Diagnostic Stem Audio Production Workflow

This skill provides a resilient pattern for audio production that emphasizes diagnostic analysis before editing, explicit timecode extraction from documents, incremental verification, fail-fast principles, and mandatory deliverable verification. Each major step produces verified outputs before proceeding, with comprehensive audio diagnostics at specified timecodes.

Overview

Follow these steps in strict order. Each step must complete successfully and pass verification before proceeding to the next:

1. Parse timecodes from source documents - Extract edit spots/timecodes from DOCX/text sources
2. Perform diagnostic audio analysis - Analyze reference audio at each timecode (pitch, clicks, frequency)
3. Calculate timing parameters - Derive section transitions from BPM and duration
4. Verify reference audio - Validate input file properties and extract target duration
5. Generate and verify each stem individually - One stem at a time with immediate verification
6. Detect and resolve duration mismatches - Apply appropriate extension strategy
7. Apply edits based on diagnostics - Make informed edits using analysis results
8. Mix with verification - Combine stems and verify mix integrity
9. Export and verify deliverable - Generate final output with comprehensive checks

Key Principles

• Diagnostics first: Analyze audio at edit points BEFORE making any changes
• Document-driven: Parse timecodes directly from source documents (DOCX, TXT)
• Incremental verification: Verify each stem immediately after generation
• Fail-fast approach: Stop and report errors at each step
• Mandatory export: Final step MUST produce verified deliverable file
• Tool reliability: Use run_shell with inline Python for audio processing (avoid execute_code_sandbox for audio)

Step 0: Parse Timecodes from Source Documents