The card generator, offered as a service.
Every chapter on this site has a card: a number, a gerund, a beast, a tone and a line of text, composed to a fixed grammar. The generator behind it is the most reusable thing this build has produced, and it is more useful to other people than it is to us.
The service, specified.
What it takes
- A number, or none
- Integer, optionalA producer who has not been granted a number in the ledger gets a card without one.
- A name
- A gerund, validatedRejected if it is not a gerund. The grammar is the product; a card with a noun on it is not a chapter card.
- A beast
- One of twentyFrom the published sprite roster. No custom artwork, ever, because that is where a brand system dissolves.
- A tone
- One of sixPetrol, corn, furrow, moss, sunset, ink. Not a hex value.
- A line of text
- Up to 90 charactersLonger than that and the composition breaks, so it is refused rather than truncated.
What it returns
- An SVG
- AlwaysResolution-independent, small, and the same on every screen.
- A PNG
- On request, at three sizesFor platforms that will not take an SVG, which is most social platforms.
- A stable URL
- Yes, permanentlyA card that changes after it has been shared is a broken promise.
- A rendering log entry
- AlwaysWho rendered what, when. Not for billing — for knowing what exists.
The contract
- Versioned in the path
- A v1 segment, then a v2A breaking change is a new version and the old one runs for twelve months alongside it.
- Rate limit
- 600 renders an hour, per certificateGenerous for a producer and useless for anybody trying to run a card farm.
- Certification required
- YesThe same standard as the supplier register, and it can be withdrawn.
- Cost
- NothingA charge would produce a revenue line worth about as much as a good lunch and would halve the adoption.
Why give the generator away.
Because the naming grammar is worth more the more places it appears, and it is worth nothing at all if it appears inconsistently. A producer who makes their own version of a chapter card in Canva will get the proportions wrong, choose a colour that is nearly right, and use a noun instead of a gerund.
Handing them the actual generator costs a rate limit and buys a system that stays coherent as it spreads. It is the same argument as a brand guideline, except that a brand guideline is a PDF nobody opens and this is an endpoint that makes it impossible to get wrong.
The certification is the part that matters. A card carries the grammar, and the grammar carries an implication about who made the thing on it. So access is granted to certified producers, it is reviewed, and it can be withdrawn — which is the only meaningful control in a system that has otherwise been given away.
Who would use it, and for what.
| Who | What they would make | Why the card rather than anything else |
|---|---|---|
| A certified producer | A card for their own product or field day | It places them inside a system people already recognise |
| A parish organiser | A card for a meet | A poster that looks like it belongs, made in about forty seconds |
| A school | A card per lesson in the free classroom material | Consistent, unbranded on the worksheet, and free |
| This site | Every chapter card on it | It is the same endpoint. There is no internal version |
| Anybody else | Nothing, without a certificate | Which is the whole point of certifying |
How a producer would get access.
They are already certified
The Backed by Diddly Squat standard, or the supplier register. This is not a separate process.
They request a certificate
One form, answered by a person, usually within a working day.
They render cards
Up to six hundred an hour, on a stable URL, at no cost.
Somebody looks at what they made
Monthly, and not automatically. A grammar system needs a human reading the output.
It can be withdrawn
For misuse, for a lapsed certification, or for putting a noun on a chapter card.
This is a design, not a running service
There is no endpoint, no certificate and no producer using it. The card generator behind this site is real and produces every chapter card on it; the service described on this page is what exposing it would look like.
The card API, questioned.
Because the grammar is the product. A card with a noun on it is a poster with a farm’s colours on, and the whole value of the system is that the shape means something.
Because charging would produce a trivial revenue line and halve the adoption, and adoption is the entire point of giving away a naming system.
Yes, for misuse, for a lapsed certification, or for consistently ignoring the grammar. It is the only real control in a system that has otherwise been handed over.
And what happens when the whole thing falls over.
A read-only mode that keeps content and cameras alive when commerce saturates.
