Story Computing Machine

A small shared-universe story room. A [WP] prompt becomes four authored files and, after review, one title image:

prompt.md → outline.md → story.md → review.md → title-image.jpg

The coordinator delegates one compact outline pass, one skilled prose assignment with in-place structural and language revision, one independent review, and one final-story title-image pass. The reviewer checks people, places, prompt fulfillment, binding narrative policy, and continuity; the illustrator reads the finished prose and creates an exact 864x1536 portrait key visual. There are no draft/final duplicates, canon briefs, handoff ledgers, or release certificates. Each cover includes the exact reader-facing story title once.

Quick start

1. Create codex/story-<slug> from current main.

2. Open this repository as the Codex workspace.

3. Submit a prompt such as:

   [WP] Every city has a ghost assigned to it. Tonight, ours resigns.
   Target: about 3,000 words; close third person; melancholy but hopeful.
   

The default result is a reviewed, non-canon story. Adding it to shared canon is a separate explicit user decision.

Repository map

• AGENTS.md — the complete operating rules.
• .agents/skills/story-room/ — the workflow and its two scripts.
• .agents/skills/short-story-writing/ — the self-contained prose-craft skill and in-place revision pass for prospectively scaffolded stories.
• .codex/agents/ — the narrow outliner, writer, reviewer, and title-image roles.
• stories/_template/ — the four-file scaffold.
• universe/ — authoritative shared-universe facts and style constraints.
• stories/ — legacy bundles and current story packages; title images live beside their story prose as title-image.jpg.
• pages/catalog.json — the stored publication snapshot used by Pages.
• pages/covers/ — captured title images used by the index and story pages.
• pages/build.py — captures reviewed stories and renders the snapshot.

Two validation phases

pwsh -NoProfile -File .agents/skills/story-room/scripts/Test-Stories.ps1 -Story <slug> -Phase PreReview
pwsh -NoProfile -File .agents/skills/story-room/scripts/Test-Stories.ps1 -Phase Final

The agent runs the targeted pre-review phase before review, generates the title image only after a passing review, and then runs the final phase locally. Final validation requires a readable 864x1536 JPEG for every current story. Both phases ignore locked legacy bundles; semantic noun extraction and continuity judgment remain the reviewer's responsibility.

Pages

Pages does not read stories/ during its build. Every passing story is handed to the stored catalog once:

python pages/build.py capture <slug>

Capture requires a passing review but does not duplicate the full story check. It stores the prose in pages/catalog.json and copies the title image into pages/covers/. The Pages index renders cover cards with each story's title and prompt; each story page places the cover below its title and prompt. Verify the stored snapshot and reader locally:

python pages/build.py check
python -m unittest discover -s pages -p "test_*.py" -v
python pages/build.py build --output _site

After merge, GitHub Actions only builds, uploads, and deploys the stored pages/catalog.json and pages/covers/ snapshot with the reader stylesheet; it does not rerun story validation or reader tests.