LIFEAI/rdc:brochure

⚠️ OUTPUT CONTRACT (READ FIRST): guides/output-contract.md Checklist-only output. No tool-call narration. No raw MCP/JSON/log dumps. One checklist upfront, updated in place, shown again at end with a 1-line verdict.

Sandbox contract: Honors RDC_TEST=1. Under the flag the skill renders to a fixture path and skips any post-deploy or upload steps.

rdc:brochure — Zip / Folder / HTML → PDF Brochure

A focused render pipeline. Two modes:

1. Render mode — input already contains print-ready HTML. Skill picks the best HTML file and renders it.
2. Compose mode — input is a folder of assets + markdown/text with no HTML. Skill composes a Studio-token-aware brochure layout, then renders it.

When to Use

• A client zip of deliverables that includes a print-first HTML doc (FuturVille ASP, ranch reports, project plans).
• A places/<slug>/ or apps/<app>/ markdown package that needs a PDF artifact.
• A single URL or HTML file you want as a clean PDF.

When NOT to Use

• Production marketing collateral that lives in apps/* and ships via Coolify — that goes through rdc:design + rdc:deploy.
• Multi-document publication systems — use rdc:plan to scaffold first.

Arguments

• rdc:brochure <input> — path to .zip, folder, .html, .md, or http(s)://... URL.
• --out <path> — output PDF path. Default: <input-basename>.pdf next to the input (or ./brochure.pdf for URLs).
• --template <name> — compose-mode template. Default studio-default. Templates live in scaffold/templates/brochure-*.html. An unknown name errors out and lists the available template(s) — it does not silently fall back.
• --format Letter|A4 — page size. Default Letter.
• --margin <css> — override margin. Default honors @page from source CSS, else 0.6in 0.7in.
• --no-print-emulate — render with screen media instead of print.
• --keep-workdir — keep the staged working directory for inspection.
• --auto-fit — inject corrective print-fit CSS (oversized images, wide tables, long code, heading orphans, figure splits) and log overflow diagnostics. Use when source HTML overflows page boundaries.
• --scale <n> — PDF scale factor (e.g. 0.92 to tighten). Default 1.

Procedure

1. Resolve input.

   • Zip → extract to tmp/rdc-brochure/<hash>/src.
   • Folder → stage in place (read-only).
   • URL → fetch into a sandbox dir as index.html + linked assets via Puppeteer.
   • .html → stage as-is.
   • .md or folder-without-html → compose mode.

2. Pick HTML in render mode.

   • Prefer the largest standalone HTML containing @page or @media print rules.
   • Else prefer files matching *-print.html, *-brochure.html, print.html.
   • Else the largest HTML at root.

3. Compose mode.

   • Read the chosen template (scaffold/templates/brochure-studio-default.html).
   • Inventory the input dir: *.md, *.txt, images grouped by directory, cover.*, logo.*.
   • Render markdown to HTML, inject into template slots: cover, foreword, sections, figures, back-matter.
   • Use Studio token CSS (Source Serif 4 + Hanken Grotesk, loam/moss/ochre palette) as the default. If a sibling tokens.css is present, prefer that.

4. Render with Puppeteer.

   • headless: 'new', --font-render-hinting=none.
   • waitUntil: 'networkidle0', await document.fonts.ready, then 1500ms settle.
   • emulateMediaType('print') unless --no-print-emulate.
   • printBackground: true, preferCSSPageSize: true.
   • Letter @ 0.6in 0.7in default margins.

5. Verify.

   • Output exists and > 50KB.
   • PDF metadata: page count > 0.
   • Log: input, picked HTML or template, page count, file size, output path.

Output

PDF:    <absolute path>
Pages:  <n>
Size:   <human bytes>
Source: <input> → <chosen html or template>

Boundaries

• Does not commit, publish, or upload the resulting PDF. The user moves it.
• Does not modify the source input.
• Does not auto-install global dependencies — uses npx puppeteer via the skill's own node_modules if present, otherwise an on-demand local install under ~/.cache/rdc-brochure/.
• Compose-mode templates live in scaffold/templates/brochure-*.html. New templates need rdc:plan if they cross the architectural-change-approval triggers.

Implementation

The executable is scripts/rdc-brochure.mjs (in the rdc-skills repo). Invoke directly:

node {RDC_SKILLS_ROOT}/scripts/rdc-brochure.mjs <input> [--out path] [--template name] [--format Letter|A4]

Examples

# Zip of deliverables with print HTML inside
rdc:brochure "C:/Users/me/Downloads/FuturVille Deliverables.zip"

# Folder of markdown + images, compose a brochure
rdc:brochure "places/futurville-vulcan" --template studio-default --out reports/futurville.pdf

# Single HTML to PDF, A4
rdc:brochure docs/source/some-prototype.html --format A4

# URL
rdc:brochure https://example.com/spec.html --out spec.pdf