Invisible Threads

Invisible Threads Skill

Discovers non-obvious thematic connections ("invisible threads") across a corpus of essays, articles, or transcripts.

Adapted from invisible-threads.

When to Use

• Editing an anthology and want to find thematic connections
• Analyzing a body of work for recurring ideas
• Finding quotes that support a theme across multiple sources
• Writing editorial commentary that weaves sources together

Quick Start

# 1. Prepare your corpus as markdown files in a source directory

# 2. Chunk the corpus into a database
python chunk_corpus.py --source /path/to/markdown/files --output corpus.db

# 3. Extract insights using Gemini
python extract_insights.py --db corpus.db --backend gemini

# 4. Find threads
python find_threads.py --input data/insights_*.json

# 5. Review threads_*.json for editorial use

Adapting for Your Project

The key file to modify is the extraction prompt in extract_insights.py.

Default Prompt Categories

The default is set up for Catholic agrarian content (Cross & Plough):

• industrialism, land, family, property, craft, liturgy
• organic-farming, distributism, eugenics, totalitarianism
• natural-law, peasantry, economics, spirituality

For Other Projects

Change the EXTRACTION_PROMPT in extract_insights.py:

1. Context section: Describe what the corpus is
2. Examples section: Give 3 examples of genuine insights from this domain
3. Categories: List 10-15 thematic categories relevant to your content

See references/prompt-templates.md for examples.

Output

insights_*.json

Each insight includes:

• insight_text: The extracted quote/idea
• category: Thematic category
• novelty_score: 1-10 how surprising
• specificity_score: 1-10 how quotable
• source: Which document it came from
• raw_chunk: Original context

threads_*.json

Each thread includes:

• thread_id: Identifier
• category: Dominant theme
• size: Number of connected insights
• num_sources: How many different documents
• years_spanned: Timeline (if applicable)
• insights: All insights in this thread

Editorial Applications

1. Reorganize structure around discovered threads
2. Write headnotes referencing how themes recur
3. Add footnotes pointing to related pieces
4. Find unused quotes that connect to themes
5. Write bridge paragraphs between sections

Scripts

Requirements

google-generativeai>=0.3.0  # For Gemini
sentence-transformers>=2.2.0
networkx>=3.0
python-louvain>=0.16
scikit-learn>=1.0

Cost