Media Heavy Workflows

Apply only the patterns required by the requested product; a media operation is not automatically a media studio.

Behavioral core

1. Inspect the existing media entrypoint, ownership, provider route, and final insertion path. Preserve working behavior and the requested interaction.
2. Distinguish saved references from references actually sent to a model. Honor the selected endpoint's supported tasks, input schema, and reference limits.
3. When users compare multiple generated candidates, keep batches and selection with their owning artifact; snapshot the prompt, model, and references needed to explain each result.
4. Separate generation from publishing only when the product requests a draft or review workflow. Direct image-edit actions may update their target immediately when undo and existing state semantics are preserved.
5. Make external uploads and material cost visible. Keep provider credentials server-side, and require authorization before paid or irreversible actions.
6. Show useful progress or failure state for slow operations. Preserve original dimensions and source ownership when the requested operation requires them.
7. Verify only the changed behavior and risks: capability/reference handling, intended insertion or publish semantics, privacy, and secret protection.

Optional specialist guidance

Read references/media-studio-lessons.md only when the user actually requests cast boards, public/celebrity references, multi-provider studios, structured prompt authoring, specialized media-workspace layouts, or broader studio QA. Those patterns are recommendations, not prerequisites for unrelated work.