git:20260823.f8dbcee to git:20260825.e6e808c

33 added, 0 removed. Audit A to A.

---

model_tier: inherit

name: brand-audit

description: "Audit how a brand is currently expressed across touchpoints and flag drift from its defined tokens, voice, and strategy. Use to inventory and critique an existing brand before changing it."

domain: engineering

personas:

- brand-strategist

workspaces:

- engineering

packs:

- brand

trust:

level: professional

install:

removable: true

scope:

write: []

verification_reason: "execution declares no handler, so this skill runs nothing of its own — every write is the calling agent's, under the rules that govern it. No command can prove a scope the skill never executes."

execution:

type: manual

---

# brand-audit

Method skill. Inventories current brand expression across touchpoints and flags drift against defined brand tokens, voice, and strategy. For the UI surface it leans on `existing-ui-audit` rather than re-implementing component inventory. Output is a drift findings list — not a redesign.

## When to use

- Before a rebrand or brand refresh — establish the baseline first.

- When auditing brand consistency across touchpoints (web, decks, docs, ads, copy).

- To create an evidence base before running `brand-strategy`.

- When "is this on-brand?" needs a systematic answer across many assets, not a gut call.

## Procedure

1. **Gather the source of truth.** Collect the consumer brand's defined tokens (palette, type scale, logo rules), voice profile, and strategy doc if they exist. Consumer brand definition is authoritative; corpus defaults are gap-fill only.

2. **Inventory current expression per touchpoint.** Cover logo usage, colour palette, typography, voice/copy tone, imagery style, and iconography across the relevant surfaces (site, app, decks, marketing, docs).

+ **Personal and company profile surfaces, including LinkedIn, X, and GitHub

+ organization profiles, are deliberately excluded regardless of whether their

+ content is fetched, pasted, or supplied as a file, pending a written

+ public-profile-field privacy floor defining what may be processed.**

+ Recorded so the next reader does not re-derive the gap, which has already

+ happened once. The exclusion is about **handling**, not retrieval: a pasted

+ profile is mechanically a different thing from a network fetch, but the

+ missing artefact is a field-level classification saying which profile fields

+ are brand surface (logo, palette, bio messaging) and which are PII-adjacent

+ (employment history, contributor names, location). A profile's About text

+ carries both in one field. Without that classification the skill cannot

+ distinguish them, and no test can assert that it did. AI council 2/2,

+ 2026-08-25. Include user-supplied profile inputs once a written, testable

+ field-level privacy floor exists; include fetched inputs only after both that

+ floor and a host-agent fetch contract exist.

3. **UI surface.** Invoke `existing-ui-audit` for UI component inventory. Do not re-implement it here — take its output as an input to this audit.

4. **Compare observed vs. defined.** For each touchpoint value, check it against the matching token or voice rule.

5. **Classify each finding.** Three buckets: `on-brand` (matches the defined token), `drift` (observed value diverges from the token), `undefined` (no token exists to audit against — this is a governance gap, not automatically wrong).

6. **Rank drift findings** by visibility (how prominent the touchpoint is) multiplied by frequency (how often it appears). Surface the top items first.

7. **Verify completeness.** Confirm every inventoried touchpoint is classified (`on-brand` / `drift` / `undefined`) — the audit is complete only when the classified count equals the inventoried count, and `existing-ui-audit` has run for every in-scope UI surface. Ensure each drift finding cites BOTH the defined value and the observed value; a finding missing either side is not yet verified.

8. **Output the findings list** (see Output format). Do not redesign or author replacements — hand drift findings to `brand-identity` or `brand-strategy`.

+ ## Two constraints on platform-specific guidance

+ Both are constraints on what this skill may assert, not machinery, and neither

+ is a registry.

+ - **Any platform-specific guidance carries a source tier and a review date.**

+ Platform conventions — an image aspect ratio, a character limit, where a

+ profile crops a banner — change without notice, so a number stated here

+ without a date and a source is a claim that quietly stops being true. Tier it

+ (`platform-doc` / `observed` / `inferred`) and date it, or take it from the

+ platform's own current spec at audit time instead of stating it.

+ - **No engagement metric is stated as fact.** Reach, impression and

+ best-time-to-post figures are platform- and account-specific and are not

+ auditable from a brand token. Where such a figure is load-bearing to a

+ finding, attribute it; never assert it as a general truth.

## Output format

1. **Source-of-truth summary** — what brand tokens, voice rules, and strategy exist and where they were found (or "none defined" if absent).

2. **Drift findings** — table-style list: `touchpoint | defined value | observed value | severity (high/medium/low)`.

3. **Undefined gaps** — values with no token to check against; listed separately so they can feed a token-creation pass.

4. **Ranked top drift** — ordered list of the highest-severity drift items to fix first, with a one-line rationale per item.

## Do NOT

- Redesign or author replacement assets — that is `brand-identity` work, not audit work.

- Re-implement UI component inventory — call `existing-ui-audit` and consume its output.

- Invent a "correct" value where none is defined — mark the finding `undefined` and surface it as a governance gap.

- Treat corpus defaults as the consumer's source of truth — consumer brand definition always wins.

## Gotcha

- `undefined` is a real finding. A value with no token to check against is a governance gap that deserves its own section, not a pass.

- Drift severity is visibility times frequency, not personal taste. A rarely-seen off-palette icon ranks lower than a wrong primary colour used on every page header.

- Consumer brand tokens outrank any corpus default. If the consumer has defined a token, audit against that; ignore what the corpus suggests.

## See also

- [`existing-ui-audit`](../existing-ui-audit/SKILL.md) — the UI-surface inventory this skill reuses.

- [`brand-strategy`](../brand-strategy/SKILL.md) — where drift findings feed a refreshed strategy.

- [`brand-identity`](../brand-identity/SKILL.md) — defines the tokens audited against.

- [`brand`](../brand/SKILL.md) — the corpus of brand defaults (gap-fill only).