0.18.0

Murmuration Writing Companion 0.18.0

Highlights

MWC 0.18.0 makes editing and navigation noticeably faster in large manuscripts, connects manuscript context more coherently with Story World, renders manuscript chat itself, makes author Help easy to find, and introduces a safer self-configuring Git vault backup.

Writing and manuscript workflow

• Long Scenes stay more responsive because ordinary keystrokes perform less companion work.
• Chapter Context now presents resolved POV and Scene Location as semantic Story World links without exposing raw wikilinks or paths.
• Selecting a recognised Story World Location keeps location as the sole authored Scene property and derives World Context without duplicating it into world_context.
• Continuity Review keeps persisted findings inspectable and now presents the correct action for findings already marked Intentional.

Story World

• The focused Graph gains an evidence-based temporal mode for exploring what changes, when it changes, and what a reader or entity can know.
• References have a dedicated Navigator category, local citation/DOI import and reusable vault- or Book-scoped projections.
• Newly authored unresolved manuscript links can create the appropriate Story World entity type with explicit provenance and collision safeguards.
• MWC-owned context, impact, inspector and selection surfaces consistently show clean semantic names and resolved navigation.

Performance

MWC performs less work on ordinary keystrokes, behaves better in long Scenes, and reuses settled manuscript and Story World projections across navigation and review surfaces. Startup and runtime avoid duplicated work, while the production bundle is minified and kept within an enforced release budget.

Manuscript chat

MWC now renders canonical manuscript chat blocks itself; the external Chat View plugin is no longer required. Chat bodies support Markdown, wikilinks and local embedded images while retaining the same authored block syntax. Arbitrary transclusion and unrelated plugin rendering inside chat bodies are not implied.

Help

Task-oriented author Help and detailed property/reference material are available through:

• Command Palette → Open Help
• Settings → Murmuration Writing Companion → Help → Open Help

Vault backup

Desktop Linux and Windows authors can back up a Git-managed vault without maintaining a Bash script. MWC detects the current vault repository and branch, selects origin or the sole remote automatically, and lets you choose when several non-origin remotes are available. Check backup configuration verifies readiness before backup.

MWC uses the machine's existing Git authentication and never stores credentials. It will not install Git, create accounts or remote repositories, create SSH keys, or manage credentials. For safety it refuses automatic pull, merge, rebase, branch switching, force-push and conflict resolution; remote-ahead or divergent histories must be resolved with Git outside MWC. Existing vault-local backup scripts remain untouched.

Fixed

• Continuity Review no longer shows an active Mark intentional action for an already-Intentional finding; the existing Return to unresolved action is shown instead.

Upgrade

For a manual upgrade, replace all three plugin files together:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

0.17.1

Murmuration Writing Companion 0.17.1

This patch restores the no-write clean-start contract introduced in V2.

Fixed

• Opening the plugin in a clean vault no longer creates an empty .murmuration/writing-companion/editorial-data.json.
• Read-only startup, Project Readiness, Writing Companion, manuscript and Story World views remain storage-free.
• Editorial storage is created only after the first genuine editorial mutation.
• Existing storage loading, migration, recovery and save behaviour remain unchanged.

For a manual upgrade, replace all three plugin files together:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

0.17.0

Murmuration Writing Companion 0.17.0 — V2

Version 0.17.0 is the V2 release of Murmuration Writing Companion.

V2 brings manuscript preparation, project readiness, continuity review, Story World analysis, references, visual graphs and safer editorial storage into one connected Obsidian workflow.

Your manuscript, Story World and structural metadata remain ordinary Markdown in your own vault.

Highlights

Understand the project before changing it

Project Readiness inspects the vault and explains whether each Book is ready, can be prepared, or contains a structural conflict.

Opening readiness is read-only. Murmuration Writing Companion does not create editorial storage merely because the plugin or a view has been opened.

Benefit: understand what the plugin has found before allowing it to make changes.

Prepare an existing manuscript safely

The preparation workflow recognises existing Book, Part and Scene structures, previews every proposed metadata change and converts supported legacy ordering into authoritative distributed ordering.

Preparation now includes a clearly labelled immediate Undo action.

Undo restores the original Markdown exactly, including absent properties, formatting and line endings.

Benefit: bring an established manuscript under structured management without rebuilding it or losing control of the source files.

Navigate Books, Parts and Scenes

The Manuscript Navigator presents the authoritative reading order for:

• Books;
• Parts;
• Scenes within Parts;
• Scenes placed directly beneath a Book.

It also supports safe reordering, structural diagnostics, title and filename alignment, and conservative removal of empty Books and Parts.

Benefit: manage a long manuscript without relying on filename prefixes, folder order or memory.

Build a connected Story World

The Story World Navigator and Entity Inspector support:

• Characters and intelligences;
• Locations;
• Organisations;
• Technologies;
• Events;
• References;
• Other entities and supporting models.

Relationships remain explicit authored Markdown and can be added, edited, superseded or removed through previewed workflows.

Benefit: keep the people, places, institutions, technologies and sources behind a complex story consistent.

Review continuity with evidence

Continuity Review and Story World Review identify issues including:

• broken or unresolved references;
• malformed relationships;
• chronology conflicts;
• missing context;
• classification problems;
• lookup collisions;
• provenance issues.

Observations retain the supporting evidence needed to judge whether a finding is a genuine problem.

Benefit: find continuity errors before publication without surrendering editorial judgement to the software.

Explore the Story World visually

The Story World Graph presents:

• explicit relationships;
• event and participant links;
• manuscript-provenance edges;
• entity-type shapes;
• event chevrons;
• provisional status styling;
• bounded traversal and density controls.

Benefit: understand how the fictional world fits together and trace each connection back to its manuscript source.

Track chronology and manuscript impact

Dated Events and Scenes can be examined through chronology, event–scene mapping and entity-impact views.

Benefit: detect impossible sequences, unexplained gaps, premature references and entities that disappear from the manuscript without resolution.

Manage references and research provenance

Reference entities support author, title, journal, publisher, publication details and links, together with associations to manuscript Scenes and Story World material.

Benefit: keep research evidence connected to the writing it informs.

Generate a printable entity index

The Entity Index report can cover a selected Book or the whole vault, with category filters, canonical entity names and links to relevant Scenes.

Benefit: create an editorial reference document directly from the Story World.

Editorial data and storage safety

Manuscript structure, chapter properties, Story World entities, relationships, event times and references remain authoritative Markdown.

Portable editorial information is stored separately in:

.murmuration/writing-companion/editorial-data.json

V2 adds:

• no-write clean startup;
• atomic storage updates;
• exact state restoration after save failures;
• actionable malformed-storage diagnostics;
• protection against unsupported newer schemas;
• migration from previous storage formats;
• backup and recovery safeguards.

Validation

V2 was validated through automated and interactive procedures covering:

• clean installation;
• same-build reinstall;
• upgrade from the public 0.16.0 release;
• existing-manuscript preparation;
• exact immediate Undo;
• stale-preview rejection;
• forced-write rollback;
• editorial storage failure and retry;
• malformed and newer-schema storage protection;
• real manuscript migration and Undo;
• Linux and Windows Obsidian environments.

Installation and upgrade

This release requires Obsidian 1.5.0 or later.

For a manual installation or upgrade, replace all three plugin files together:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

Place them in:

<Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/murmuration-writing-companion/

Restart or reload Obsidian, then enable Murmuration Writing Companion.

Always use the three files published together with the 0.17.0 release.

Documentation and examples

The repository includes:

• a V2 onboarding guide;
• command reference;
• troubleshooting and recovery guidance;
• prepared and migration example vaults;
• release-validation procedures;
• onboarding screenshots.

For the full technical change list, see the changelog. The tagged 0.17.0 changelog identifies V2 manuscript onboarding and preparation, exact Undo, Project Readiness, expanded Story World workflows, and validated Linux and Windows support.

0.16.0

Murmuration Writing Companion 0.16.0

Version 0.16.0 brings the complete author workflow into one connected Obsidian workspace.

Start in Manuscript to choose a book, review its structure, open scenes and safely reorder parts or scenes. Continue chapter review in the Writing Companion, where Chapter Context, book and editorial progress, notes and annotations stay close to the manuscript. Move into the Story World Navigator to browse or create entities and supporting models, then use the Entity Inspector to review identity, status, event time and author-maintained relationships. Open the Story World Timeline to see chronology or the event–scene map and navigate between events, their sources and manuscript scenes.

Highlights

• Guided manuscript ordering supports drag-and-drop, keyboard and menu moves, structural validation and Undo.
• Prose-first Story World authoring can offer explicit character, event or relationship creation without treating every link as canon.
• Entity creation and relationship add, edit, supersede and remove workflows preview changes before writing.
• Event-time editing preserves authored precision and offsets while supporting point, range, approximate and partial dates.
• Chronology and event–scene mapping are derived from explicit Story World event and source Markdown.
• A unified visual system improves hierarchy, keyboard focus, accessible labels and narrow, wide, light and dark presentation.

Authority and storage

Manuscript structure, chapter properties, Story World entities, relationships and event times remain authoritative Markdown. The navigator, inspector, index, chronology, relationship sentences and event–scene map are derived views; opening or browsing them does not move authority into the plugin.

Portable editorial data is separate. Chapter Notes, annotations and editorial workflow history are stored in .murmuration/writing-companion/editorial-data.json, with recovery and chapter rename, delete and restore handling. Local interface preferences remain local to the vault.

Upgrade or install

This release declares Obsidian 1.5.0 as its minimum version.

For a manual install or upgrade, replace all three plugin files together:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

Place them in <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/murmuration-writing-companion/, restart or reload Obsidian, then enable Murmuration Writing Companion. A clean installation should use only the files published with the 0.16.0 release.

0.13.0

Murmuration Writing Companion 0.13.0

This release turns the Companion into a durable chapter-editing workspace rather than a temporary sidebar.

Highlights

• Portable editorial data — Chapter Notes, annotations and editorial-pass history now live in .murmuration/writing-companion/editorial-data.json, with migration, atomic writes, backup recovery and safe chapter delete/restore handling.
• Editable Chapter Context — Title, POV, story date, chapter status, current editorial pass and change summary can be edited directly while Markdown frontmatter remains authoritative.
• Editorial-pass workflow — Chapters have an independent seven-stage completion checklist with retained completion/reopen history.
• Progressive disclosure — Chapter Context, Editorial Passes and Chapter Notes collapse independently, remember their layout locally per vault, and leave Annotations prominent.
• Safer delivery — The project now has TypeScript regression tests and a GitHub Actions build-and-test gate.

Compatibility

• Obsidian 1.5.0 or later.
• Designed to work across Obsidian desktop platforms. Linux is the primary development environment; Windows is included in the 0.13.0 smoke-test checklist.

Installable files

Attach these files to the GitHub release:

• main.js
• manifest.json
• styles.css

For a manual installation, place all three files in:

<Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/murmuration-writing-companion/

Then enable Murmuration Writing Companion in Obsidian's Community plugins settings.

Data note

Editorial content may contain unpublished manuscript material. The portable .murmuration data can be backed up or shared with the vault, but authors should exclude it from public repositories when those notes are private.