Generate Social

Generates a platform-sized, on-brand social template as SVG from the active brand profile, with editable text zones the user can tweak afterward.

Overview

The generate-social skill turns a headline (and optional subhead and call-to-action) into a correctly sized social graphic that uses the brand's palette and fonts. Output is vector SVG, so it scales cleanly and needs no account, key, or network call. The generator (lib/social.mjs) lays out a brand band, a wrapped headline, an optional subhead, and an optional accent pill; the skill resolves the active profile, picks the platform, runs the generator, and saves the file. For a photographic background behind the template, the raster path lives in the generate-graphic skill.

Prerequisites

• An active brand profile created with /brand-new (a brand/ directory, or brands/[slug]/). Read loads its color-system.json and typography.json.
• Node.js on the PATH — the generator runs as node lib/social.mjs.
• Write access to an output/ directory in the working repository.
• A headline string; subhead and call-to-action are optional parameters.

Instructions

1. Run /brand-status to confirm the active brand; if none exists, tell the user to run /brand-new and stop.

2. Use Glob to locate the active brand directory, then Read and validate the profile with validateProfile. Stop with the offending field if validation fails.

3. Choose the platform preset — instagram-square (default), instagram-story, og-card, or youtube-thumb. Ask the user when unspecified.

4. Generate the template by running the node generator:

   import { loadProfile } from '../../lib/brand.mjs';
   import { buildSocial } from '../../lib/social.mjs';
   const profile = loadProfile(activeDir);
   const { svg, platform } = buildSocial(profile, {
     platform: 'instagram-square',
     headline: 'We just raised our Series A',
     subhead: 'Building the future of logistics',
     cta: 'Read the story',
   });
   

5. Write the result with the Write tool to output/[slug]-[platform].svg.

6. Hand the file to the visual-guardian subagent for a palette, contrast, and type pass; apply its fixes or surface its flags.

7. Report the saved path and point out the editable zones so the user can customize or adapt the copy: id="headline", id="subhead", and id="cta".

Output

One SVG file under output/, named for the slug and platform:

output/northwind-instagram-square.svg

• Sized to the chosen platform (for example 1080×1080 for instagram-square).
• Text sits in editable zones — id="headline", id="subhead", id="cta" — that wrap automatically.
• All copy is HTML-escaped before it enters the markup; colors come from the palette only. No raster is produced.

Error Handling

Condition	Behavior
No active brand profile	Stop and direct the user to /brand-new.
Profile fails validateProfile	Report the offending field and stop.
Headline missing	Ask the user for the headline before generating.
Unknown platform requested	List the four supported presets and ask the user to pick one.
Headline too long for the canvas	The generator wraps text; verify the result and shorten copy if the guardian flags overflow.

To troubleshoot a clipped layout, verify the copy length against references/platform-sizes.md, then re-run and re-check with the guardian.

Examples

Example — launch announcement post

/brand-make an instagram post announcing our Series A

Builds a 1080×1080 square with the brand band, a wrapped headline, and an accent call-to-action, saved as output/northwind-instagram-square.svg.

Example — link card

/brand-make an og card for the blog post

Generates a 1200×630 Open Graph card sized for link previews and hands it to the guardian.

Example — story cover

/brand-make an instagram story

Produces a 1080×1920 story, insetting text clear of the platform's top and bottom safe zones.

Resources

• references/platform-sizes.md — every preset size, safe zones, the layout the generator produces, and how to add a preset.
• Sibling skills: generate-logo for marks, and generate-graphic for photographic backgrounds — route between them with the /brand-make command.
• Open Graph protocol — the metadata standard og-card targets.
• Agent Skills documentation — how skills are authored and invoked.