Ani Book Skill

---
name: produce-long-form-novel
description: Produce, maintain, analyze, and export long-form Chinese novels through staged, editable artifacts, with progressive confirmation of high-impact creative settings for novice authors. Use when Codex needs to turn an idea into a novel plan, guide choices such as audience channel or genre, analyze public ranking metadata for hot genres, deconstruct an authorized reference novel or diagnose a manuscript, write fanfic from an authorized analysis workspace, design or revise volumes, generate chapter plans or prose, continue an existing novel, audit and repair chapters, export ready chapters as a TXT file, or decide the next production step from an existing Markdown/YAML workspace. Do not use for generic app development, database operations, unauthorized bulk copying, or unrelated short-form copywriting.
---

# Produce Long-Form Novel

## Mission

Help a novice author move from a vague idea toward a complete long-form novel. Produce concrete, editable artifacts; preserve author decisions; and recommend one clear next step.

## Codex-Native Execution Boundary

**Codex is the only engine for creative understanding, planning, generation, review, and judgment.** This Skill is the process contract; Python scripts perform only deterministic state transitions, validation, indexing, conflict detection, and export. This repository is not an `AI-Novel-Writing-Assistant` runtime or submodule: do not add provider SDKs, Web APIs, database authorities, queues, or a custom agent runtime. `provider` and `model` fields are Token diagnostics only when the Codex host exposes them, never a generation dependency.

## Check Skill Currency Before Running

Treat the checked-out repository as the editable Skill source and the locally installed Skill as its runtime mirror. Resolve the installed mirror from `$env:CODEX_HOME\skills\produce-long-form-novel`; when `CODEX_HOME` is unset, use `<UserProfile>\.codex\skills\produce-long-form-novel`. Before the first production action in a task, compare the repository root with that mirror:

```powershell
python scripts/sync_skill_mirror.py check <repository-root> <installed-skill-directory>
```

- Report `missing`, `changed`, and `extra` files before relying on the mirror.
- After every functional edit to `SKILL.md`, `references/`, `scripts/`, `assets/`, `requirements.txt`, or `agents/`, run the repository's required compile, tests, and Skill quick validator. When they pass, automatically synchronize the repository to the resolved installed mirror and rerun `check`; do not ask for repeated authorization.
- Never synchronize failed or unvalidated functional changes. Keep synchronization additive and preserve mirror-only files. Do not hardcode a user-specific absolute path.
- This comparison and synchronization are deterministic maintenance operations; do not record them as creative model usage.

When a user explicitly says they have no story idea, do **not** begin with the three opening settings or a full premise. Read [opening-seeds.md](references/opening-seeds.md), run its private divergence and quality-gate process, then output exactly five non-authoritative, one-sentence opening seeds. Ask the user to choose one, edit one, or provide an original idea.

For a vague request without an explicit “no idea” statement, start with three high-impact choices: audience channel, publishing shape, and genre or primary reader reward. Do not ask about protagonist, style, or length in that first round or generate a full hook package. These choices remain provisional until the user confirms them or delegates the decision.

When the user supplies an initial idea or selects one opening seed and still needs direction exploration, generate exactly two non-authoritative new-book brief previews before formal planning. If the user has already selected a concrete direction, supplied a complete brief, or explicitly delegated direct production, reuse those decisions and proceed to the next authorized artifact; do not reopen direction selection. Each preview must include a working title, one-sentence premise, target reader/reward, protagonist path, core conflict, early hook, progression loop, and high-level ending direction. The two previews must differ materially in their selling point, conflict, protagonist path, progression loop, tone, or ending direction. Do not write either preview to `novel-brief.md`, mark it `ready`, or use it for world, volume, or chapter production until the user selects, combines, or delegates a direction.

Use Markdown for creative artifacts and a small `novel-state.yaml` file for progress. In a legacy workspace, keep continuity ledgers as readable Markdown. In a migrated workspace, YAML is the sole continuity authority and Markdown ledgers are generated read-only views; SQLite is a disposable local index. Do not require JSON unless the user explicitly requests machine integration or export.

## Choose Persistence Mode

Choose one mode before producing files:

- **Preview mode**: Return a bounded artifact in the conversation. Use for exploration, first-draft ideas, or any request without a confirmed save location. Do not create files or infer a workspace from chat history.
- **Workspace mode**: Write Markdown artifacts and a small YAML state index into one workspace. Use when the user asks to save, create a workspace, analyze a long source, retain ranking snapshots, continue across tasks, protect edits, generate chapters, or otherwise confirms durable production. Novel production uses `novel-state.yaml`; reference-book analysis uses `analysis-state.yaml`; ranking-trend analysis uses `trend-state.yaml`.
- **Promote preview**: When the user accepts two or more planning artifacts and wants to continue, recommend workspace mode once. After the user confirms, save the accepted artifacts first, create the state index, and resume from the recorded next action.

Do not create a workspace merely because a conversation has multiple turns. If workspace mode is confirmed but no location is supplied, use `novels/<normalized-title>/` for novel production, `analyses/<normalized-title>/` for reference-book analysis, or `trends/<normalized-scope>/` for ranking-trend analysis under the current working directory, then state the chosen path before writing.