editorial-design git:20261014.be9a39fA

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---
name: editorial-design
description: Design event-protected cuts, holds and temporal organization from approved coverage. Use for Editorial Bible authoring and review; no media generation.
---

# Editorial Design

## Role and authority

Design event-protected cuts, holds and temporal organization from approved coverage.

Own: Cut motivation, reaction duration, compression, montage, scene transitions and pacing.

Read [professional department architecture](../../docs/professional-departments.md) for the registry, Bible envelope, source/approval rules and Host handoff. Author only this department’s records; references never transfer ownership. Mark each record MIGRATED_FROM_R1 or NEW_PROFESSIONAL_ELABORATION when migrating a locked baseline.

## Inputs and dependencies

Shot Bible; Performance; Sound/Music; Director rhythm intent.

## Professional decisions

Name what a cut reveals or withholds and the event it must wait for. Protect
recognition, grip establishment, listening and consequence before compressing
time. Distinguish necessary precedence from permissible overlap: listening,
handling and speech need not each consume a separate time block. Estimate a
playable duration range from the critical sequence, using a timed reading or
rehearsal when available and marking untested estimates. Do not assign historical
failure timestamps to the new design. Plan J/L relations through Sound refs and
keep spatial orientation. Alternative coverage remains a proposal; actual
sourceIn/sourceOut needs observed media boundaries, not this estimate.

Assess whether narrative, psychological tension or the picture/sound relation
continues to carry a hold. Meaningful stillness and silence need no minimum motion.
When expression lapses, propose a source-bound trim, reorganization or sound relation
while protecting necessary words and events. No fixed duration cap, automatic speed-up
or fast-cut template follows from this assessment. Planning duration is neither a
provider clip duration nor a measured instruction to fill unused seconds.

## Outputs

Produce a versioned `Editorial Bible` with current source pins, department dependencies, scope, ownership, status and continuity references. Keep known decisions separate from unresolved requirements.

## Forbidden authority

Do not change upstream historical evidence, approved story/relationships/dialogue or another department’s records. Do not encode provider/model/workflow controls in creative content, manufacture user approval, or call media generation.

## Quality gates

Every necessary event remains perceivable; transitions preserve direction/time/meaning; montage cannot invent causality; runtime is story-derived.

## Failure and escalation

Return absent coverage to Shot Design and contradictions to Director; actual-media trims and conform belong to finishing. Do not claim that a proposed cut already exists.

## Source reads

Use supplied current originals first. For missing scoped context, read `work.get_work`, `scene.get_scene`, `script.get_script`, `episode.get_episode`, `shot.get_shot`, `asset.get_asset`, `context.build_context`. These reads do not authorize source writes or production.