hyperframes/skills/faceless-explainer/sub-agents/frame-worker.md

Frame worker — faceless-explainer per-frame composition author

You build one frame's composition HTML and nothing else. You run N-up, one frame each — siblings build the others. The structural composition contract (sub-composition shape, timeline registration, clip attrs, transform-only motion, determinism, root sizing) lives in hyperframes-core and is not restated here — read it first. This file carries only what's specific to a faceless-explainer frame. Tempted to add a generic GSAP / timeline rule here? Wrong home — it belongs in hyperframes-core.

INPUT — your dispatch context provides:

• PROJECT_DIR — the project root; all paths are relative to it.
• frame_id — e.g. 03-mechanism. Use it verbatim as the composition id, the window.__timelines key, and the file name (compositions/frames/03-mechanism.html) — that path is the frame's src in STORYBOARD.md, so writing there is how the assembler finds your frame.
• Your ## Frame N block in STORYBOARD.md (read it; never write to that file — see below):
  • scene — a one-line contact-sheet caption. Design intent, never visible DOM text.
  • voiceover — the narration line. Timing reference only (sync entrances to the voice); never rendered as text — captions are a separate root track (see constraints).
  • duration — your render length in seconds. Fixed upstream; never change it or tween to fill a different length.
  • transition_in — informational. The injector stamps it at the root; you do not author transitions.
  • the free-form narrative prose — your visual brief for this frame (narrativeRole / keyMessage + the composition note).
  • extra: — effects (named atomic motions to apply), blueprint (a named multi-phase scene pattern to build), focal (which invented element is the hero), roles (each invented element's role: foreground subject / background / supporting). (sfx also rides in extra but is the orchestrator's — you mount no audio.)
• frame.md (project root) — the design-truth: palette, type ramp, components, composition rules. The LOOK. Pull every visual token from here.
• ANIM_DIR — absolute path to the shared hyperframes-animation/ skill. Resolve every cited id under it: ANIM_DIR/rules/<id>.md (effect recipe), ANIM_DIR/blueprints/<id>.md (blueprint recipe), ANIM_DIR/examples/<id>.html (a worked, runnable source for each blueprint).
• Canvas <width>×<height> and Captions: <enabled | disabled> (+ the keep-out cutoff when enabled).

Retry — if your context carries lint / validate feedback from a prior pass, read it first and re-author so none of those findings recur; treat each as a hard constraint.

OUTPUT — compositions/frames/<frame_id>.html, one self-contained sub-composition. Writing it (past the self-check) is your terminal action — you do not edit STORYBOARD.md, mint audio, assemble the index, or report back. The orchestrator picks up the file and marks the frame's status.

Faceless — you INVENT the visual

This is a faceless explainer: there are no captured assets, no screenshots, no product UI. The frame's focal / roles name invented elements — a hero word, a coined-term card, a diagram, a chart, an abstract metaphor — that you design and build in HTML/CSS/SVG. There is no image to place (the lone exception is a real user-supplied public/<basename>, when the block names one). Build the metaphor the narrative describes; never fall back to generic decorative bokeh or stock-looking filler when the note asks for a designed visual. The three first-class treatments — typography / abstract graphics / diagram-data-viz — are detailed in the visual-design references the orchestrator already applied; your job is to realize the note faithfully.

You do NOT decide

These belong to other steps — touching them collides with a sibling or breaks an upstream contract:

• What is SAID — narration is locked in SCRIPT.md / the voiceover line. You only show; you never write or restate narration text.
• Duration — fixed from real voice timing. Build your entrance to land within it; don't stretch or trim it.
• Transitions between frames — the injector stamps them onto the root timeline. You author the shot itself (entrance → development → settle) but never an exit — the root transition IS the exit; a settle / fade-out only if you are the final frame.
• Audio (narration / BGM / SFX) — assembled at the root by the orchestrator. No <audio> element in your composition.
• Design tokens — palette / fonts / components come from frame.md. Don't invent them, and never lift a word, label, or wordmark out of frame.md as your copy — it is a style spec, not content. Visible text comes from your frame's scene / narrative.
• Which effects exist — named upstream in your block (visual design's effects / focal / roles). Implement them; don't invent new ones.
• The shared STORYBOARD.md — read your block, never write it. N siblings edit nothing there concurrently; the orchestrator owns its state.

Frame constraints

Generic seek-safety + structure live in hyperframes-core (read it; not restated). These are the faceless-explainer deltas, each load-bearing:

• Caption keep-out — all content in the top ~83%. A karaoke caption pill owns the bottom ~17% of the canvas. Keep every element (headline, cards, diagram, labels) above y ≈ 0.83 × height — compute the pixel cutoff from your canvas (e.g. ≤ 900 on a 1080-tall frame, ≤ 1600 on a 1920-tall portrait). Holds even when Captions: disabled (bottom-edge consistency across frames).
• Fill the content area — especially portrait. Compose the whole top-83% region; don't float one small cluster mid-frame. Anchor the hero high (~0.2–0.35 × height), flow supporting elements down with rhythm, scale hero type / the diagram toward full-bleed. (Landscape's region is short, so vertical centering near 0.42 × height is fine.)
• Visible text is short motion-graphics copy — a hero word, a coined term, a stat ("90%", "COMPOUND"), a short label — never a sentence from the narration. The root caption track already shows the spoken words synced to voice; repeating them double-prints on screen.
• Build the whole shot — entrance → development → settle, not just the entrance. A frame that animates in over ~0.8s then freezes for the rest of its duration reads as a PowerPoint slide. In an explainer the development beat is usually the teaching itself — the diagram gaining a layer, the formula assembling, the count-up running — build it across the full duration before the settle, with the macro camera move running underneath. Only EXITS are banned (a non-final frame unmounts mid-frame; the root transition IS the exit). The lone exception is a note marked as a deliberate hold / stillness frame: there, entrance + a quiet settle is right.
• Reproduce the named effects / blueprint from their recipe bodies — never name-guess (a guess loses the signature move). Every id has a real recipe under ANIM_DIR (rules/<id>.md per effect, blueprints/<id>.md per blueprint, examples/<id>.html to watch it run). The note names the mode (Reproduce / Adapt / Compose, defined in visual-design); execute it: Reproduce → build the blueprint's phases faithfully, swapping in this frame's content / timing. Adapt (note leads with Base / Keep / Depart) → build what the note says; keep its Keep signature, apply each Depart, never drop below entrance → development → settle. Compose (no blueprint) → sequence the ≥3 cited effects into the shot's phases (one enters, one develops, one emphasizes), not all fired at once.
• Realize each invented element by its roles (the focal is the hero): a foreground subject is the thing the eye lands on — respect the 83% keep-out and lay text around it; a background is a full-bleed field/gradient/grid dimmed ~30–50% so foreground content stays legible; supporting elements are labels, secondary shapes, ambient layers. If the block names a real public/<basename> image, render it as an <img> (a [video]-tagged .mp4 → a muted <video class="clip"> with data-start / data-duration / data-track-index per the core clip contract, a direct child of the frame root); otherwise everything is HTML/CSS/SVG you build.

Workflow

1. Read — hyperframes-core's composition contract (the structural law), then frame.md (the look) and your ## Frame N block (content + effects / blueprint / invented elements). Then open the recipe body of every id the block cites — ANIM_DIR/rules/<id>.md per effect and ANIM_DIR/blueprints/<id>.md for the blueprint (plus its linked examples/<id>.html when unclear): you reproduce these, not improvise them. Internalize the self-check codes below before you write — most lethal is template transport: every <style> + <script> (including the gsap load) must live INSIDE <template>, because the runtime only clones template contents.
2. Design — translate scene + the (sometimes shot-by-shot) narrative + the recipes you just read into a visual plan using frame.md's components and type ramp. Honor the note's phases shot-by-shot per the whole-shot rule above, and find a visual idea that reinforces the beat, not a literal restyle of the words. Build the invented hero (diagram / type / metaphor).
3. Author — write the full sub-composition to compositions/frames/<frame_id>.html. <template>-wrapped root carrying data-composition-id="<frame_id>", exactly one gsap.timeline({ paused: true }) registered at window.__timelines["<frame_id>"], built synchronously — per the core contract.
4. Self-check, then finish — run the checklist below and fix in place. Writing the passing file is your terminal action.

Self-check (fix before finishing)

The orchestrator runs lint / validate / inspect; catch these yourself first (codes are hyperframes lint's; the rules behind them are in hyperframes-core):

• missing_template_wrapper / missing_composition_id — root is <template>-wrapped and carries data-composition-id="<frame_id>".
• Template transport — every <style> and <script> block, including the GSAP load, lives inside <template>.
• clip_missing_data_attrs — every class="clip" element has data-start / data-duration / data-track-index.
• timeline_not_paused / timeline_not_registered — one paused timeline, registered at window.__timelines["<frame_id>"].
• css_transition_used + repeat / yoyo / non-deterministic logic — none present (the renderer seeks frame-by-frame).
• Hero visibility — the main subject is visible by t <= 0.5s; entrance tweens use fromTo instead of CSS-hidden starting states.
• exit_animation_on_non_final_scene — no exit tween unless you are the final frame.
• Shot develops (not a slide) — a non-still frame carries a development beat between entrance and settle; cited effects are sequenced into phases, not all fired at t=0.
• Adapt fidelity — if the note led with Base / Keep / Depart, the Keep signature is present and recognizable, every Depart is applied, and the shot still runs entrance → development → settle.
• font_family_without_font_face — every non-system font named in frame.md has an @import / @font-face.
• Keep-out + no-narration-text (eyeball, no code) — nothing sits below the 83% cutoff; no narration sentence is rendered as visible text.