Ad creative batch

A brief in, a priced variant set out. The order matters for cost: generate small, pick, edit the winner, cut out once, upscale only what ships, animate one.

Before you start

• Load the core jell skill (https://jell.run/SKILL.md) if it is not loaded. Confirm access with the free balance tool or jell balance.
• Ask for the brief if it is missing: the product, the audience, the placement (feed 1:1, story 9:16, landscape 16:9), the message in one line, and any brand constraints (colours, no faces, no text in image). Ask for a product image URL if the user has one; a cutout from a real product beats a generated one.
• Inspect the five capabilities once and show the prices. Quote the whole set before generating: N variants, M edits, one cutout, K upscales, one video. Get a yes on the total. Video is priced per second of output, so it is the expensive line; say so. When no human is in the loop, pick the winner yourself, say why, and stop at the caller's budget.

Steps

1. Variants, not a single image

Four to eight variants per concept, at the placement's aspect ratio, with the fastest model first:

jell run -c creative.image -i '{"prompt":"<concept, subject, setting, lighting, no text>","aspect_ratio":"9:16","count":2}' --max-cost 0.05 --wait 90 -o variants-a.json

count gives samples of one prompt; to vary one thing per variant (setting, angle, colour) run one prompt per variant, same total cost. Generate at the aspect ratio the final placement needs: image-to-video keeps the still's ratio, so a vertical video starts from a 9:16 still. Results come back as result.images[] with a URL each. Show the user the grid with the run ID and the charge per image.

2. Edit the winner instead of regenerating

Once the user picks one or two, change what needs changing on that image rather than rolling again:

jell run -c creative.image_edit -i '{"prompt":"swap the background for a kitchen at dawn, keep the product exactly as is","image_url":"https://..."}' --max-cost 0.10 --wait 90

3. Cut the product out once

jell run -c creative.remove_background -i '{"image_url":"https://..."}' --max-cost 0.05 --wait 60

One cutout, reused on every placement and every background. Do it on the real product photo when there is one.

4. Upscale only what ships

Feed placements do not need it. Upscale the one or two finals that go to a large placement:

jell inspect -c creative.upscale
jell run -c creative.upscale -i '{"image_url":"https://..."}' --max-cost 0.25 --wait 120

5. One video from the winning still

jell run -c creative.video -i '{"prompt":"slow push in, steam rising, soft morning light","image_url":"https://...","model":"hailuo-02","duration_seconds":6}' --max-cost 0.50

Video takes one to four minutes: submit (the receipt shows the quote), then poll with jell runs get -r <run_id> --wait 60 -o video.json until status is terminal, usually two or three polls. Duration snaps to the model's options (hailuo-02 6 or 10 seconds, kling 5 or 10, veo3 4, 6 or 8) and bills the snapped length; aspect_ratio applies to text-to-video only. The result is result.video. One video per set unless the user asks for more; quote each one as rate x seconds.

Prices when this was written: image $0.00525 (flux-schnell, per image), edit $0.06825, cutout $0.0315, upscale $0.21 (2x) or $0.84 (4x), video $0.07875 a second on hailuo-02 ($0.4725 for its 6-second clip; other models cost more, inspect lists them). Charges can settle a few percent above the quote (a larger source image, a longer clip), so set max_cost above the quote, not equal to it. The upscale and the video are the surprise lines; quote them explicitly. Cutouts and upscales return result.image, not a list. If the CLI drops its connection while waiting on a slow run, the run keeps going on the router: jell runs shows it and runs get fetches the result. Do not resubmit before checking.

Rules

• Quote the set before step 1 and every video before it runs. max_cost on every run.
• Generated images are drafts for a test, not proof of anything. Never describe a generated image as a photograph of the product.
• No text baked into images unless the user asks; models get letters wrong. Overlay copy in the ad tool.
• No real people's likeness, no competitor logos, no trademarks the user does not own.
• Keep every result URL with its run ID; result URLs expire, so save the files the user wants to keep.

Output

A folder with the variants, the edits, the cutout, the upscales and the video, named by step and variant, plus a manifest: file, capability, model, prompt, run ID, charge (the edit result does not echo the prompt, so the manifest is where it lives). And the total for the set, as the sum of every run's billing.charged, against the quote.