Story files

type: coordination-system
status: active
version: 1.3
updated: 2026-08-24

Weekly Story Synthesis

Purpose

Use an end-of-credit-cycle deep pass to reconstruct the current project, find the highest-value gaps, and create a bounded next-week development queue. This is analysis and coordination, not an autonomous canon-writing process.

The approved completion checklist named by CURRENT-COMPLETION-TODO is the sole author-facing story-development TODO. The synthesis may replace that checklist after author review; it must never create a second active execution list.

Cadence

The author's active work week is Sunday through Thursday. Run the full Weekly Story Synthesis on Thursday night, America/Los_Angeles, after Thursday's development work is captured. Use the Thursday date for the run folder and record the exact cutoff in its manifest.

The Thursday synthesis is the end-of-week update. Once its replacement checklist passes the author gate, that checklist becomes the sole TODO for the following Sunday–Thursday cycle. Friday and Saturday are outside the scheduled work week; any incidental material captured after the Thursday cutoff enters the next cycle's intake rather than reopening the completed synthesis.

The current TODO remains active until an approved replacement is installed, so there is never an interval with two active lists or no active list.

Weekly intake funnel

During the week, brainstorm freely in dated session notes and focused Story Loop brainstorm packets. Add a brief, source-linked signal to CURRENT-WEEK-INTAKE only when a discovery may change completion scope, dependencies, validation, or future priority. The intake index has no checkboxes or working order and is not something the author works through.

At the next synthesis, inventory all changed files and reconcile every intake signal using Templates/13 Weekly Intake Reconciliation.md. Each signal must be classified as already covered, revise existing, promote new, leave open, or no TODO change. Deduplicate aggressively: prefer linking new evidence to an existing SC-### task over creating another task.

Only an author-approved replacement checklist may become current. After approval, update the stable pointer, reconcile the task registry and dependency map, carry forward valid completion evidence, verify the public dashboard, and reset the intake index for the new week.

Never overwrite an earlier run. Create:

07 Coordination/Weekly Synthesis/Runs/YYYY-MM-DD/

and copy the templates into it. If rerun on the same date, add -02, -03, and so on.

Core package

1. Weekly State of the Story
2. Master Story Outline
3. Character Arc Audit
4. Continuity and Adversarial Critique
5. Open Questions Ranked
6. Scene Opportunity Map
7. Foreshadowing and Evidence Map
8. Next Week Story Queue
9. Public Development Ideas
10. Vault Maintenance Recommendations

High-capacity options: Editorial Board, Forward/Reverse Causal Reconstruction, and Novelization Readiness.

Operating flow

Sunday–Thursday work -> capture daily brainstorming -> index consequential signals -> Thursday-night cutoff -> read rules and current pickup -> declare cutoff/budget -> inventory all changed and authoritative material -> reconcile intake against the current TODO -> run core reports -> classify BUILD NOW / BRAINSTORM NEXT / LEAVE OPEN -> draft one replacement checklist -> author gate -> update pointer/registry/dashboard -> apply approved maintenance separately -> next Sunday cycle

The synthesis may recommend promotion, merging, renaming, archiving, cross-linking, or TODO changes. It must not perform those mutations merely because they appear in the report.

Connection to the Story Loop

• Send the highest-value unresolved cluster to 08 Story Loop/GAP-ANALYZER.
• Use 08 Story Loop/DEVELOPMENT-ORCHESTRATOR to choose brainstorm, exploration, research, structure, prototype, or critique.
• Create or update Story Units only after the author gate.
• Treat journal pages, genealogies, surveillance records, and behavioral fingerprints as evidence nodes with setup, custody, authentication, reveal, and consequence.
• Record the final queue as BUILD NOW, BRAINSTORM NEXT, or LEAVE OPEN so deliberate ambiguity is not mistaken for a defect.
• Convert the approved weekly completion set into the task registry and advance it horizontally through Story Completion Workflow. The weekly checklist remains the binary/public source of truth; the registry records depth and validation.
• Treat BUILD NOW and BRAINSTORM NEXT as synthesis classifications used to construct the one completion TODO, not as separate lists for the author to work from.

Validation

Before closing a run, verify source paths, authority labels, chronology, character knowledge, causality, system limits, evidence paths, public spoilers, and that no proposal was silently promoted. Record missing or unreadable sources in the manifest.

Files

• CONFIG — scope, modes, scoring, and stop rules.
• MASTER PROMPT — reusable execution prompt.
• CURRENT-COMPLETION-TODO — stable pointer used by the public dashboard; update it only after a replacement completion checklist is approved.
• CURRENT-WEEK-INTAKE — non-executable index of consequential material awaiting the next synthesis.
• Templates/ — copyable run manifest and report contracts.
• Runs/ — dated, immutable-by-convention analysis history.