---
name: delight-character
description: Create or extend a product mascot asset set and its reaction states. Use for character production or substantial state design; routine feedback refinement belongs to delight.
---

# Delight character

Build a character vocabulary that stays recognisable across useful product states.

## Extract the visual rules

Inspect supplied brand assets before designing. Record the few constraints that explain their family resemblance: silhouette, proportions, geometry, palette roles, facial features, line treatment, and allowed exaggeration. Separate observed rules from proposed additions. If no character exists, create one only when that is within the brief.

Choose the character's job: teach, reassure, acknowledge progress, or represent the brand. Personality must fit the emotional stakes of the moment. Preserve original identity; a request for an encouraging mascot does not imply copying another product's character.

## Design states before asset volume

Read [state-model.md](references/state-model.md) for the reaction contract and production choices. Define only states needed by this task, such as idle, waiting, success, recoverable error, and interruption. Each should specify its trigger, pose, transition, exit, and static equivalent.

Keep the instruction, result, and next action understandable without the character. Mark purely decorative art accordingly; communicate essential meaning through accessible UI. Keep idle animation from competing with work. Stop it when the surface is hidden or reduced motion calls for stillness.

Characters may celebrate or coach. Avoid guilt on absence, refusal, or cancellation. An error reaction must help recovery; distress, illness, financial loss, and sensitive disclosures need particular care with humour.

## Choose the smallest viable production method

A static illustration or a few transitions often suffice. Use a state-machine runtime when interactive combinations justify it; use speech-driven mouth shapes only when voiced content requires them. Do not introduce a speech pipeline to animate a greeting.

If assets are requested, generate or edit them with available appropriate tools and inspect the actual outputs. A written art direction is not a completed asset set. Preserve requested dimensions, formats, names, and the number of deliverables.

## Verify and deliver

Check silhouettes and facial features at the smallest intended size, consistency across poses, interruption, missing assets, and reduced motion. Test speech and animation together when they exist; do not infer synchronisation from static frames.

Return the assets or implementation, the compact character rules, and any remaining production limitation. A state chart alone does not establish a working animated character.