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Current document 01 Sessions/Daily/2026-08-24 - Story Creation Engine Integration.md

Document metadata

type: development-session
status: active
date: 2026-08-24
scope: workflow architecture only

Story Creation Engine Integration

Question explored

What remained unimplemented after the August 24 weekly-dashboard, horizontal-completion-workflow, and story-creation-engine discussions?

Existing material reviewed

Findings

The vault already had strong development modules, authority rules, a weekly completion checklist, and a complete description of the intended horizontal workflow. The missing layer was execution state: a task registry, typed dependencies, change propagation, story regression selection, sweep records, sequence and scene contracts, and an end-to-end drafting handoff. The public dashboard was also specified but not built.

Development-system decisions recorded

Markdown remains the source of truth.
Work advances horizontally across all active tasks, one abstraction sweep at a time.
Task depth and loop phase are separate fields.
A changed decision receives a blast-radius trace before affected material is treated as valid.
Regression checks are selected from typed dependency edges and affected artifact kinds.
Sequence packets, scene packets, and approved draft records describe state transitions without establishing canon by themselves.
Final fiction remains author-controlled.

These are workflow decisions only. They do not establish, resolve, or reject any story fact.

Story decisions

None. All 27 current completion tasks remain unresolved and begin at UNTOUCHED.

Unresolved implementation work

Run the first complete Macro Shape sweep with the author.
Decide whether a later automation should validate registry fields and dependency IDs mechanically.
Add richer dashboard data only after the Markdown contracts have been exercised in real development sessions.

Affected files

07 Coordination/Story Completion Workflow/
08 Story Loop/ roadmap, orchestrator, gauntlet, README, and templates
07 Coordination/ pickup/index/weekly synthesis
07 QA/Decisions.md
docs/ weekly TODO dashboard and navigation
iainreiddotdev/project-explorer/index.php
iainreiddotdev/project-explorer/assets/project-explorer.css

Project Explorer integration

The Project Explorer front page now includes a public, spoiler-aware Story Completion summary directly below its introduction. It derives completion totals from the current weekly TODO and reads the current sweep and task from the completion-workflow pointer, keeping the vault's Markdown records authoritative instead of maintaining a second checklist in the website.

The public view exposes only workflow state: overall progress, the active macro-to-micro sweep, the current task ID, eight sweep stages, and broad working-front labels. It does not expose task wording or establish story facts. The full vault dashboard remains available through the linked public TODO page.

The dated build-ledger section was subsequently removed from the Project Explorer. Its useful repository scope and live document count were folded into the explorer introduction, leaving a clearer public flow: Story Completion followed by Project Explorer.

Single TODO and weekly intake decision

The author selected the completion checklist named by 07 Coordination/Weekly Synthesis/CURRENT-COMPLETION-TODO.md as the only story-development TODO they will work from. Daily sessions and focused brainstorm packets remain the free-development space. Consequential discoveries receive a source-linked signal in CURRENT-WEEK-INTAKE.md, which has no checkboxes or execution order. The weekly synthesis inventories all changed material, reconciles intake against existing tasks, and may replace the completion checklist only after an author gate. The task registry, Current Pickup, open questions, and technical desktop queue support that list without competing with it.

This is a workflow decision only. It changes no story authority or canon.

Research-provider removal

After the author ended the subscription in response to management conduct, the discontinued research provider was removed from active roles, research instructions, workflow history, product copy, and public archives. Research authority is now stated entirely in tool-neutral terms: external research is tightly scoped, source-backed, advisory, and cannot establish canon. Affected archived posts are marked as omitted rather than silently rewritten.

This is a tooling and documentation decision only. It changes no story authority or canon.

Thursday synthesis cadence

The author works Sunday through Thursday and will run the full Weekly Story Synthesis every Thursday night in America/Los_Angeles, after Thursday's development is captured. The Thursday run closes the active work week, reconciles its brainstorming and intake, and prepares the sole completion TODO for the next Sunday–Thursday cycle. Material captured after the cutoff belongs to the next intake window. The prior TODO remains active until an author-approved replacement is installed.