# Step 1 — Intake: brief → recorded choices

Read the brief and choose from the menus: one identity package (the design.md system), any axis overrides the brief demands, layout blueprints per surface, and the product domain for content. Every choice is one recorded line.

**Returning workspace first.** If the repo carries a `workspaceId` (or the NuStack context supplies one), open with `get_preferences`: the workspace's `design.md`, `taste.md`, and `product.md` rows are the session's context — then run the drift check (compare the repo's fork — `node scripts/validate-design-md.mjs --project .` resolves its one path from the repo shape and fails closed on a copy anywhere else — against the server row; on mismatch, tell the user which is newer and ask). A workspace with a recorded identity re-enters the steps with that identity already chosen; the rules below are for first intake.

## Rules

- **The brief's own words outrank any database default.** "Beautiful" means the ceiling, not the safe row.
- **Adjectives become referents.** When the brief speaks in adjectives ("premium", "editorial"), name the 2–3 real products the brief is pointing at and pick the package whose recorded identity sits in that class — unnamed ambition becomes beige.
- **Search is a retrieval aid, never a router.** `search_catalog` (family `design_md`) with the brief's segment/keyword resemblance; shortlist 2–3 results by their head metadata (feel, reads-as, keywords), then choose reading the brief. After the choice, `get_entry` **once**: the chosen package's full design.md enters context and **stays in view through step 4**; unchosen candidates are never fetched.
- **The escape hatch fires mechanically.** No catalog hit, plus a recorded one-line reason why the closest package fails → author a one-off project design.md in the package schema, `tier: project`, at the path `--project .` resolves — the validator is the schema authority and checks it like any library entry. This path is expected to be common; flag the file as a curation candidate for the roster.
- **Record the identity.** First intake ends with `record`: the identity choice as a decision line, and the resolved fork pushed as the workspace's `design.md` preference row. The `workspaceId` is committed to the repo if it is not ambient. Design taste is workspace-level — an app never gets its own.
- **Axis overrides fetch or read the single named entry** — color/font/gradient/chart-style overrides `get_entry` their dictionary entry; elevation/motion/iconography overrides read the named local entry under `data/`.
- **Set the primitives switch** — write one `primitives: nurix | native` line into the project's `design.md` (the path `--project .` resolves; first intake creates the file there). Default by the probe: the project resolves `@nurix/components` (check package.json / lockfile / node_modules) → `nurix`; otherwise — existing apps, foreign stacks, no library access — → `native`. Set once here; nothing downstream re-asks. Also write `source-package: <slug>` (or `authored` for escape-hatch one-offs).
- **Write or update `product.md`**: users and their jobs, roles/permissions, action frequency, risk level, accessibility commitments, brand anti-references. Package choice, UX decisions, motion intensity, and demo data all cite it. Push it as a preference row too — Studio shows it.
- **The taste profile biases every choice** — `get_preferences` returns the workspace's `taste.md` (per-dimension feel/avoid lines); user reactions to shipped output update it via `record`. No profile yet = no bias, never a block.
- **Stated-choice awareness:** if prior package picks are visible in the workspace, name them and say in one line why this pick repeats or differs — awareness, never forced rotation.
- **Questions go to the user only when the answer changes the design** (theme, audience, density); everything else is inferred and marked inferred.

## The preview block

Step 1 ends with a preview block:

- chosen package + one-line reason
- the primitives switch position
- axis overrides (each: axis → entry id → one-line reason)
- blueprints per surface
- domain corpus
- surface map with archetypes
- planned deviations
- the personality traits (under `nurix`): the six-trait reading of §4–§7 — density, pace, edge, depth, texture, tone — naming only what differs from neutral, written into the design-values block so the library compiles it

When a user is present, pause here **once** for confirm-or-redirect — a wrong pick costs one message now instead of a full build. Autonomous runs proceed. Either way the block goes to workspace memory — `record` it as decision lines heading this run's choices, with the app as context.

## Outputs

- `design.md` in the design folder (`packages/common/` at the base of a multi-package workspace, `src/common/` in a single-package repo) — the project fork: chosen package + switch line + provenance + brief bindings; deviations accrue as they are recorded — pushed as the workspace preference row
- `product.md` written/updated and pushed
- the identity pin and the preview block recorded
- the chosen package's full design.md held in context