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agent-skills/skills/impeccable/reference/delight.md
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naps62 9023ed3ef9 chore: update vendored skills and record provenance
humanizer 2.2.0 -> 2.9.1 (blader/humanizer, MIT): adds a Voice
Calibration section and a passive-voice pattern, reworks negative
parallelisms and em dashes. Version moved to metadata.version upstream.

impeccable 3.6.0 -> 4.0.4 (pbakaus/impeccable, Apache-2.0): the repo
tags the skill and the npm CLI separately, so 3.6.0 was a real release
and npm's 3.5.0 was never the comparison. Adds native-platform reference
briefs.

Each now carries an UPSTREAM file; bin/check-vendored.sh reports drift.
2026-08-01 14:25:26 +00:00

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Markdown

> **Additional context needed**: the brand's emotional range.
Make the experience memorable at moments that earn it. Delight is not a layer of generic whimsy; it is product character revealed through a useful interaction, a humane response, or an unexpectedly considered detail.
---
## Visitor mode
- **Persuade + Experience:** personality may run through voice, composition, motion, and discovery, provided the artifact remains the focus.
- **Operate + Read:** concentrate delight at meaningful moments such as first use, completion, recovery, or mastery. Reliability carries everything else.
## Find the opportunity
Inspect the target, DESIGN.md, product voice, repeated-use frequency, and emotional context. Look for:
- effort worth acknowledging;
- waiting that can become informative;
- an empty or first-use state that can orient;
- an error or recovery moment that needs empathy;
- an interaction whose physical or verbal response could express the brand;
- a useful capability people might enjoy discovering.
Do not manufacture a celebration for an ordinary click. Ask only when the brand's emotional range or the stakes cannot be inferred.
## Define one delight thesis
State in one sentence what the user should feel and why that feeling belongs to this product. Then choose the smallest system that can deliver it:
- a distinctive response to a meaningful action;
- product-specific language that clarifies while carrying voice;
- an interaction or transition with a recognizable material behavior;
- an illustration, sound, haptic, or environmental detail grounded in the product world;
- a discovery reward that reveals real utility.
Derive the treatment from product mechanism and visual world, not a stock catalog.
## Build for the emotional moment
- **Success:** match the response to the effort and consequence. Major milestones can expand; routine saves should simply feel certain.
- **Waiting:** show truthful progress, useful context, or product-specific activity. Never fake work or delay completion to stage a flourish.
- **Empty and first use:** make the next action clear before adding personality.
- **Error and recovery:** lead with the problem and recovery. Warmth may reduce stress; jokes must not trivialize loss, money, privacy, or blocked work.
- **Repeated interaction:** keep the response satisfying after the hundredth use. Variation is useful only when it remains coherent and predictable enough to trust.
- **Discovery:** reward curiosity without hiding required functionality.
Copy must use the product's language. Generic whimsy is worse than neutral clarity.
## Protect the experience
Delight must not:
- delay, block, or obscure the primary task;
- override platform conventions or accessibility;
- add unrequested factual claims;
- play sound without consent or ignore mute settings;
- become mandatory, unskippable, or exhausting on repeat;
- add a dependency or asset cost disproportionate to the moment.
For authored motion, load [animate.md](animate.md). Respect screen readers, keyboard use, touch, localization, and cultural context. Nonessential loops stop when hidden. Make celebration intensity proportional to frequency and consequence.
## Verify
- The moment is specific enough that a neighboring product could not use it unchanged.
- It improves comprehension, confidence, motivation, or emotional recovery.
- The interface remains fast and obvious without the flourish.
- Repetition does not turn charm into friction.
- Muted, keyboard, touch, and localized paths work.
- The result feels like the selected world, not a generic “delight” treatment.
When the personality feels earned, hand off to `/impeccable polish` for the final pass.