recipe-manager/frontend/public/assets/photos/README.md

Photo-First Assets (Wave 2.5)

This directory is the handoff surface for migrating from illustration-first to photo-first art direction.

Current status

• manifest.json is the source of truth for photo slots and candidate sources.
• No third-party photos are vendored yet in this repo.
• Existing SVG placeholders remain as safe local fallbacks until approved photos are added.

Folder intent

• hero/ — homepage/detail hero photos (.jpg/.webp)
• list/ — 4:3 and 1:1 card/list photos
• detail/ — 16:9 or 3:2 detail hero photos
• category/ — optional category cover photos
• empty-state/ — optional minimal photographic empty-state support
• credits/ — attribution and source snapshots when required

Licensing guardrails

Preferred source order:

1. Pexels (free commercial use, attribution typically not required)
2. Unsplash (free use under Unsplash License, attribution appreciated)
3. Owned/internal photos (full control)

Rules:

• Verify license at time of download and record it in manifest.json.
• Never ingest images marked editorial-only or with recognizable private persons without release confidence.
• Keep sourceUrl, license, and downloadedAt metadata for every vendored photo.

Integration

UI workers should consume manifest.json and gracefully fallback to local placeholders when localPath is null.