Slots before prompts
The amateur move with image models is opening the tool and typing "cozy coffee vibes autumn." Forty regenerations later there's a folder called final-final-v3 and nothing that fits the story format. The variable that was never pinned down: where does this asset live?
Professionals plan the batch backwards from the slots. The relaunch needs an email header, a story frame, a feed square, and an ad banner — four slots, four sizes, four different jobs. Run the editor: the batch plan is a list of records, one per slot, and every record answers the questions that otherwise surface as rework:
slotandsize— the destination, named before generation starts. A 1080x1920 story crop is not a 1200x628 banner with ambitions. Composition depends on the frame; the frame comes from the slot.variants— how many candidates to generate per slot. You generate several and select, because selection with a checklist beats regenerate-until-pretty on both cost and sanity. More variants for the ad banner (it carries the budget) than the email header (it's decorative).text_on_asset— the exact words, or the explicit value"none". This field earns its keep in the next step, so clock it now: it's either precise copy — already linted by lesson 1's pass — or a deliberate "no text."
Why the counts are in the plan
Because counts are what turn "make some assets" into something you can cost and defend. Six plus eight plus eight plus ten is 32 generations. At your image tool's per-image rate, that's a number — and a number means you can walk into the budget conversation with "the relaunch creative costs this much at this batch depth" instead of a shrug. When someone wants more ad variants, the plan shows exactly what the extra depth costs. You'll write that calculation two steps from now.
The plan is also the review sheet's spine. When the batch comes back, every variant gets scored against its slot's brief — fits the frame, brand constraints met, text legible at target size, nothing weird in the corners. Same checks for every variant in the slot. A batch where everything passes review is a checklist that checks nothing; expect to reject, and keep the rejects scored so the next brief learns from them.
One thing the plan deliberately does not contain: model names. Tools churn monthly; slots, sizes, variant counts, and text-on-asset are the stable layer. Write the plan against the work, point it at whatever generator you're using this quarter.
First, though — a drill on the field people forget, and what forgetting it costs.