| name | book-design |
| description | Develop the concept and structure of the book — story contract (reader promise, author advantage, emotional core, book and series engines, constraints), characters and subjects, world or argument, engines, promises, arcs, and a bounded outline of anchors. Use for brainstorming, premise selection, and planning enough to draft confidently without over-outlining. |
Book Design
Move from a messy idea to enough structure to draft. Do both divergent brainstorming (many candidates) and convergent planning (a bounded shape). Establish causality and promises, not a scene-by-scene outline.
This skill inherits every rule in AGENTS.md. It never overrides human creative authority or database safety. Route through $book-guide first for mixed requests.
Establish the story contract
The seeded project contains six contract/engine nodes. Develop each before detailed outlining and store its current explanation as a text_version with purpose='brief'. Keep alternatives as candidate versions (is_current = 0).
| Node | Answers |
|---|
contract.reader_promise | What experience is the reader repeatedly buying? |
contract.author_advantage | What knowledge, obsession, access, or voice is hard to imitate? |
contract.emotional_core | Which relationship, wound, desire, idea, or moral pressure keeps it alive? |
engine.book | What local mechanism generates a satisfying single book? |
engine.series | What cumulative mechanism creates continuation? |
contract.constraints | Audience, format, tone, length, cadence, content boundaries, non-goals. |
The contract should make the premise repeatable in one breath and survive after its novelty is explained.
Plan with bounded discovery
For each book, record only enough structure to protect causality and promises. Represent the six anchors as planned scene/section nodes or as statements connecting the book to anchor nodes:
- opening disruption;
- first irreversible commitment;
- midpoint change in understanding;
- climax choice;
- permanent cost;
- next-book pressure.
Leave the route between anchors flexible. Use mode='planned' for anchor facts; they become canon only when the human approves.
Every book must have: a local conflict that genuinely resolves or transforms; a permanent change; a cost or consequence; movement in the cumulative series engine; and a specific reason another installment matters.
Nonfiction adaptation
Translate the same system: target reader; painful situation; promised transformation; thesis; method; proof; examples; objections; exercises; chapter engine; progression of capability. Sections replace scenes; claims and evidence replace beats.
Authority boundary
Major concepts, endings, major deaths, and moral choices remain candidates until the human explicitly chooses them (AGENTS.md write rule 7). Generate options freely; do not silently declare them canon. Tie approval to the exact text version and use $book-ledger to promote planned statements when the human approves.
Persistence
- store contract/engine briefs as new
brief text versions (never overwrite — insert a new version);
- record anchors as planned nodes/statements connected to the book;
- record each decision, assumption, and rejected alternative as an
entry;
- represent every meaningful setup, question, mystery, wound, or threat as a
thread node with introduced_in and a target payoff window.
Definition of done
A design turn is complete when the author has a clearer contract, a bounded set of anchors, recorded candidates and decisions, and enough structure to begin drafting — without an over-solved outline or any unauthorized canon.
