# Velith — Books to the Human-Quality Bar

## Overview

Velith produces books a cold reader cannot distinguish from a competent human author's work. 6-phase pipeline, 18 skills, 12 agents, 7 genre systems + custom, a model-agnostic visual pipeline. The standard every agent holds is `skills/loom/quality-bar.md`: a five-axis rubric (voice, structure, depth, specificity, reader experience), the 2026 AI-tell taxonomy (structural and emotional tells, en/ko/ja lexical tells), the cold-read critique protocol, and the visual rules.

```
Phase 0: Onboarding → Phase 1: Ideation → Phase 2: Outlining → Phase 3: Drafting → Phase 4: Editing → Phase 5: Publishing
```

## Operating principles

1. Full-manuscript context: agents read the whole manuscript, never summaries. `bible.md` is an index and per-chapter ledger.
2. Sequential drafting for narrative genres; parallel (≤3) only for technical/reference chapters proven independent.
3. Voice lock on a sample chapter before drafting volume (`STYLE.md` `## Voice Lock`).
4. Draft → critique (quoted lines, five-axis scores) → revise, inside `chapter-writer`.
5. Fact-check before line edit for nonfiction/technical/academic; unverifiable claims are removed.
6. Readiness gate: `beta-reader` cold read → `edits/readiness-report.md` `verdict: PASS|REVISE`. Publishing requires PASS or an override.
7. One look per book: `art-bible.md`; prompts compiled by `velith.mjs images compile`; diagrams/charts/drawings code-rendered; vision QA on every image; look lock before volume.
8. Author checkpoints: concept, outline approval, voice lock, look lock, developmental restructures, readiness verdict.

## Phases and agents

| Phase | Skill | Agents | Exit artifact |
|-------|-------|--------|---------------|
| 0 | `/book-init` | — | `PRD.md` (reader promise), `STYLE.md` (voice fingerprint), `sources/INDEX.md` |
| 1 | `/book-ideation` | — | `ideation.md` with chosen concept and verified comps |
| 2 | `/book-outline` | `book-architect` | `outline.md` (approved, scored ≥8), `bible.md` |
| 3 | `/book-draft` | `scene-generator`, `chapter-writer`, `continuity-editor`, `figure-engineer` | `drafts/`, bible ledger, `.velith/critiques/` |
| 4 | `/book-edit` | `fact-checker`, `chapter-writer`, `continuity-editor`, `style-doctor`, `beta-reader` | revised `drafts/`, `edits/00-06`, `readiness-report.md`, `editorial-report.md` |
| 3-5 | `/book-visuals` | `art-director`, `figure-engineer`, `illustrator`, `cover-designer` | `art-bible.md`, `visuals/` |
| 5 | `/book-publish` | `cover-designer`, `art-director`, `marketing-expert` | `publish/` |

## Editing stages

0 fact check → 1 assessment (report) → 2 developmental (rewrites; restructures need author approval) → 3 line edit (style-doctor rewrites in place) → 4 copy edit → 5 proofread (chapters `status: final`) → 6 readiness (beta-reader). Snapshot before every rewriting stage.

## Genre conventions

Each `skills/book-{genre}/SKILL.md` holds structure options, craft, genre-specific tells, language notes, visuals, and the architect's validation list for fiction, non-fiction, technical, screenplay, poetry, game, academic. Custom genres compose via `book-genre-creator` into `genre-custom.md`.

## Project structure

```
PRD.md STYLE.md ideation.md outline.md bible.md art-bible.md
sources/INDEX.md  drafts/  visuals/  edits/  publish/  .velith/
```

## Tooling

`node velith.mjs scan|metrics|snapshot|images compile|check|render|agents|serve`. Metrics flags: sentence cv < 0.4, mid-band > 60%, punch endings > 35%, tells > 2/1k, em-dashes > 3/1k, repeated 4-grams, TTR drift.
