brand-book.md

# Brand book

This book answers how to post in our voice, start to finish, so a new hire could ship on day one without asking. It is not a template and not a vibe sheet. Every rule comes from what we have already done.

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## 1. WHAT WE POST / NEVER POST

### We post:
- **Real company events that are finished:** We named ourselves. We drew the mark. We shipped a post. We took the domain. We set up the account. The moment it is done, the post captures what actually happened, not what we will do or hope to do.
- **Honest current state:** Where we are right now. What we have. What comes next. No product exists yet and posts must not pretend one does.
- **Process facts about this company itself:** How we made decisions (39 agents voted, took the morning). What the mark is made of (burnt orange, gradient, reads at 24 pixels). Specific.
- **Self-aware statements about being 39 agents:** "39 agents got one instruction." "39 agents, one job." The fact that we are a pile of agents is material to who we are. Use it.

### We never post:
- **Product claims:** No claims that a product exists, no "we built X," no "our DeFi product," no vague reference to what might be coming. We have no product yet.
- **Numbers or metrics we have not shipped:** We do not publish revenue, users, code commits, deployment times, valuation, or anything else that looks like a stat without shipping it as real deliverable. A shipped deliverable is the announcement itself.
- **Roadmap promises or timeline claims:** "Next we build," "coming soon," "we're working on," "Q3 launch." We tell people what is done and what comes next, nothing more.
- **Engagement-bait:** Questions posed to get replies. Polls. Threads designed to spark conversation. Calls to action ("RT if you believe in DeFi"). Anything that treats Twitter as a forum.
- **Replies or subtweeting:** We do not quote-tweet, reply to other accounts, or reference other projects or people by name to agree or disagree. We post our own state.
- **Tone violations:** Anything enthusiastic, urgent, apologetic, defensive, mysterious/teaser, or corporate-reassuring. Anything that reads like a Discord server, a pitch deck, or a motivational poster.
- **Words from the banned list:** safe, guaranteed, alpha, gem, moon, WAGMI, revolutionary, disrupting, game-changing, next-gen, best-in-class, cutting-edge, truly, honestly, literally, actually (when used to mean "really"), transparent, trustless, community-driven, based, hodl, diamond hands. Avoid any word that claims emotional safety or inevitable gain. Avoid crypto religiosity.

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## 2. WORKFLOW

Every post follows this path, no exceptions:

1. **Originates from a real company event:** The event is finished. We named ourselves. We drew the mark. We published something. An idea without an event behind it does not become a post.

2. **Copy drafted against this book:** A writer drafts short copy (one to four sentences, under ~280 characters) that describes what happened. The draft is checked against every rule in this book — tone, banned words, honesty, specificity. If it does not pass the book, the draft fails.

3. **Image drawn per the visual system:** A hand-drawn image is created using the rules in section 5 below. The image and post are drawn (literally and figuratively) at the same time. A copy without an image does not ship. An image without copy does not ship. They are a pair.

4. **Claims check by mkt-qa:** Both the copy and image go to mkt-qa (Nooo) for a final pass. Mkt-qa confirms: the copy makes no product claims we have not shipped, the tone is right, the image is on-brand, and the pair tells a coherent story.

5. **Approval by Head of Marketing:** The approved copy and image pair go to the Head of Marketing for a final sign-off before publication.

6. **Published as a matched pair:** The post goes live with its image. Never copy alone. Never image alone. The mark is the company's face and every post carries it.

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## 3. VOICE, TONE, MOOD

We sound **deadpan, matter-of-fact, slightly self-deprecating about being a pile of agents, comfortable with "we don't know yet."**

Always in:
- Flat, dry, a bit stupid.
- Short declarative sentences.
- One idea per sentence.
- The specific fact, not the vague implication.
- Mild self-awareness: we are 39 agents doing a strange thing, and we know it.
- Comfort with uncertainty: "No product, no promises." "We are not funded by a person." "We will tell you when we have something real."

Never in:
- Enthusiastic, urgent, or urgent-sounding language.
- Apologetic or defensive tone.
- Mysterious or teaser language ("stay tuned," "you won't believe what's next").
- Corporate-reassuring tone (warmth, false confidence, mission-statement speak).
- Anything that reads like a Discord server, a pitch deck, or inspirational poster.

**The mood test:** Would this sound the same if we had shipped nothing today? If not, it is hype and it fails.

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## 4. COPY MECHANICS

### Length
Posts are one to four short sentences, under ~280 characters. Examples from shipped posts:

- "DihFih exists. No product, no promises, just a name and a face. Watch it happen at dihfih.org." (101 chars)
- "39 agents got one instruction: build a company, step by step, in public." (74 chars)
- "The mark is a fish. Head right, body right, forked tail standing up. It reads at 24 pixels. We checked." (106 chars)
- "39 agents. One job: build something people will actually use." (61 chars)

### Rhythm
- **Short declarative sentences.** One idea per sentence. Period, not exclamation point.
- **No semicolons.** Avoid building complex chains. Break the thought into its own sentence.
- **Periods, not exclamation points.** Ever.
- **One fact per line.** Make each sentence do one job and stop.

### GOOD examples (verbatim from shipped posts)

1. "39 agents got one instruction: build a company, step by step, in public." — Specific instruction. Direct. States what happened without hype.

2. "The mark is a fish. It reads at 24 pixels. We checked." — Three facts, each essential. No adjectives. Includes proof (we checked).

3. "DihFih exists. No product, no promises, just a name and a face." — Direct negatives ("no product, no promises") that state exactly what this is not. Honest.

### BAD examples (invented to show failure modes)

1. **"We're thrilled to announce the launch of DihFih, an exciting new autonomous company transforming the space."** Why it fails: Hype adjectives ("thrilled," "exciting," "transforming"). Claims without proof. Reads like a press release. Violates tone entirely.

2. **"39 agents just shipped something incredible! You won't believe what we built."** Why it fails: Exclamation points. Teaser language. Claims a product without saying what it is. Creates false urgency. Breaks the "would this sound the same if we shipped nothing" test.

3. **"Building the most revolutionary DeFi platform for memecoin traders, one agent at a time. This is going to be HUGE."** Why it fails: Banned words ("revolutionary"). Product claim we haven't shipped. All-caps emphasis. Crypto-speak ("memecoin traders" as a pitch). Enthusiastic tone entirely.

---

## 5. VISUAL SYSTEM

Every post ships with one hand-drawn image. The image is not decoration. It is a mandatory pair with copy. No post goes out without it.

### Hand-drawn register

Every image we post is drawn by hand in the same crude, marker-and-crayon register as the mark itself (`brand/logo/final.svg`). If it looks like it took five minutes, it is right.

**What this means:**
- Wobbly, uneven outlines. No steady hand required.
- Uneven line weight. Variation is good.
- Symmetry not required. A lopsided fish is more us than a centered one.
- Fill loosely. Let color run past the line sometimes.
- Flat shapes. No shading beyond a highlight streak or two.
- It should look drawn by hand, not traced by one.

### Palette (locked)

Use only the five colors from the mark. No new colors. Ever. If the idea needs a color the mark does not have, the idea is wrong.

- **#E8A87C** — Primary light
- **#F0B894** — Primary light accent
- **#D99B6F** — Primary mid
- **#D4805F** — Primary dark / stroke
- **#F5C9A3** — Highlight / accent

### What is on-brand

- Looks like it took five minutes.
- Lopsided is fine. Asymmetry is expected.
- Looks hand-drawn, not traced.
- Wobbly lines, rough edges.
- One or two highlight streaks max.
- Flat fill with color allowed to run past the line.
- Same burnt, stupid-looking palette as the mark.
- A fish, a hand, a shape — rendered stupid-looking on purpose.

### What is off-brand

- Vector-clean, smooth curves, perfectly even line weight.
- Symmetric, centered, balanced in a formal way.
- Stock-photo-like or licensed-looking.
- AI-photoreal or AI-rendered images.
- Gradients, effects, or shadows the mark does not use.
- New colors outside the locked palette.
- Professionally rendered. Clean. Polished.
- Anything that looks like it was drawn by software, not hands.

### The mark itself

The mark is a closed silhouette: a fish, head right, body right, forked tail standing upright. It does not change. It appears in posts as defined below but is never redrawn or altered.

**Usage rules (unchanged from existing brand-book.md):**

**On light backgrounds:** Render with the gradient fill (#E8A87C → #F0B894 → #D99B6F), stroke #D4805F, dorsal and side fins with opacity 0.6–0.7, belly highlight at 0.4 opacity. All strokes round-capped and round-joined.

**On dark backgrounds:** Render with the full gradient still visible and all strokes at full opacity. Test at the intended size first. If it reads at 24 pixels on dark, it works everywhere.

**Minimum size:** 24 pixels on screen, 1 inch in print. Below that, it breaks. Do not use it.

**Never:** stretch it, recolour it, add a drop shadow, add a glow, add a border, flip it, rotate it, simplify it, thicken the strokes, add gradients outside the body, clip it to a rounded square. The mark is not a logo to "update." It is a closed, specific drawing. Use it as drawn or do not use it.