Intent → Brief

What it is. The first step of the pipeline. Turn a one-line request into a brief: five fields an agent can build against. The intent is the seed; the brief is the contract you’ll pressure-test everything else against.

Why it’s fun. A brief protects fun. Left implicit, a request like “a polished platformer with responsive controls” silently expands into scope you can’t verify. Pin the fantasy and you know what feeling to protect; pin the constraints and you know what to refuse.

The step

Parse intent → brief. You are not designing yet — you are reading the request correctly so the design lands on what was actually asked.

Inputs → outputs

In	Out
A high-level request, one sentence to a paragraph	A five-field brief (below)
Named genres, feels, adjectives (“responsive”, “impressive”, “chill”)	Each adjective resolved to a fantasy or a constraint
Implicit scope (“an RTS”, “a roguelite”)	An explicit scope + target session length

The five brief fields:

Player fantasy — what the player feels they are. Not “a platformer” but “a body you trust completely, threading gaps by a hair.” One sentence.
One-line hook — the store sentence, provisionally in process-the-twist‘s “X but Y” shape. It may still be pure X here; the twist sharpens it later.
Scope — how big: one screen vs. a campaign, one system vs. six. The honest size, phrased as content units (levels, rooms, waves, cards).
Hard constraints — the non-negotiables. Some come from the ask (“couch coop”, “one button”); some are always on for Hayao (deterministic sim, pure logic, DOM chrome — see CLAUDE.md).
Target session length — 90-second run? 20-minute sitting? A weekend? This sets the loop stack (process-core-loop) and the meta.

How to run it

Read the request twice. First for genre, then for adjectives. Every adjective is a smuggled requirement — “responsive” = grace system, “impressive battles” = mass + spectacle, “chill” = a tonal constraint against fail-states.
Extract the fantasy. Ask “what does the player get to feel they are?” Write it as a person doing a thing, not a genre label.
Draft the hook. One sentence. If a touchstone game is obvious, name it — that’s your provisional X for process-the-twist.
Size the scope honestly. Convert “an RTS” into countable content and the systems it implies (this is where process-composition‘s checklist starts). Under-scope on purpose; a small proven thing beats a large unverifiable one.
List hard constraints. Split into asked (from the request) and inherited (Hayao invariants). Constraints are gifts — each one collapses the design space.
Set session length. Pick the sitting the fantasy wants, then let it drive the loop layers you’ll design in process-core-loop.
Write it as one page. If it doesn’t fit a page, the intent isn’t parsed yet.

Worked example A

Intent: “make a polished platformer with really responsive controls.”

Field	Parsed
Fantasy	”A body you trust completely — every death is your fault, never the game’s.”
Hook	”A precision platformer where the controls are the whole promise.” (X = `anchor-celeste`; twist TBD.)
Scope	~12 handcrafted levels, one movement kit, one hazard family. No combat.
Hard constraints	Asked: “responsive” = a full grace system (`system-grace`). Inherited: deterministic sim, movement envelope derived not vibed, DOM menus.
Session length	2–5 min per level; 30–45 min for the set. Instant retry.

“Responsive” was the load-bearing word: it resolved straight to system-grace and to FUN.md’s coyote/buffer/apex canon — proven, not designed here (see FUN.md §2). The brief now knows what to protect.

Worked example B

Intent: “design an RTS with faction asymmetry and impressive battles.”

Field	Parsed
Fantasy	”A commander whose faction plays like nobody else’s, watching a hundred units answer one order.”
Hook	”An RTS where three factions share no units and still balance.” (X = `anchor-starcraft`.)
Scope	3 factions × ~6 units, ~5 skirmish maps, 1 economy, 1 tech ramp. No campaign v1.
Hard constraints	Asked: asymmetry that balances (`system-faction-asymmetry`); “impressive” = mass pathing + spectacle. Inherited: flow-field pathing, deterministic sim, exported arrival tolerances.
Session length	10–20 min per skirmish; sit-down, not snackable.

Two adjectives, two systems: asymmetry → system-faction-asymmetry + system-unit-rosters; impressive → mass under command (FUN.md §9) + system-boss-design-grade spectacle. “Impressive” is a feel claim — it will hand off to JUICE.md’s gates, not get argued here.

Traps

Adjective blindness. “Polished”, “responsive”, “impressive”, “chill” are requirements in disguise. Leave one unparsed and it becomes untestable scope.
Genre as fantasy. “A roguelite” is not a fantasy; “every death teaches you the dungeon” is. Push past the label to the feeling.
Scope inflation. The request rarely asks for the biggest version. Build the smallest thing that delivers the fantasy; grow only what verifies.
Skipping inherited constraints. Determinism, pure logic, and the cosmetic rule are constraints on every brief even when unasked — bake them in now, not in a painful refactor later.
Hook without an anchor. If no touchstone comes to mind, the intent may be under-specified — name the closest X anyway; process-the-twist needs one.

Composes with

process-pillars — the brief’s fantasy + hook are the raw material the three pillars distill from.
process-the-twist — the provisional hook here becomes the X to bend.
process-composition — scope + constraints feed the systems-checklist.