frame rate must not reconform the plan.
Check the emitted event count, total frames, unique sources, and media linkage
before handing the timeline to the editing workflow.
When that workflow applies overlapping effects in an NLE, allocate compatible
tracks and read back every requested start, end, and duration. A returned item
or a successful append call alone does not prove that every scheduled effect
was placed; reject missing, shifted, or truncated placements before rendering.

## File-Driven Multimodal Contract

Use this path when local references must drive dry-run generation plans for
image, video, and 3D-asset outputs while preserving genre separation:

```bash
python3 -m tasteforge multimodal --config workflow.json --out-dir out/multimodal
```

The config names numbered genres and local evidence files. Keep these candidate
genres distinct rather than blending them into one generic aesthetic:

1. Flash Ethereal
2. 3D Cyber Glitch
3. Fluid Sketch

The command measures local references with ffprobe/ffmpeg and emits one style
spec per genre, separate image, video, and 3D-asset manifests, provenance, and
a Resolve effect recipe. The effect schedule must be seeded aperiodic. CV
effects require a real subject anchor whose exact lost-track policy is
`disable_effect_until_track_recovers`; `continue_without_anchor` and every
other policy fail closed. Every effect carries placement constraints that
preserve faces and readable type and prevent decorative corner meshes from
replacing full-frame 3D work.

The returned receipt is the bundle boundary. It binds every emitted evidence
artifact by relative path, byte size, SHA-256, genre, modality,
`provider_execution:false`, and exact reference/time provenance. The receipt
requires `provider_calls:0` as an exact integer (the JSON boolean `false` is
invalid), `provider_execution:false`, and `dry_run:true`. Every genre spec also
requires explicit `dry_run:true`. The Resolve effect recipe requires that same
exact integer `provider_calls:0`, `provider_execution:false`, and `dry_run:true`.
Every modality manifest and every nested request must contain all four exact
fail-closed fields: integer `provider_calls:0`, `provider_execution:false`,
`dry_run:true`, and `submit:false`; each request also requires
`provider_call_mode:"disabled"`. A missing field is a rejection, not a default,
and `dry_run:false` must be rejected before output is written.

Treat booleans as invalid numbers everywhere in timeline, evidence, probe, and
source-duration data. Every such numeric value must be a finite real: reject
`true`, `false`, NaN, infinities, negative event starts, non-positive durations,
out-of-range evidence times, and events ending beyond the declared finite
positive timeline. Whole-file evidence uses an explicit whole-file time basis
and never invents timestamps.

Receipt references are the duration authority. Key each validated reference
duration by its cited SHA-256; duplicate occurrences of one digest must agree
on duration or the bundle is invalid. Every effect evidence `source_duration`
and every subject-anchor `source_duration` must equal that digest's validated
receipt duration, not merely contain its cited time. Probe duration and all
probe measurements must describe the same stable bytes used for byte count and
SHA-256. If the source mutates while probing or rehashes differently while it
is still available, fail closed rather than emitting or accepting a receipt.

Always run bundle validation after creation. A missing image, video, or 3D-asset
manifest must fail closed. Genericized or duplicate genres, periodic schedules,
unanchored CV effects, missing placement constraints, provider-execution flags,
unbound output files, byte-size drift, or SHA-256 tampering must fail closed.
Reject output roots, intermediates, or artifacts that are symlinks, and reject
special files (including FIFOs and devices); outputs must remain regular files
under a real directory tree. If local `ffmpeg` or `ffprobe` is unavailable, the
CLI must return its bounded nonzero local-media-processing error without a
Python traceback. Do not repair a failed receipt by deleting evidence or
weakening validation.

## Example Session

```bash
# after installing the ECC engine; paths below are your project inputs
python3 -m tasteforge validate stylepacks/flashethereal
python3 -m tasteforge interview --answers answers.json --genre flashethereal --out profile.json
python3 -m tasteforge distill --profile profile.json --pack stylepacks/flashethereal --out spec.json
python3 -m tasteforge apply --pack stylepacks/flashethereal --media media.json --duration 20 --out report.json
python3 -m tasteforge export --events events.json --out-dir out --title flashethereal-cut
python3 -m tasteforge provenance
```

When shots must be generated, pass the reviewed brief and style direction to
`taste-application` under the user's explicit provider authorization. The
offline CLI remains fail-closed; its plans and editable timelines do not prove
a provider job ran.