Core concepts

This is the glossary the rest of the docs link to. Read it once; refer back as needed.

Style spec

A style spec is a structured definition of a creative style. It’s made of two building blocks:

• Block — a single style element, such as a color palette, a font family, a lighting setup, or a voice rule. StyleRef defines 180+ block types.
• Section — a category of blocks, such as Colors, Typography, Light & Shadow, or Voice & Language. StyleRef defines 20 section types.

You assemble blocks into sections on the Style Board in the web app. The full machine-readable schema of sections and block types is available to agents as the styleref://schema resource — see Resources & prompts.

Formats

A style compiles into one of six formats — the dialect a destination tool expects:

Style references

A style reference (or ref) identifies a style. It is always an opaque id, or a link containing one — four forms, all resolving to the same style:

Anywhere these docs say “a ref,” any of these forms works — on the REST API, over MCP, in the CLI, and in the ComfyUI nodes alike.

URL-encode the whole ref (encodeURIComponent) when you put it in a REST path and it contains / or : — which both URL forms do.

Your own styles use the same refs. There is no separate namespace for private styles: once you’re authenticated, your unpublished styles resolve by their share slug or id. The builder URL is the one in your address bar while you edit a style, so you can paste it straight across. list_my_styles and GET /me/styles return a ready-to-use ref for every style, so you never have to construct one.

Why refs are ids, not names

A style’s name is not a reference. Names aren’t unique — two styles can share one, yours and someone else’s — and a name changes the moment you rename the style, which would silently repoint every ref that used it. Ids don’t drift, so a ref you save today still means the same style next month.

That’s why you copy a ref rather than type one. Search results, list_my_styles, and GET /me/styles all hand you a ready-to-use ref; a style’s URL contains one; and the ComfyUI Search styles… picker fills it in for you.

styleref:// URIs address MCP resources, not styles — a separate mechanism from refs. See Resources & prompts.

Visibility

Every style has one of three visibility levels:

• Private — only you can see it.
• Unlisted — reachable by anyone with the /share/{slug} link, but not listed in the gallery.
• Public — listed in the gallery and indexable.

Activating a link or publishing to the gallery runs an automated moderation pass. See Gallery, sharing & remixing.

Extraction & credits

Extraction is StyleRef’s AI analysis that derives a structured style from a source — text, a named reference (like “Bauhaus”), an image, or a document. On the Free plan, extraction and generation spend credits (◍), which refill monthly; Pro removes the limits and runs a deeper AI tier. See Plans & limits.

STYLE.md

STYLE.md is a per-project style contract file. You compile a style to the stylemd format, write it to STYLE.md in a repo root, and reference it from AGENTS.md so coding agents apply the style. It’s one of the six formats, given a filename and a convention. See the STYLE.md section.

Next steps

• Create a style — build a spec on the Style Board.
• Use your style in AI tools — apply a format per tool.
• Overview — choosing a surface — MCP, REST, CLI, or STYLE.md.