Scripts

Scripts are pre-written prompts that arrive shaped like commands — one click, the model runs Kill Your Darlings across your chapter. The library ships with ten built-ins drawn from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Writers add their own as forks.

Three ways to reach Scripts

There is one library and three rendering surfaces. Pick whichever matches your context — they all read from the same store.

• AI panel tab. Open the AI panel, switch to the Scripts tab. Wiki-style entry list, click any row for the detail article, run from there. Lowest friction; lives next to the chat reply.
• Slash menu. Type / in the AI chat composer. The picker shows built-in commands, scripts (built-in + yours), and a more… row that opens the full library overlay. Select a row with Enter or Tab to run it directly.
• Scripts workspace. ⌘⇧S opens the workspace as a center-pane virtual tab. Mail-style layout: library on the left, reading view on the right. Best surface for authoring custom scripts — the prompt body lives in a generous paper card with a left ink rule.

The AI panel itself can also be popped out into its own window with ⌘⇧A, so a script and its reply can sit side-by-side.

Copy versus edit

Built-in scripts are read-only. The action button on a built-in’s detail view says copy, not edit. Clicking copy opens the editor pre-filled with the built-in’s content. A fork is not created until you save a change — open-and-bail leaves nothing on disk.

Editing a user script overwrites the same file. The original built-in is never mutated.

Where they live on disk

User scripts persist as markdown under .novelty/scripts/<slug>.md. Frontmatter holds label, description, kind, parentId (if forked), and timestamps. Body is the prompt. Markdown so Claude Code can read them directly.

Built-in scripts

The ten built-ins shipped today:

1. Kill Your Darlings — flag clever phrases that don’t serve the story.
2. Stronger Verbs — hunt weak verbs and filler (“really”, “very”). Surfaces as margin marks (fanout).
3. Boring Stuff Auditor — long descriptions, exposition, parts that exist to make the author look good.
4. Inner Critic Library Sorter — externalize perfectionism. Send each critical voice to the library.
5. Confused Reader Detector — where would a reader lose track?
6. Dialogue Authenticator — distinct rhythms; replace non-”said” tags.
7. First 3 Pages Tester — bookstore-browser test: would they buy?
8. Snow Globe Block-Breaker — three concrete unsticking interventions.
9. ABCDE Story Structure — Action / Background / Development / Climax / Ending.
10. Ten Things Memory Prompter — Abigail Thomas’s drought breaker.

Script kinds

Each script declares a kind that controls how its output lands:

• review — streams a prose review into the AI panel chat.
• fanout — fans suggestions out to the editor margin (M9 line-edit pipeline). Use for sentence-level cleanups.
• coach — a writing-coach reply in the chat.
• chat — generic chat seed.

Pick the kind that matches your script’s output. You can change a kind on a saved script anytime by opening it in the editor.