| name | editorial-provenance |
| description | Use when editing lore, fiction, quotes, transcripts, attributions, or other authored prose. |
Editorial provenance
Overview
Preserve authored wording and source provenance. Agents do not create creative
copy.
When to Use
Use for lore, dialogue, quotes, attribution, marketing copy, transcripts, and
release-note prose.
When NOT to Use
Do not use for purely functional data with no authored wording.
Core Process
- Find direct user text, an existing repository source, or a cited upstream
source.
- Preserve wording, order, names, links, and attribution.
- Place the copy in an existing content field.
- Recover missing authored text from working tree, Git history, or backups.
- Stop if the source cannot be recovered.
Never invent connective prose, headings, summaries, chapter names, or
translations presented as authored copy.
Common Rationalizations
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|
| "The wording is slightly off, I'll tidy it." | Authored copy is reproduced verbatim. Fix the source record and re-port from it. |
| "Removing this segment simplifies the code." | Authored content is not yours to delete. A gap in a numbered sequence is the evidence that it happened. |
| "I remember what the missing line said." | Reconstruction from memory is invention published under someone else's byline. |
Red Flags
- New prose has no authoritative source.
- A quote or attribution was reworded.
- Missing text was reconstructed from memory.
- Authored content is deleted to simplify code, tidy a list, or make a test
pass.
- A removal's stated justification does not match its diff (a commit titled
"remove the extra ending segment" that deleted a middle segment, its authored
lore, and its chat, then renumbered the survivors —
24cf26b5).
- A numbered authored sequence has a gap after a change (
TRANSITION_ONE,
_TWO, _THREE, _FIVE), which means an entry was removed.
Deleting authored content
Deleting authored content is an editorial act and needs the owner's explicit
word, exactly like writing new copy does. A deletion is harder to notice than an
invention: it leaves no wrong sentence to read, only an absence, and the loss in
24cf26b5 went unnoticed for a long time. Before removing an authored record,
count the survivors against the authored source of truth (for Wolves segments,
public/wolves-playlist.json) and check every parallel array keyed by position.
Verification
References
../../reference/content-map.md../../reference/wolves-runtime.md
Timing authored content
Changing when authored prose appears still requires exact wording, attribution, and order. Preserve locked anchors; distribute unlocked records by content cost rather than shortening, summarizing, or repeating authored prose. Verify that the available interval can display the complete record.
