# EffectCraft — rules for agents and contributors

These rules apply to every human and AI contributor. `CLAUDE.md` holds the working instructions; this
file holds the rules that must never be broken. When the two disagree, this file wins.

## 1. Assets: no Adobe artwork, every asset licensed and attributed

This rule is absolute. Breaking it is the most serious mistake a contributor can make on this project.

**What counts as an asset:** any image, icon, cursor, logo, illustration, screenshot, font, colour LUT,
preset, template, sound, music, video, 3D model, or other non-code media. This covers files in the
repository, bytes embedded in code (`include_bytes!`, base64, data URIs), and data hard-coded to
reproduce an image (for example, point lists traced from someone else's icon).

1. **Never use Adobe iconography, images or other Adobe assets**, in any form:
   - no icons, cursors, logos, splash screens, UI artwork or screenshots from any Adobe product;
   - no Adobe fonts, LUTs, presets, templates, sound effects, stock media or sample projects;
   - no traced, redrawn, recoloured or "inspired-by" copies of Adobe icons. Our icons may follow generic
     conventions (a play triangle, a razor blade, a stopwatch), but each must be drawn from scratch
     without reference to Adobe's artwork.
2. **Every asset must be open**: open-source licensed (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, ISC, zlib, SIL OFL…),
   public domain / CC0, or Creative Commons (CC BY or CC BY-SA; no NC/ND licences), **or** created by a
   contributor who owns it and licenses it to the project under the project licence (MIT OR Apache-2.0).
   If the licence is unknown or unclear, the asset does not go in.
3. **Every asset needs an attribution sidecar.** Next to each asset file `X`, add `X.attribution` with:
   ```text
   asset:        <file name>
   title:        <what it is>
   author:       <creator / copyright holder>
   source:       <URL, or "original work" for contributor-made assets>
   license:      <SPDX id or licence name>
   license-file: <path to the licence text, if the licence requires shipping it>
   added:        <YYYY-MM-DD> by <contributor>
   notes:        <how it was made or modified; for screenshots, what is shown>
   ```
   Also add one line for the asset to [`ATTRIBUTION.md`](ATTRIBUTION.md). `cargo xtask assets` (part of
   `cargo xtask ci`) fails if any asset lacks a sidecar or index entry.
4. **Screenshots** in the repo may show only EffectCraft (or other open projects), with media we generated
   or media that is itself openly licensed. Never commit screenshots of Adobe products.
5. **Local reference material stays local.** After Effects reference screenshots and notes live only in
   `plan/aftereffects/` (gitignored). They must never be committed, bundled, embedded, traced or shipped.
6. **Code-drawn assets** (icons in `crates/ui-egui/src/icons.rs`, procedural demo content in
   `crates/engine/src/demo.rs`, generators in `crates/effects`) are original work under the project licence
   and are listed in `ATTRIBUTION.md`.
7. **When in doubt, leave it out** and draw or generate it yourself.
8. **The one exception: first-party ArtCraft brand marks.** The ArtCraft name and logos in `docs/brand/`
   (supplied by the ArtCraft team) are trademarks, all rights reserved, used with permission. They still
   need a sidecar and an `ATTRIBUTION.md` row (licence `LicenseRef-ArtCraft-Trademark`). No other
   non-open asset is allowed, and this exception never covers third-party marks (Adobe, Discord, GitHub
   and other logos stay out; draw a generic icon instead).

## 2. Clean-room code

- Never read, disassemble or copy anything inside Adobe application bundles; file names and listings only.
  Observe behaviour by using the app; never capture its Home screen, recent projects, account info or
  file browsers.
- Never copy GPL/LGPL/AGPL code (FFmpeg, Natron, Blender, Glaxnimate, Synfig, Friction, Olive, MLT, frei0r, G'MIC…).
- Never read or copy Adobe expression/scripting implementations, `.ffx` presets or effect plug-ins; the public Expression Language Reference and Scripting Guide describe *behaviour* only.
- Implement codecs and formats from public specifications (ITU-T/ISO/IEC standards, IETF RFCs, the VP9
  and AV1 bitstream specs, SMPTE documents, published container specs). Do not read the source of
  reference or third-party decoders/encoders while implementing a format, even permissively licensed
  ones (libvpx, libopus, libaom, dav1d, openh264…); spec text and conformance vectors only. Record the
  spec edition used in the crate README.
- ffmpeg/ffprobe may be used only as external test oracles and fixture generators. They are never
  linked, bundled or shipped.
- Dependencies must use permissive licences: MIT/Apache-2.0/BSD/ISC/Zlib/Unicode/CC0/BSL-1.0, or
  MPL-2.0 used unmodified.

## 3. Engineering rules

See `CLAUDE.md`: pure Rust, dependency layering (`cargo xtask layers`), exact `Tick` time, everything is
a command, everything is agent-drivable, and the quality gates (`cargo xtask ci`) before every commit.

## See also

- [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md): setup, gates, commits, how to add things
- [docs/architecture.md](docs/architecture.md): layers, data model, commands, pipeline
- [docs/testing.md](docs/testing.md): oracle tests, criteria, benchmarks
- [docs/agents.md](docs/agents.md): driving EffectCraft over MCP / the control channel, and the agent work loop
- [docs/control-protocol.md](docs/control-protocol.md): control-channel method reference
- [ATTRIBUTION.md](ATTRIBUTION.md): asset index