select-book

name	select-book
description	Resolve a registered book from books.yaml and load its law before doing any book work.

select-book

Load this skill whenever a session is about to do work on a book: drafting, editing, planning, interviewing, publishing, or status review.

Steps

1. Read books.yaml at the BookWriter repo root. It maps slugs to absolute data paths:

books:
  - slug: example-slug
    title: Example Title
    path: /absolute/path/to/book/folder

2. Identify the target book.

   • If the operator named it (by slug, title, or subject), match against the registry.
   • If exactly one book exists and none was named, confirm it.
   • If several exist and none was named, ask.

3. Read the book's files in this order:

   1. <path>/rules.md — the book's law. It governs everything below.
   2. <path>/structure.md — the frozen chapter spine.
   3. <path>/status-tracker.md — current state + next action per unit.
   4. If working a specific unit: its chapters/<NN-slug>/plan.md.

4. State the active unit (first non-Final in tracker order), its current status, and the next action from the tracker. Then do only that next action unless redirected.

Rules

• The engine's AGENTS.md law always applies on top of the book's rules.md; where they conflict, rules.md wins on book-specific matters and AGENTS.md wins on process.
• Never modify another book's folder while working this one.
• Registry maintenance (adding/moving books) belongs to new-book, not here.