Every workshop runs on paperwork nobody frames: the parts list. Furniture builders do not re-imagine a chair at every order; they read the spec. AI characters deserve the same treatment, because the alternative — re-describing her from memory at every session — guarantees drift. Memory edits. The spec does not.
The fields on the list
A working parts list has five fields, always in the same order. Age, stated as a number and always 25 or over. Hair: colour, length, and the one style she defaults to. Build, in two or three words at most. Face: one or two durable details — defined brows, a small mole, green eyes. And a signature: the hoop earrings, the ring, the detail that survives a tight crop and tells a follower it is her before the face fully loads.
Two habits keep the list honest. First, every field is phrased as a measurable fact, not a compliment: “deep espresso-brown hair in a high twisted topknot” can be built; “gorgeous hair” is an opinion the model re-interprets at every job. Second, the list is versioned. When the character deliberately changes — a new hairstyle arc, a new signature — the list gets a version number and a date, so last season’s sets stay reproducible and this season’s drift is a decision, not an accident.
Building from the list
Production becomes assembly. The list is pasted at the top of every prompt, untouched; the scene line below it — wardrobe, set, light, pose — is the only part allowed to change. Build a batch against one setting, inspect against the list, and let only the frames that match it travel onward to refits, swaps and finishing. When a frame comes back off-character, the fault is findable in seconds: either a scene line contradicted a field, or a field was too vague to build from. Both fixes are clerical.
What the list cannot do
It cannot decide the character for you. If the fields are adjectives — stunning, perfect, flawless — there is nothing to assemble. Decide the woman on paper first. The parts list is not where the creativity happens; it is where the creativity is kept.