Core loop

Core loop

The Understand→Ship production loop that turns vague creative prompts into brand-bound, validated output.

2 min readUpdated

Pax replaces one-off "make it beautiful" prompts with a repeatable loop every agent adapter implements from the same canonical source. Each stage produces artifacts your team can inspect, diff, and reproduce.

What you will learn

  • Eight stages from repository scan to shipped handoff
  • Checkpoints you can resume without replaying the full chat
  • Visual proof gates before anything ships
  • Same loop for Design, Motion, Lottie, and Film pillars

The loop

Understand → Direct → Design → Build → Render → Critique → Repair → Ship
StageYou provePrimary commands
UnderstandBrand scan and repository contextpaxfx understand scan, paxfx understand brand
DirectCreative thesis, composition, motion rationalepaxfx direct generate, paxfx direct approve
DesignRegistry selections bound to tokenspaxfx design plan, paxfx design match
BuildImplementation with reduced-motion pathspaxfx design add, paxfx ship add
RenderCaptures at mobile, tablet, desktoppaxfx preview, paxfx film demo
Critique.pax/reports/check.jsonpaxfx critic, paxfx check --rendered
RepairTargeted fixes mapped to finding idspaxfx repair (max 3 passes)
ShipHandoff with rationale and reproductionpaxfx ship export

Concept first

Think of the loop as proof over promises. Agents do not ship copy or motion because it sounds good. They ship because each stage left an artifact that passed validation.

Understand reads what is already true: tokens, typography, routes, and motion habits in your repository. Direct locks a creative thesis before pixels move. Design and Build bind registry assets to semantic roles so blocks and effects inherit brand law. Render and Critique capture what users actually see, including reduced-motion pathways. Repair applies only high-confidence fixes. Ship exports with manifests so anyone can reproduce the output.

Status labels

CapabilityStatus
Protocol adapters (Cursor, Claude, Codex, OpenCode)production
Brand intelligence ingestproduction
Rendered frame diff (Playwright)production
Film segment queue with crash recoverybeta
html-in-canvas component effectsexperimental

Resume from checkpoints

After any completed stage, resume from .pax/protocol/run.json. Do not replay the full chat. See Protocol reference for schema and adapter parity checks.

Runnable full-loop recipe

Full loop (external project)

Expected result

Each command exits 0 and writes inspectable artifacts under .pax/. The critic report lists deterministic checks with pass/fail and remediation hints.

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