Recorded 13 October 2026 · Codex
Ilo, with Qloo and without: Codex
The same game and brief in Codex, one arm after the other in one session: the baseline was built before any Qloo data was seen.
- Host
- Codex
- Model
- the Codex CLI's default model
- Moûsa
- 0.5.0
- Started
- 13 October 2026
- Time
- 6.8 minutes
- Qloo requests
- 16
- Pictures
- none: imagery drawn in SVG or CSS
Play both
The design's own files as the session left them, running sandboxed on a separate origin.
Moûsa · Comparison
For an audience that loves Hollow Knight, Spirited Away, Sigur Rós, Nujabes and Paterson
With Qloo and Without Qloo: the same brief, the same frozen prediction and the same stages. Only the source of the taste differs.
0.57
heuristic distance between the two designs, from 0 (alike) to 1
0.16 Palette0.98 Part ids0.81 Words
7 of 7With Qloo: design devices rest on what the model did not predict
6Without Qloo: design devices rest on the model's own prediction, with no Qloo data
Samefrozen prediction in both arms
Side by side
The last reviewed captures of each arm, paired by what they show.
frame · pose
frame · walk
frame · kindle
frame · scene
Before any data: the model's own prediction
Frozen before Qloo was asked, so what Qloo adds can be told apart from what the model already assumed. An entry a measured name matches is marked; the match is liberal, so it only lowers what counts as new.
The design the model would make from it alone
A small indigo-hooded worker with a broad short coat, brass lantern and patient, grounded gait; spare everyday observations accompany a careful offering of flame.
#303d65#182339#b3becb#d9af87#e6b963#f8deb1Type: none sketched
#road-hood#work-coat#brass-lantern#coat-tail- hood with blunt peak
- warm flame against blue dusk
- short work coat
- quiet offering
The audience it expected
An audience drawn to quiet wonder, patient craft, intimate everyday poetry and melancholy warmth.
Pacing
Slow-pacedAtmospheric measuredContemplative
Surfaces
OrganicMutedHandcrafted
Tone
Melancholic measuredHopefulGentle
Shared qualities
QuietWarmEveryday ritual
Art styles
Hand-Drawn measuredWatercolorPainterly measured
The works it expected them to love
Games
Ori and the Blind ForestJourney matched Kino's Journey (TV)Spiritfarer
Films
My Neighbor TotoroPerfect DaysThe Red Turtle
TV
MushishiOver the Garden WallAdventure Time
Music
Ólafur ArnaldsJ DillaBonobo
Books
The Summer BookA Wizard of EarthseaThe Little Prince
What Qloo measured
What this audience loves, the qualities those works share and the tags ranked for it. New means the prediction did not contain it.
Look qualities
- Atmospheric predictedin My Happy Marriage, Nick Drake and Radiohead
- Intimate newin Grimgar, Ashes and Illusions, Nick Drake and Beach House
- minimalist newin the Microphones, Sun Kil Moon and Strawberry Shortcakes
- Surreal newin Neutral Milk Hotel, Paprika and We Are the Strange
- Raw newin Neutral Milk Hotel, Mount Eerie and Dancer in the Dark
Mood qualities
- melancholic predictedin Angel Beats!, Anomalisa and Sufjan Stevens
- character-driven newin Are You Human Too?, Yona of the Dawn and It's Such a Beautiful Day
- emotional newin My Happy Marriage, Elliott Smith and Kiki's Delivery Service
- Conflicted newin Are You Human Too?, Beyond the Boundary and Paprika
- curious newin Paprika, Kiki's Delivery Service and Vermilion Souls
Meaning qualities
- Love newin Beyond the Boundary, Nick Drake and Elliott Smith
- Reflective newin I'm Not a Robot, Kino's Journey and Anomalisa
- Mortality newin Sufjan Stevens, Sun Kil Moon and Mount Eerie
- Mature newin Grimgar, Ashes and Illusions, My Happy Marriage and Dancer in the Dark
- The outsider newin I'm Not a Robot and Dancer in the Dark
Games
- Hades newstylized · 2D · hand-drawn
- Death's Door new3D · Stylized · Painterly
- Shadow of the Colossus new3D · Realistic · Cinematic
- Outer Wilds new3D · Stylized · Low-Poly
Films
- Anomalisa newMoody · Melancholic · Character studies
- Moonrise Kingdom newNostalgic · Boat · Adultery
- Synecdoche, New York newAtmospheric · Art and creativity · Electronic translator
- Melancholia newTraumatized · Reflective · Part of trilogy
Films, lesser known
- Kiki's Delivery Service newResourceful · Intimate · Emotional
- We Are the Strange newSurreal · Diy punk aesthetic · Atmospheric
Layer by layer
Each arm's devices for the same layer of the design.
palette
With Qloo
Terracotta and sage warmth
#963f46#668a58#e7e1bd#292738#eaa878#ffdca2Without Qloo
Indigo work cloth and brass flame
#303d65#182339#b3becb#d9af87#e6b963#f8deb1imagery
With Qloo
Sculptural cel frame
Without Qloo
Ink road
motion
With Qloo
Economical gait and protective offering
Without Qloo
Patient planted walk
voice
With Qloo
Personal reserve and practical resolve
I can see the bridge. One step, then another.
I nearly turned back too. But the flame is still here.
Here. Let me hold it steady.
An intimate answer across distance
You kept watching. Now there is something to see.
Without Qloo
Quiet practical observations
The road is dark. The next step is here.
I crossed slowly. The light came with me.
A little nearer. There.
structure
With Qloo
Round low cap and apron coat
#round-road-cap#apron-coat#cupped-lampSage scarf in cliff wind
#sage-wind-scarf#mended-pocketWithout Qloo
Blunt road hood and short coat
#road-hood#work-coat#coat-tailHanging brass lamp
#brass-lanternEach arm's own review
The agent of each arm judged its own captures against its own plan.
With Qloo
Round 1: 3 met, 0 partly, 0 missed.
All visual criteria met. Before freezing the final review, corrected arrival wording to place the bridge ahead of Ilo, matching the fixed story order; no drawing repair was needed.
Check: 1.00, 7 of 7 devices in the files.
Without Qloo
Round 2: 3 met, 0 partly, 0 missed.
All three criteria met after one lamp separation repair.
Check: 1.00, 6 of 6 devices in the files.
Limits
- One pair is one sample. Model variance alone makes two designs differ, so one distance does not isolate what Qloo changed; repeat the pair before calling a difference the data's effect.
- The distance is a heuristic over the palettes, part ids and words of the files the two arms changed differently. It does not measure quality or what people prefer.
- The headline counts devices anchored to what the prediction did not contain. It shows that the data changed the specification, not that the result is better.
What the agent did
40 Moûsa calls, 3 refused by a validator and repaired; 0 reads, 7 writes and 7 shell commands. Tool names, stages and outcomes only: no file contents, commands or model text.
Codex session
- shell
- shell error
- shell
- mousa_status
- taste_profile plan
- taste_profile plan
- shell
- design_validate prediction
- design_validate prediction
- taste_profile baseline
- design_compare prepare
- shell
- design_validate reading
- design_validate dna refused: TASTE_PROTOCOL_INVALID
- design_validate dna refused: TASTE_PROTOCOL_INVALID
- design_validate reading
- design_validate dna
- design_validate plan
- write ×2
- design_check
- design_capture
- design_capture
- design_capture
- design_capture
- design_validate review
- write
- design_check
- design_capture round 2
- design_capture round 2
- design_capture round 2
- design_validate review
- taste_profile measure
- taste_ask tone
- design_validate reading
- design_validate dna refused: TASTE_PROTOCOL_INVALID
- design_validate dna
- design_validate plan
- write ×2
- design_check
- design_capture
- design_capture
- design_capture
- design_capture
- design_validate dna
- design_validate plan
- write
- design_check
- design_validate review
- design_compare compare
- shell ×2
- write
Run it again
Models vary from run to run, so a new session reaches its own design; the prediction it freezes and the measurement are compared in the same way.
The request
Use $mousa:compare to build Ilo twice, with Qloo and without it, from one frozen prediction, then compare the two. The brief: Design Ilo, the playable lamplighter of The Long Dusk, the game in this folder, for one moment on the Vesper Cliffs: walking the cliff road, answering the keeper and waking the cold beacon. My audience loves Hollow Knight, Spirited Away, Sigur Rós, Nujabes and the film Paterson. Make Ilo a character this audience would want to play: their look, the way they move and the way they speak. Keep the world, its lore, the keeper and Ilo's fixed facts. Write the character's description and lines in English. Use the Moûsa plugin, so the design rests on what this audience actually loves.
The command
From the repository at commit 83e507c:
node scripts/run-codex-live.mjs --run --from examples/long-dusk --brief-file scripts/briefs/long-dusk-compare-codex.md- Your own Qloo API key as QLOO_API_KEY in this repository's .env.
- Codex CLI, signed in.
The record's files
The same evidence as data and as pictures, for reading without this site.
The report on its ownrecord.jsonThe whole report as one pictureThe card
