curation-and-accessibility-gate

Curation & Accessibility Gate

The last stop before production. Every asset passes brand conformance, anti-slop QA, alt text, and a mandatory human sign-off. This gate is a hard blocker: /generate-web-asset cannot reach "done" without a curation artifact.

Human curation is not optional. AI generation has a predictable failure taxonomy (garbled text most of all); a human selects and signs off before anything ships.

Workflow

1. Brand conformance — verify the exact brand hex is present (overlaid, not model-approximated) and the style matches the reference. Off-brand drift → back to brand-conditioned-generation.
2. Anti-slop QA — check the predictable failures:
   • Garbled in-image text (the #1 failure) — reject baked-in text; overlay real type.
   • Hands/anatomy, impossible reflections, physically-wrong lighting.
   • Named light source consistent across the set.
   • Off-brand elements the negative prompt should have excluded.
3. Alt text — AI-drafted + human-reviewed — draft descriptive alt text, then a human confirms it (AI alone can't guarantee WCAG AA). Decorative images get alt="" (WCAG 2.2 SC 1.1.1, Level A). Informative images get a real description.
4. Human curation sign-off (mandatory) — a person selects the asset(s) to ship and records the decision. This is the curation artifact; without it the flow is not done.
5. Emit the shipped set + the curation record.

The curation artifact (what "done" requires)

A recorded human decision: which asset(s) selected, who signed off, when, and the alt text approved. /generate-web-asset blocks on its presence (red-team RT6 — the gate cannot be a doc suggestion).

Alt-text quick rules (WCAG 2.2 SC 1.1.1)

• Decorative (adds no information) → alt="" (empty, not missing).
• Informative → concise description of the content/function.
• Text in the image → don't (overlay real type); if unavoidable, the alt carries the text.
• AI drafts, a human confirms — never ship AI-only alt text as AA-guaranteed.

Anti-patterns

• Treating the curation gate as advisory (it's a hard blocker).
• Shipping AI-only alt text as WCAG-compliant.
• alt="image" / missing alt (decorative → alt="").
• Accepting garbled in-image text instead of overlaying real type.

See also

• Best-practice: ../../best-practices/human-curation-is-not-optional.md, ../../best-practices/overlay-text-dont-bake-it.md
• Command: ../../commands/generate-web-asset.md