v2.2.0 LTS - A Compete Workspace

Welcome to Soundingboard 2.2.0 (Long-Term Support)

Soundingboard 2.2.0 establishes a fully stable, robust architectural foundation for long-term production. This release bridges the gap between conversational prompt instructions and deterministic technical guarantees:

"The author is the novelist; the system bends to the author, never the author to the system."
"The human author always holds the red pen. The AI never unilaterally rewrites author prose."

In v2.2, this tenet moves from an advisory request into a mechanically enforced, unbypasable invariant.

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What's New in v2.2.0

1. Mechanical Red Pen Enforcement Engine (scripts/redpen.js)

• The Bracket Invariant: The engine strips all [...] bracket tags from both old and new text. If the remaining author words are identical, the edit is recognized as an advisory Bracket Method diagnostic; if any author words are modified, added outside brackets, or deleted, the edit is intercepted.
• Mode Calibration (preferences.md):
  • Solo Mode: All edits to protected paths (manuscript/, writers_room/, stages/03_drafting/output/chapters/, preferences.md) prompt the author for confirmation (ask).
  • Hybrid Mode: Bracket-only diagnostic suggestions pass automatically (allow); word changes prompt for approval (ask).
  • Generative Mode: Bracket edits and new prose files pass automatically (allow); modifying existing author prose prompts for approval (ask).
• Frontmatter Discrimination: Cleanly separates YAML frontmatter metadata updates from guarded markdown body prose.
• Shell Loophole Defense: Blocks sneaky shell rewriting utilities (sed, echo >, mv, destructive redirection) and chained commands targeting protected paths.
• CLI Audit: node scripts/soundingboard.js redpen [--since <ref>] performs post-hoc Git diff audits to verify zero unbracketed prose changes.

2. Socratic Discovery Playbook #24 (/dig)

• Red Pen for Ideas: Helps authors discover unformed thoughts, thin motives, and thematic seams without the AI smuggling synthetic plot points or trope slop into the story.
• Core Contract:
  1. One question per turn.
  2. Zero smuggled ideas (no events, backstories, motives, or themes not stated by the author).
  3. The Seam Dig (probing gaps between atomics and author statements).
  4. The Meaning Ladder (Surface $\to$ Cause $\to$ Stakes $\to$ Meaning).
  5. Verbatim capture to writers_room/notes/dig-<target>-<date>.md.
• Deterministic Context Packer: node scripts/soundingboard.js pack dig [target] assembles target atomics, scene cards, and canon behind the scenes.

3. In-Repo Antigravity Integration (.agents/)

• Zero-Friction Setup: The entire studio configuration lives in the repository under .agents/. Authors simply open the project and trust the folder—no manual installation of global skills or rules required.
• In-Repo Rules: .agents/rules/agents_rule.md ensures AGENTS.md governs every conversation turn.
• Modern Skills as Slash Commands: All 19 skills (including /dig, /unstuck, /dialogue-heat, /sensory-bloom) are natively registered in .agents/skills/ as first-class slash commands and semantic agent tools.
• Lifecycle Hook Integration: .agents/hooks.json maps PreToolUse on write_to_file, replace_file_content, and run_command directly to scripts/redpen.js hook, and Stop to scripts/capture.js stop.
• Multi-Harness Skill Sync: node scripts/soundingboard.js sync-skills keeps .claude/skills and .agents/skills in perfect lockstep.

4. Literary Conversation Provenance Engine (scripts/capture.js)

• First-Class Provenance: Turns ephemeral agent chats into a tamper-evident, permanent part of the book's creation record.
• High-Contrast Visual Markdown:
  • Author: Flush-left ### ✍️ Author · HH:MM in high-contrast clean prose.
  • Agent: Indented blockquote > ### 🤖 Concierge · HH:MM.
  • Red Pen Audits: Docked badges > 🛡️ **Red Pen Event:** ....
• Publisher & Copyright Ready: Transcripts are automatically scrubbed of API keys, tokens, emails, and internal model thinking chains.
• Ledger Registry: Tracks every session in conversations/INDEX.md with SHA-256 integrity hashes to detect post-hoc tampering.

5. Harness Conformance Profile & 5-Minute Smoke Test

• Conformance Profile: docs/harnesses/harness-profile.md defines the 6 core capabilities required of any AI harness, eliminating fragile per-tool maintenance.
• Context Tax Guidelines: Explicit instructions for disabling idle MCPs (such as 15k-token browser servers) to preserve token budgets.
• Automated Smoke Test: tests/test_smoke.js verifies CLI execution, Red Pen gating, shell defenses, Socratic packing, and session capture in under 5 minutes.

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Automated Verification & Stability

• Test Suite: 100% pass rate across 101 test scenarios (including 27 Red Pen invariant tests, 21 Conversation Provenance tests, 8 Smoke tests, and all 98 legacy regression tests).
• Dependencies: Zero external runtime dependencies (100% pure Node.js $\ge$ 18.0.0).

Soundingboard v2.1.0 — The Cosmos & The Sovereign Author

Soundingboard v2.1.0 Release Notes

Release Date: September 17, 2026
Codename: The Cosmos & The Sovereign Author
Compatibility: Node.js $\ge$ 18.0.0 (Zero external runtime dependencies)

---

Welcome to Soundingboard 2.1.0

Soundingboard 2.1.0 builds directly on the foundations of 2.0, introducing Scale-Adaptive Complexity ("From Napkin to Universe"), deep Tactical Onomastics, a codified Git Creative History Layer (Playbook #21), and expanding the craft library to 127 standardized Open Knowledge Format (OKF) modules.

This release solidifies the core philosophy:

The author is the novelist; the system bends to the author, never the author to the system.
The human author always holds the red pen. The AI never unilaterally rewrites author prose.

---

What's New in v2.1.0

1. Scale-Adaptive Complexity ("From Napkin to Universe")

Abstraction is a complexity valve, not a publishing contract. A standalone epic needs deep cosmological scaffolding even without sequels; a lean novella needs minimal ceremony. Soundingboard 2.1.0 introduces four progressive, non-prescriptive tiers:

• Tier 0 (The Napkin): The writers_room/ sanctuary (notes/, beats/, drafts/, inputs/). Protected by an Immunity Shield that blocks background audits and CI, with on-demand tool invitation.
• Tier 1 (The Atomic Story): Standalone novel production in stages/ and manuscript/ with local canon.md and threads.md (< 4,000 tokens).
• Tier 2 (The Institutional Canvas): Multi-volume continuity in series/ (series_canon.md, romance heat ladder, cross-book lore debt).
• Tier 3 (The Cosmos Universe Canvas): Deep worldbuilding in world/ governed by world/CONTEXT.md across 6 ICM semantic domains:
  • cosmology/ — Metaphysics, magic systems, deities, ontological laws.
  • chronology/ — Deep epochal timelines, calendar mechanics, historical eras.
  • geography/ — Topography, climates, trade routes, settlement networks.
  • cultures/ — Social structures, languages, castes, taboos, rituals.
  • economy/ — Currencies, production chains, resource scarcity, contraband.
  • factions/ — Political webs, dynastic houses, sworn guilds, insurgencies.
• Dynamic Context Isolation: Scene packs retrieve only the specific domain triggered by the active scene card (< 6,000 tokens total), never dumping the entire cosmos into prompt memory.

2. The Five Foundational Principles of Authorial Sovereignty

1. Authorial Truth is Absolute: An explicit author statement overrules all inferences, schemas, and prior drafts.
2. Explicit Uncertainty > Premature Precision: Ambiguities are quarantined as open choices [Option A | Option B]; never plugged with synthetic hallucinations.
3. Inference is Never Canon: Inferred facts remain tagged [unverified] until explicitly affirmed by the author.
4. Dramatic Consequences are Invitations: Ripple effects and frictions are presented as creative prompts, never mandatory constraints.
5. Intentional Exceptions are Valid: Facts tagged [author exception] represent deliberate narrative sovereignty (miracles, anomalies, rule-breaks) and are never flagged as defects.

3. Tactical Onomastics & Naming Engine (Playbook #22, soundingboard name)

• Eliminates "token-ether naming" (smooth, repetitive AI naming defaults like Lyra, Elara, Kaelen, Silas).
• Grounded in phonetic acoustic geometry (Bouba/Kiki principle), caste stratification, linguistic erosion, and toponymic sediment.
• CLI generator:

  node scripts/soundingboard.js name --culture=nordic --target=character --caste=labor
  node scripts/soundingboard.js name --culture=courtly --target=house

4. Tactical Worldbuilding & World Codex (Playbook #23)

• Fast-path narrative mechanics vs. deep structural codex.
• Assembles deterministic context packs for lore exploration via node scripts/soundingboard.js pack world [topic].

5. Creative History & Git as Evolution Layer (Playbook #21)

• Soundingboard files contain the meaning. Git records the evolution.
• Git sits as an open, non-proprietary historical layer over the file-first workspace.
• Author Sovereignty: Checkpoint commits and pushes are created only when authorized by the author.
• Separation of Concerns: Technical integrity (malformed syntax, broken links) prevents repo corruption, while creative uncertainty (pacing, tells, character motivations) never blocks commits or pushes.
• CLI commands: soundingboard git status, checkpoint, verify, and push-check.

6. Expanded Genre Continuity Trackers & Multi-Tier Threads

• Legal Thriller / Procedural: Forensic chain of custody, witness impeachment, and statutory motions (tracker_investigation_evidence.template.md).
• Epic Fantasy / Space Opera: Multi-faction power shifts, diplomatic leverage, and defection logs (tracker_faction_influence.template.md).
• Heist / Tactical Op: 5-phase synchronized clock, security blueprints, and double-bluff architecture (tracker_heist_phases.template.md).
• Multi-Tier Subplot Threads: Narrative threads now support cascading scopes: Book-Local, Series-Level, and World-Level.

7. 127 Standardized OKF Craft Modules

• Expanded from 118 to 127 fully validated craft cards in _config/okf_craft/.
• New modules include:
  • scale_adaptive_architecture_and_authorial_sovereignty.md (Card #120)
  • tactical_onomastics_and_world_naming_systems.md
  • structural_blueprint_rosetta_stone.md (Cross-framework translation table)
  • syntactic_cadence_dialects_and_authorial_cadence.md (Hemingway staccato, Faulkner periods, McCarthy polysyndeton)
  • dynastic_succession_and_contested_lineage_politics.md
  • sympathetic_institutional_antagonism_and_moral_justification.md
  • research_epistemic_status_and_uncertainty_management.md
• 100% compliant with strict token budgets and OKF specification.

8. Architectural & CI Harmonization

• All documentation (README.md, SOUNDINGBOARD_OVERVIEW.md, docs/architecture.md, docs/craft_encyclopedia.md, AGENTS.md) unified under consistent terminology.
• CI workflow badge verified and pointed to richardelder2/Soundingboard/actions.
• Full test suite passing at 98/98 tests (100% pass rate).

Soundingboard v2.0.0 Release: The Sovereign Author

Soundingboard v2.0.0 Release Notes

Release Date: September 15, 2026
Codename: The Sovereign Author
Compatibility: Node.js $\ge$ 18.0.0 (Zero external runtime dependencies)

---

Welcome to Soundingboard 2.0

Soundingboard 2.0 is a complete architectural and philosophical reimagining of the novel engineering console.

Most writing tools and AI assistants suffer from two fatal flaws: they try to force novelists into rigid, linear conveyor belts, and they treat AI as a "ghostwriter" that flattens prose, homogenizes voice, and executes black-box rewrites.

Soundingboard 2.0 inverts this relationship completely.

The author is the novelist. The system bends to the author, never the author to the system.
The human author always holds the red pen. The AI never unilaterally rewrites author prose.

Whether you draft in Obsidian, Scrivener, Microsoft Word, iA Writer, or raw markdown, Soundingboard serves as your Executive Novel Assistant, Master Librarian, Continuity Sentry, and Diagnostic Partner—protecting your voice, guarding your continuity, and organizing your manuscript at your pace.

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Major Highlights & New Features

1. The Writer's Room & Inviolable Immunity Shield (writers_room/)

• Creative Sandbox: A dedicated space partitioned into writers_room/notes/, writers_room/beats/, writers_room/drafts/, and writers_room/inputs/.
• The Immunity Shield: Automated linters, diagnostic scans, continuity checkers, and test runners strictly ignore writers_room/. You can brainstorm half-formed ideas, jot bullet fragments, and draft messy first takes without automated nag screens or red ink.
• On-Demand Assistance: Linters and diagnostics only inspect raw drafts when you explicitly invoke them by file path.

2. Scene-Atomic Architecture & Flexible Chapter Playlists

• The Scene as Dramatic Quantum: All graduated scenes live in a flat, unified pool (manuscript/scenes/sc-XXXX.md). You can write your climax first, jump to an argument in Act II, or draft standalone vignettes.
• Floating & Unassigned Scenes: Scenes do not require immediate chapter assignment. Unassigned scenes remain fully indexed, audited, and valid in your story model.
• Chapter Assembly Playlists (manuscript/chapters/ch-XX.md): Chapters are decoupled from file hierarchies. A chapter is a flexible playlist referencing scenes in reading order, complete with an authored break_rationale.
• Lossless Derived Caching: manuscript.json is a purely derived cache rebuilt losslessly via node scripts/soundingboard.js reindex. Markdown files remain the sole ground truth.

3. Multi-Pathway Frontmatter Assistance & Scene Graduation (Playbook #19)

• Zero Frontmatter Overhead: Drafting in the Writer's Room requires zero YAML.
• Three Graduation Pathways: When you are ready to graduate a draft to the manuscript pool:
  • Path 1 (AI Inference): The assistant reads your draft and proposes POV, location, value shifts, and five commandments for your approval.
  • Path 2 (Author Scaffold): The assistant injects a clean frontmatter template with in-world suggestions from your bible and threads commented inline.
  • Path 3 (Conversational Discovery): The assistant interviews you in chat about the turning point and dramatic stakes, then generates the block.
• CLI Graduation: Run node scripts/soundingboard.js graduate <draft-path> to automatically assign a canonical sc-XXXX ID, index the scene, and harvest new proper nouns into canon.md.

4. The Bracket Method & The Linter Bracket Workflow (Playbooks #18 & #20)

• Elimination of Black-Box Rewrites: The assistant will never perform silent or wholesale rewrites of your prose to clear a linter warning or satisfy an audit.
• The Bracket Workflow: Stylistic diagnostics, AI tell scans, and rhythm variance checks quarantine suggestions in bracketed annotations ([AI-TELL: ...], [CADENCE: ...]) alongside your verbatim prose, providing 3 clear choices:
  1. Cut the friction.
  2. Rephrase using 2–3 voice-preserving options.
  3. Keep as intentional author voice.

5. Root Author Preferences Profile (preferences.md)

• A centralized profile at workspace root establishing your working rhythm:
  • working_mode: solo (100% human prose; AI is Librarian/Sentry), hybrid (collaborative beat brainstorms), or agentic (explicit on-demand drafting).
  • primary_editor: obsidian, word, scrivener, ia_writer, or any.
  • ai_prose_generation: "never" (default for solo), "on_demand", or "collaborative".
  • editorial_style: "bracket_options", "coaching_notes", or "minimalist".
  • tell_tolerance: strict, moderate, or permissive.

6. Sub-500ms Diagnostics & Narrative Authenticity Engine

• Scene-Scoped Scans (soundingboard audit): Analyzes scenes in milliseconds for lexical tell density (normalized per 1,000 words), sentence rhythm variance (preventing monotone pacing), and emotional mode progression.
• Chapter-Scoped Audits (soundingboard chapter-audit): Evaluates multi-scene cadence shifts and tests the efficacy of chapter breaks against the authored break_rationale.
• Commandments Advisory Audit (soundingboard commandments): Advises on Shawn Coyne's 5 Commandments of Storytelling (Inciting Incident, Progressive Complication, Crisis Question, Climax, Resolution).
• Voice Anchors: Enforces same-POV voice anchor resolution so scene tone matches established character perspectives.

7. Thread Diagnostics & Interactive Lane Visualizer

• Subplot Health (soundingboard threads): Tracks character arcs, mystery spines, and relationship subplots.
• Orphan Guard: Detects and flags scenes that lack narrative thread linkage.
• Dormancy Tracker: Monitors cumulative word counts between thread appearances to eliminate forgotten subplots.
• Visualizer (Terminal + HTML): Generates instant ASCII thread timelines in the terminal and a zero-dependency, interactive HTML dashboard (thread_lanes.html) with SVG trajectory lanes and multi-thread braid points.

8. Cascading Canon 2.0 & Decision Queues (soundingboard canon)

• Epistemic Provenance Tracking: Links world facts to the exact scene that establishes them.
• Spoiler Threshold Guard: Suppresses future lore when drafting or auditing earlier scenes.
• Three Epistemic Gap Queues:
  • Orphaned Facts Queue: Identifies canon entries whose establishing scene was cut.
  • Unbound Entities Queue: Detects recurring proper nouns in prose not yet recorded in canon.
  • Unverified Queue: Tracks draft-harvested entities pending author verification.

9. Multi-Tier Manuscript Publishing Compiler (soundingboard compile)

• Flexible Assembler: Compiles chapter playlists and flat scenes into clean, publication-grade output.
• Configurable Scene Dividers: Supports customizable break glyphs (--break="***", --break=blank, --break=line, --break="~ ~ ~").
• Multi-Format Export: Emits semantic, typographically styled HTML out of the box, with automated EPUB and Microsoft Word (.docx) exports via Pandoc.
• Fail-Loud Verification: Instantly halts with descriptive errors if a referenced scene is missing from disk.

10. Soundingboard Model Health Console & Doctor

• Health Console (soundingboard status): Real-time telemetry dashboard covering chapter inventories, missing rationales, null value shifts, provisional voice anchors, and diagnostic SHA-256 staleness.
• Concierge Auto-Healing (soundingboard doctor --fix): Verifies Node environment, path tracking, directory structures, and git health backstage.
• Cold-Start Briefing (soundingboard brief): Dense context packet providing immediate orientation for AI craft partners without context bloat.

11. OKF Craft Card Knowledge Base

• 118 Standardized Craft Modules: Comprehensive craft wisdom spanning Story Grid, Save the Cat!, Truby, and Sanderson.
• Structural Scopes: Categorized into scene, chapter, manuscript, and sentence scopes.
• Instant Search: soundingboard craft search <query> [--scope=...] [--genre=...].

12. Git Playbook & Creative History (soundingboard git, Playbook #21)

• The Sovereign Author Rule: Soundingboard files contain the meaning. Git records the evolution.
• Git as a Transparent Historical Layer: Git is an open historical record over your file-first workspace, never a competing database.
• Author Ownership & Control: Commits and pushes occur only when the author says to or authorizes. The AI never commits or pushes behind your back.
• Author Git Modes (preferences.md): Choose between gentle (default, milestone suggestions with rationale), quiet (no prompts), guided (full diff summaries), and automatic. Remote pushes are separately controlled (ask by default).
• Separation of Technical Integrity from Creative Uncertainty: Malformed YAML, duplicate scene IDs, and broken references warn/block to protect the workspace, while creative critiques (pacing, AI tells, motivations) never block commits or pushes.
• Stable Scene Identity: Moving scenes between chapters alters playlist arrays in manuscript/chapters/ch-XX.md; scene files (manuscript/scenes/sc-XXXX.md) and their YAML context remain unbroken.
• Context Packer & Tooling: Dedicated commands for status (soundingboard git status), integrity check (soundingboard git verify), checkpoints (soundingboard git checkpoint), remote checks (soundingboard git push-check), branch experiment comparisons (soundingboard git compare), and context packing (soundingboard pack git).

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Zero Runtime Dependencies

Soundingboard 2.0 maintains a strict zero runtime dependency standard (`dependencies...

v1.2.0: The Commercial Studio Upgrade

Soundingboard v1.2.0: The Commercial Studio Upgrade

Soundingboard v1.2.0 is a milestone release that elevates Soundingboard from an advanced single-novel drafting framework into a comprehensive, multi-series novel engineering studio.

This release introduces support for 200+ commercial micro-genres, an enterprise 3-tier universe continuity architecture (World -> Series -> Book), dedicated start-up guides for every major AI coding agent harness, an interactive State Road AI Story Console, a commercial publishing launch kit, and narrator-first audiobook acoustic diagnostics.

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What's New in v1.2.0

1. 200+ Commercial Micro-Genre Coverage

A modular 3-tier genre system delivering deep, authentic conventions across fiction without prompt engineering:

• 27 Master Blueprints (setup/): Added 18 new commercial blueprints covering progression fantasy, dark academia, cyberpunk noir, domestic suspense, cozy fantasy, high-stakes political thriller, time-loop mystery, and historical romance.
• 7 Pluggable Trope Packs (setup/trope_packs/): Mix-and-match trope modules (Enemies-to-Lovers, Fair-Play Murder Mystery, Found Family, Grumpy/Sunshine, Heist Crew, Magic Academy, Time Loop).
• 12 Production Genre Bibles (setup/genre_bibles/): Full reader contracts with non-negotiable obligatory-scene ledgers.

2. 3-Tier Multi-Series Universe Continuity Engine

Authors can now construct interconnected shared universes containing multiple independent series:

• Cascading Canon Inheritance: Continuity queries cascade automatically:
  Local Book Canon -> Series Canon -> World Universe Canon
• Zero-Friction Scope Promotion: Upgrade a standalone book into a multi-book series or an entire shared universe with a single command:

  node scripts/soundingboard.js promote --to=series
  node scripts/soundingboard.js promote --to=world

  Includes automated, immutable backups and clean scaffolding.

3. State Road AI Story Console (Interactive Visualizers)

Interactive HTML/SVG dashboards styled in official State Road AI branding (Signal Orange #FF6A00, Charcoal Gray #333333, Cloud White, Light Pavement, and Roadbed Slate):

• Narrative EKG & Pacing Dashboard (visualizer/pacing_ekg.html): Real-time tension graphs, polarity shifts (+ / -), word count distribution, and chapter cards.
• Character & Faction Network Canvas (visualizer/relationship_network.html): Dynamic force-directed network graph visualizing alliances, enmities, romance arcs, and faction power.
• CLI Trigger:

  node scripts/soundingboard.js visualizer        # Build both dashboards
  node scripts/soundingboard.js visualizer ekg    # Build EKG dashboard
  node scripts/soundingboard.js visualizer net    # Build Character Network

4. Major Agent Harness Support & Start-Up Guides

First-class support and start-up guides in docs/harnesses/ tailored to the unique UI quirks, context window management, and strengths of each coding environment:

• Claude Code (docs/harnesses/claude_code_guide.md)
• Google Antigravity / Gemini CLI (docs/harnesses/antigravity_guide.md)
• Cursor & Windsurf IDEs (docs/harnesses/cursor_windsurf_guide.md)
• No-Code Web UIs (ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects, NotebookLM) (docs/harnesses/no_code_web_guide.md)
• Root pointer rules added: .cursorrules, .windsurfrules, and .github/copilot-instructions.md.

5. Publishing & Commercial Marketing Launch Kit (Stage 05)

Everything required to query literary agents and prepare an Amazon store launch:

• 3-Tier Blurb Launch Kit (_config/templates/blurb_launch_kit.template.md):
  • High-Concept Micro-Hooks (1-line ad copy / headlines)
  • 50-word Amazon Above-The-Fold blurb
  • 180-word commercial 3-paragraph back-cover blurb
  • BISAC categories and 7 high-traffic Amazon search keywords
• Literary Agent Query & Synopsis (_config/templates/query_letter.template.md):
  • Standard 1-page query letter
  • Comprehensive 1-page plot synopsis (Setup -> Midpoint -> Crisis -> Resolution)

6. Audiobook Acoustic & Breath Cadence Diagnostic (Stage 04)

Engineered for voice-actor readability and condenser-mic safety before manuscript distribution:

• Breath Hazard Detection: Flags run-on clauses exceeding 32 words without punctuation pauses (commas, dashes, colons).
• Dialogue Attribution Lag: Catches lines exceeding 28 words before identifying the speaker.
• Sibilance Traps: Scans for high concentrations of harsh whistling frequencies (s, sh, ch, z) that overwhelm de-essers.
• Plosive & Tongue Trips: Identifies repeating plosive triads that cause mic pops.
• CLI Trigger:

  node scripts/soundingboard.js audio             # Scan all draft chapters
  node scripts/soundingboard.js audio path/to/ch  # Scan specific chapter

7. Creative Psychology & Author First Aid OKF Cards

3 new Open Knowledge Format craft modules designed for psychological stumbling blocks:

• act_2b_desert_crossing_and_midpoint_slog.md: Mirror shatters and resource asphyxiation to cure midpoint drag.
• editorial_triage_and_beta_feedback_filtering.md: Neil Gaiman heuristic, symptom vs. prescription analysis, and the 3-vote rule.
• kill_your_darlings_salvage_protocol.md: The Graveyard Vault and 10% essence transplantation.

---

Maintenance & Verification

• All 88 Automated Tests Passed: Includes UTF-8 BOM byte elimination across templates, stage packet compilation limits, OKF lint rules, and updater integrity.
• Zero External Dependencies: Pure native ESM Node.js architecture with instant startup.

---

Getting Started / Upgrading

To update an existing Soundingboard workspace:

node scripts/soundingboard.js update

(Your manuscript chapters, character notes, and canon vaults are guaranteed untouched).

To scaffold a new novel project:

node scripts/soundingboard.js init my-new-book --form=novel

Soundingboard v1.1.0

Soundingboard v1.1.0 — The Intelligent Novel Production Studio

Soundingboard v1.1.0 marks the transition from early experimental CLI scripts into a fully unified, agent-native novel engineering studio. This release unifies the product brand, consolidates all tooling under the canonical soundingboard CLI, introduces a complete Discovery Ingestion pipeline for discovery/pantser writers, expands the narrative reference library to 114 OKF craft cards, and deploys 17 deterministic context-packing creative playbooks.

🌟 What's New in v1.1.0

1. Canonical Rebranding & CLI Unification

Canonical Entry Point: Unified the entire CLI and codebase under scripts/soundingboard.js (soundingboard binary).
Backward-Compatibility Shims: Retained lightweight ESM shims for scripts/saga.js and scripts/sb.js (saga and sb binaries) so existing scripts, aliases, and user muscle memory remain intact.

Full Command Reconciliation: Completely reconciled the CLI command references across AGENTS.md and docs/architecture.md against all 21 implemented commands/subcommands (including craft search, timeline, threads, gate, manuscript-report, ingest, and export).

Automated Invocation CI Test: Added Test 18 to the test suite, which recursively scans all markdown files across the repository to verify that 100% of referenced script paths exist, preventing documentation drift.

2. Discovery Ingestion Pipeline & Raw Inputs Vault

Discovery Writer Support (soundingboard ingest <file|dir>): Authors writing outside the IDE (Obsidian, Word, Scrivener) can now drop raw scenes or entire draft folders into the project.

Immutable Vault Archiving: Raw files are automatically snapshotted into inputs/drafts/ with SHA-256 provenance hashes and frontmatter metadata.

Automated Fact Harvesting: Ingestion parses characters and proper nouns directly into canon.md tagged [unverified chN] without interrupting drafting flow.

Discovery Ingest Debrief ("The Writer's Mirror"): Instantiates a structured debriefing playbook analyzing value shifts, polarity, open promises/IOUs, character presence, and 3 creative runways forward.

3. The 17 Agent-Native Creative Playbooks

Legacy terminal wizards have been replaced with token-disciplined mechanical context packers (soundingboard pack ), allowing AI agents to execute structured creative playbooks natively in chat without entering modal readline loops:

Tactical & Scene Craft:

• Getting Unstuck (pack unstuck) — Diagnoses narrative blockages and delivers 3 creative forks with opening prose.
• Dialogue Heat & Escalation (pack heat) — Injects subtext, status play, and avoidance strategies.
• Sensory Bloom (pack bloom) — Applies targeted sensory budgets to thin locations.
• Scene Staging & Hooks (pack scene) — 5 Commandments beat structuring and ending hook variations.
• Causal Plot Calculus (pack causality) — Rewrites episodic "and then" chains into "Therefore / But" causal momentum.

Character & Voice Architecture:

• Character Voice Interview (pack interview) — In-character roleplay generating stylistic voice profiles.
• Character Drop-Testing / WWXDU (pack wwxdu) — High-pressure scenario testing for non-obvious choices.
• Character DNA Mashup (pack dna) — 3-donor character deconstruction ("X meets Y").

Worldbuilding & Theme:

• Lore Brainstorming (pack brainstorm) — Secret/subtext development with active scene demonstration prompts.
• Thematic Resonance Weaver (pack theme) — Weaves recurring motifs without narrator moralizing.

Complete Subplot Engineering Suite:

• Subplot Genesis & Architecture (pack subplot-genesis) — Designs contrasting, thematic counter-weight, and foil threads.
• Subplot Braiding & Thread Freshening (pack subplot-braid) — Prevents thread dormancy across chapters.
• Subplot Collision & Crisis Reversal (pack subplot-collision) — Crashes secondary arcs into the main plot at turning points.
• Subplot Resolution & Loose-End Audit (pack subplot-resolution) — Audits resolution clumping and tracks the Loose-End Ledger.

Editorial Simulation & Stress Testing:

• Blind Reader Simulator (pack blind-reader) — Tests drafts cold with an Emotional EKG graph, Trust Thermometer, and Prediction Ledger.
• Plot Interrogator & Devil's Advocate (pack plot-interrogator) — Cross-examines plot holes, contrivances, and "Why don't they just..." alternatives.
• Discovery Ingest Debrief (pack debrief) — Deep debrief for newly imported raw scenes.

4. Now 114 OKF Modular Craft Guides & Universal Rosetta Stone

• 114 Codified Craft Cards: Complete Open Knowledge Format (OKF) cards in _config/okf_craft/ synthesizing narrative frameworks from Shawn Coyne (Story Grid), John Truby (Anatomy of Story), Brandon Sanderson, K.M. Weiland, and Dwight Swain.
• Universal Narrative Lexicon Rosetta Stone: Automatically translates between author dialects (Save the Cat!, Hero's Journey, Story Grid, etc.) and underlying mechanics.

5. Symptom-Based Craft Search: soundingboard craft search supports natural author symptoms (e.g. "sagging middle") with automatic synonym expansion.

6. Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) Revision Playbooks & Machine Gates

Structured Revision Playbooks: When audits flag issues (such as explained themes or flat cadence), the agent generates a collaborative playbook presenting 2–3 creative choices (e.g., The Cut, Dramatize, Subtext Dialogue) rather than making autonomous rewrites.

Strict Gate Enforcement (soundingboard gate ): Compilation strictly rejects any chapter lacking 4/4 verified clearance attestations (mechanical audit, canon verification, rubric score, and trope-ledger delivery).

Soundboard v1.0.0 — The Author's Intelligent Sounding Board & Novel Production Studio

✍️ Welcome to Soundboard v1.0.0!

Soundboard turns your AI coding assistant (Claude Code, Google Antigravity, Cursor, or Gemini CLI) into an Executive Novel Writing Assistant, Master Story Architect, and Tireless Line Editor.

✨ Highlights

• Escape the Web Chat Silo: Brings your AI out of fragile browser chat boxes and directly to your computer where your drafts live—in clean, future-proof plain markdown.
• 5 Creative Studio Workspaces: The Discovery Lounge, The Storyboard Wall, The Writing Desk, The Editorial Desk, and The Printing Press.
• 92 Modular OKF Craft Engines: Deeply researched craft engine synthesizing Shawn Coyne (Story Grid), John Truby (Anatomy of Story), Brandon Sanderson, K.M. Weiland, and Others.
• Universal Narrative Rosetta Stone: Speak in Save the Cat!, Hero's Journey, or Story Grid—your concierge mirrors your preferred lexicon.
• Automated Editorial Quality Gate: Sentence cadence, AI tell eradication, continuity audits, and Kindle-ready EPUB compilation.
• Zero Runtime Dependencies: Plain-text glass box, no vector databases, 100% author-owned.