# Design preference and calibration



The operator values thoughtful, creative, business-specific websites; coherent visual variety; natural and substantive copy; and faithful recovery of source media. These are stated preferences, not a learned preference model or permission to claim personal approval.



A versioned internal calibration pack lives in the harness at `design-system/calibration/v2/`. It is not customer production media. Copied site kits discover it through the harness location (`VITRIS_HARNESS` or the `@tryvitris/website-harness` file dependency). Do not copy giant full-page captures into every site.


For new design-library work and `slice-v1` sites, inspect only the original `vitris-*` records in this pack. The older Verdict, Apex, and Munch images are third-party template marketplace captures retained for historical compatibility; do not use them as generation inputs. Their demo claims and people are never customer evidence. Original Vitris examples are also fictional teaching material, never customer facts.



Calibration remains a capability/compatibility pack. When site-owned `launch.json` opts into `designReferences: {"mode":"lessons","release":"2026-10-05.1"}`, inspect the complementary working set printed in CURRENT.md and expand its integrity-bound `reference-*` handles. The authoritative catalog is `design-system/references/v1/`; source imagery/code remains excluded unless its exact consumption is cleared. A textual lesson or delivered expansion does not prove pixel inspection.



The opted-in working set can also contain original `reference-study-*` handles from the independent `design-system/compositions/v2/` release. Inspect their compiled homepage/interior previews at both widths; use their organizing relationships as alternatives, without copying fictional claims or importing their media into customer inventories. Preserve the receipt's `teachingManifestHash` and `teachingSelected[{id,revision,reason}]` when accepting these studies. The historical marketplace exclusion above still applies to the calibration pack.



Keep calibration packVersion/packHash fields for compatibility. Add `referenceSelection` with release, manifestHash, catalogHash, inputSignalHash, selected[{id,revision,reason}], inspectedEvidence[{id,revision,route,viewport:{width,height},evidencePointer,observed}], and plannedRelationships{homepage,interior,mobile,action}. Use the packet receipt for hashes; record only actually opened evidence. Missing suitable evidence is a gap to research, not permission to use the first alphabetical record. Keep observations, adaptations and preferences distinct.



Inspect captures or live routes before describing them. Analyze transferable relationships: hierarchy, scale contrast, content density, media placement, typography, section transitions, navigation, and positioning. Do not copy industry templates or import demo claims, people, phone numbers, ratings, or awards as business facts.



Old operator label files in compare-sites output are blank until filled. That is unlabeled, not calibrated.



For an explicit `designReferences` release `2026-10-06.1`, resolve the new publisher catalog at `design-system/references/v2/` and original teaching at `design-system/compositions/v3/`. Preserve legacy release behavior for other policies. The new receipt uses selector `task-expression-complementarity-1`: normalized visitor task, exact requested expression plus bounded aliases, actual approved assets, specific business context, and complementary contributions. Unknown expression or missing essential assets is an explicit gap. Discovery never uses prior exposure or random rotation.



Accept a relevant subset of one to five eligible publisher/original records, explaining each contribution. Preserve receipt identities, `selectorVersion`, `teachingManifestHash`, `teachingSelected`, and actual `acceptedAt` (ISO time when this analysis is accepted). For each truly viewed item record `kind` (`retained-capture`, `live-only`, or `accessible-session`), actual `inspectedAt`, and `sourceRevision` equal to the selected revision. Publisher inspection needs actual desktop/narrow views of a current URL. Original inspection needs homepage/interior at both widths; open the pinned fullPreview (or preview for focused lessons) from the selected expansion and retain its actual path/hash in `capture:{path,sha256}`. Do not substitute another image with a valid hash. An old written session description is `legacy-observation` and cannot satisfy the current inspection gate. A live-only view records its real URL without inventing a retained capture or durable session ID. Capture observations must fall within seven days of acceptance; subsequent direction and page preparation replay that accepted discovery snapshot instead of re-ranking against their own new copy.



The six developed pairs are assistant-reviewed fictional teaching. Ten shorter originals remain focused structural lessons. Adapt organizing relationships and mobile/task behavior; original buildings, bags, shelves, work specimens, addresses and offers are not customer facts or approved customer media. Current publisher overlays, redirects, closure notices, unavailable pages and changed design must be recorded; use a suitable pinned original or explicitly revise analysis when a source cannot be inspected. Delivery alone is never visual inspection or a human preference label.



For a design-run, require five evidenced business ideas for the same facts and media. An operator theme has explicit scope (`one` or `all`) recorded in configuration. Do not silently apply at-most-one when the operator asked for all variants to follow the theme.



Keep aesthetic observations separate from functional acceptance. Record a provisional assistant assessment with specific page/section evidence. Obtain the operator's independent A/B/tie/neither labels before measuring preference. Do not infer A-E ranks or criterion labels from one set-level rejection. Preserve rejected and borderline examples.


For explicit release `2026-10-06.2`, use `design-system/references/v3/` and `design-system/compositions/v4/`, selector `task-expression-complementarity-2`. Publisher contexts are evidence-based business/task inferences, not visual-style tags. Primary visitor tasks carry more weight than ancillary reading or process; complementary lessons can displace only close substantive fits. A cross-sector lesson must be scoped as a transferable relationship. Release `2026-10-06.1` retains its original selector and bytes.

The public v2 calibration contains original fictional Vitris examples only. Historical third-party v1 captures remain private compatibility evidence and are not distributed in the npm package. Read the installed manifest for its packVersion, record paths, and reading probe.