hatch-pet

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---
name: hatch-pet
description: Create, repair, validate, visually QA, and package Codex-compatible animated pets and pet spritesheets from character art, generated images, company or prospect brand cues, or visual references. Use when a user wants a lightweight-worker Codex pet workflow, a non-pixel custom pet style, a prospect or company mascot pet, or a full 8x9 animated pet atlas with transparent unused cells, QA contact sheets, and pet.json packaging. This skill composes the installed $imagegen system skill for visual generation and uses bundled scripts for deterministic spritesheet assembly.
---

# Hatch Pet

## Overview

Create a Codex-compatible animated pet from a concept, brand cue, company/prospect name, one or more reference images, or any combination of those inputs. This workflow keeps the deterministic hatch-pet pipeline for atlas geometry, validation, visual QA, and packaging, while using concise state-specific prompts and allowing any pet-safe visual style.

User-facing inputs are optional. If the user omits a pet name, infer one from the concept, brand, company, or reference filenames; if that is not possible, choose a short friendly name. If the user omits a description, infer one from the concept or references. If the user omits reference images, generate the base pet from text first, then use that base as the canonical reference for every animation row.

## Generation Delegation

Use `$imagegen` for all normal visual generation.

Before generating base art, row strips, or repair rows, load and follow the installed image generation skill:

```text
${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/.system/imagegen/SKILL.md
```

Do not call the Image API, image CLI, or any other image-generation path directly. Let `$imagegen` choose its own built-in-first path and fallback rules. If `$imagegen` says a fallback requires confirmation, ask the user before continuing.

When invoking `$imagegen`, pass the generated pet prompt as the authoritative visual spec. Pet prompts should stay concise, state-specific, sprite-production oriented, and grounded in the listed input images. Keep longer policy and QA rules in this skill and the deterministic review scripts rather than expanding them into every image prompt. Do not wrap prompts in the generic `$imagegen` shared prompt schema.

Use this skill's scripts for deterministic image work only: preparing layout guides and prompts, mirroring approved `running-left`, extracting frames, validating rows, composing the final atlas, and creating contact-sheet plus motion-preview QA media. Parent-owned shell/`jq` steps handle manifest updates, packaging, and cleanup.

## Storage Controls

The built-in `$imagegen` path stores generated PNG bytes in the rollout that invokes it, even when it also writes a file under `${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/generated_images`. Deleting files later reduces filesystem use, but it does not shrink an already-written rollout. Keep image generation isolated and bounded:

- Use one lightweight generation worker per visual job. Do not batch multiple base/row jobs into the same worker.
- Workers must return only `selected_source=...` and `qa_note=...`; they must not include Markdown image previews, base64, or extra visual attachments in their final response.
- The parent must not open every generated PNG visually. Use worker QA for each job and inspect only the final contact sheet.
- After copying the selected generated output into `decoded/`, remove the selected original from `${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/generated_images` when it lives there, then remove its now-empty generation directory if possible.
- For storage-sensitive full runs, ask the user whether to use the `$imagegen` CLI fallback when available. That path requires local API credentials and explicit user confirmation, but it can avoid built-in image payloads being embedded in rollout events.

## Brand Discovery

If the user provides a brand, company, product, or prospect name rather than a concrete avatar de