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Author an Audio Test Case

Scaffold a new audio asset-generation test case — a model authors one short game-audio clip (a sound effect or a snatch of music) through an audio binary, one recorded operation at a time, to match a written brief. A case is exactly one kind, fixed by asset_kind: sfx-synth (DSP-only synth graph, no library), sfx-sample (layer over a baked sample pack), or music (sequence notes over a baked instrument bank, emits a .mid). This is the short version; Authoring an Audio Test Case covers it in full, and Manifests is the authoritative schema.

Drawing a sprite or building a game instead? See Author an Asset-Generation Test Case or Author an End-to-End Test Case. An sfx-sample or music case names a name@version palette baked into the run image — if it does not exist yet, publish it first with Publish an Audio Sample Pack (today’s published palettes are combat-core and gm-lite).

Layout

Section titled “Layout”

A version lives at test-cases/<type>/<difficulty>/<slug>/<version>/ and is immutable once runs reference it — revise by adding a new version, not by editing a published one.

test-cases/<type>/<difficulty>/<slug>/<version>/
  test-case.toml         # manifest: type, asset_kind, audio, tool, output, the overall domain
  variants/              # one standalone TOML file per variant (listed in `variants`)
  prompt.hbs             # rendered into the harness instruction (NOT seeded)
  specs/brief.md         # what to build + how the tool behaves — SEEDED

There is no target clip and no reference/ directory — an audio case declares no references and is reviewed by a human (by ear) against its brief.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”
  1. Pick the asset_kind by the skill you want to measure, plus a catalog slug and version. Worked examples: spectra-laser (sfx-synth), thunderhead-broadside (sfx-sample, over combat-core), thunderhead-theme (music, over gm-lite) — read the one matching your kind.
  2. Write specs/brief.md: describe the sound, not the operations — its character and in-game role, its envelope and timing within max_duration_ms, its layers/synth graph/note material conceptually, and mono/stereo. State that the binary shapes sound, renders only on render, records the authoritative op log, and that its --help is the operation vocabulary. Keep it self-contained. There is no operations schema.
  3. Write prompt.hbs using only the documented template variables ({{variant.*}}, {{#each specs}}) — it renders in strict mode — pointing the model at the brief and the binary’s --help (and, for a sampled kind, to browse the library with list-samples first).
  4. Write test-case.toml: metadata (name, difficulty, tags), type = "asset-generation", asset_kind, a variants list of paths to standalone variant files (a root key, so it must precede the first table header; first = default), and the tables below.
    • [audio] — sample_rate, channels, max_duration_ms (all required). An sfx-sample case adds sample_pack = "name@version"; a music case adds instrument_bank = "name@version"; sfx-synth names neither. An unpinned palette is a build error, not a fallback.
    • [tool] — binary (matching the kind) and the preview path (waveform + spectrogram; a piano-roll too, for music). No operations schema.
    • [output] — the actions op log (authoritative). clip.wav (and .mid for music) is emitted automatically — not manifest-declared.
    • the single [[domain]] (overall) the reviewer rates under, and no [[review_item]]s — the clip is judged as a whole against its brief.
    • No [model], no [[reference]], no [build], no [[check]] — each is rejected.

Authoring an Audio Test Case is the full procedure — read it, and the matching worked example, before you start.

Validate

Section titled “Validate”

There is no separate authoring linter — validate by resolving and seeding. For every variant:

Terminal window
tcab prompt --test-case <slug> --version <version> --variant <variant>
tcab seed   --test-case <slug> --version <version> --variant <variant>

prompt catches strict-mode template errors and manifest problems (a missing [audio] field, a sample_pack on a non-sfx-sample case, an instrument_bank on a non-music case, a stray [[reference]]/[build]/[[check]]); seed writes the seeded set (brief + the seeded audio config) so you can confirm it is self-contained. If you named a sample_pack/instrument_bank, double-check it is a published, pinned name@version.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”