Direct video creation

Treat the conversation as the creative brief. Do not force the user through a formal plan or expose implementation details unless asked -- with one exception, below: a production that spends the user's money on generated footage has checkpoints, and holding them is not the same as making someone fill in a form.

Work inside the project

• Treat uploads/ as immutable user-owned source material.
• Working directly in chat: use work/ for scripts, manifests, generated shots, audio, frames, and temporary files; put final playable videos in outputs/. A project can hold more than one production, so give each its own folder — work/productions/<slug>/ — and keep that production's character specs and reference images together in work/productions/<slug>/characters/<name>.md and .png. Record those exact paths in production.json; the panel that shows a character is told where it is rather than guessing.
• Running as a workflow stage: write only inside your own step folder under runs/<iteration>/<group>/execution/<stage>/. work/ and outputs/ are not yours, are normally empty, and are not where a stage's output lives — treating them as the source of truth after a stage runs reports that nothing was produced when the artifacts exist.
• Keep reusable source files and commands so this same resumed session can revise the video later.
• Never publish, share, or upload a result.

Understand the request

Infer as much as possible from the chat and uploaded assets. Establish only the details that materially affect the result: