Loom

Velith — AI-Native Publishing System

Overview

Build books like software. 6-phase pipeline from blank page to published book, with dedicated skills, agents, and quality gates at every stage.

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

Genre Support

Phase Router

When /velith is invoked without arguments, detect current project state and route:

1. No project exists → Run Phase 0 (Onboarding)
2. Project exists, no outline → Run Phase 1 (Ideation)
3. Outline exists, no drafts → Run Phase 2 (Outlining) validation, then Phase 3
4. Drafts exist, incomplete → Continue Phase 3 (Drafting)
5. All drafts complete → Run Phase 4 (Editing)
6. Editing complete → Run Phase 5 (Publishing)

Detection: check for drafts/ directory, outline.md, STYLE.md, PRD.md in current project.

Phase Details

Phase 0: Onboarding (/velith onboard)

• Genre selection (fiction/non-fiction/technical/screenplay/poetry/game/academic/custom)
• Target audience definition
• Language selection
• Project directory setup
• Source material scan (existing notes, articles, code)
• Generate STYLE.md (voice, tone, conventions)
• Generate PRD.md (book requirements)

Phase 1: Ideation (/velith ideate)

• Market research (competing titles, gaps)
• Core concept distillation (elevator pitch)
• Unique value proposition
• Scope definition (chapters, word count, timeline)
• Save to ideation.md

Phase 2: Outlining (/velith outline)

• Generate full chapter outline with dependencies
• Per-chapter specs: title, hook, key concepts, word target, difficulty level
• Cross-chapter reference map
• Save to outline.md
• Agent: book-architect validates structure

Phase 3: Drafting (/velith draft)

• Plan-Then-Execute pattern: chapter-by-chapter generation
• Each chapter gets: outline context + previous chapter summary + style guide
• Parallel chapter generation via subagents (max 4 concurrent)
• Agent: scene-generator decomposes chapters into scenes first (fiction only)
• Agent: chapter-writer generates each chapter (from scenes if available)
• Agent: continuity-editor checks cross-chapter consistency
• Quality gate: line count, frontmatter, style compliance

Phase 4: Editing (/velith edit)

• 5-stage editing pipeline:
  1. Editorial Assessment (macro structure)
  2. Developmental Edit (flow, pacing, gaps)
  3. Line Edit (sentence-level clarity)
  4. Copy Edit (grammar, consistency)
  5. Proofread (final typos)
• Agent: style-doctor enforces voice consistency
• Generate editing report with severity-ranked issues

Phase 5: Publishing (/book-publish)

• Format conversion (EPUB/PDF/MOBI/TXT/MD via Pandoc + Calibre)
• Agent: cover-designer → concepts + image prompts
• Agent: illustrator → interior illustration plan (optional, after drafting)
• Agent: marketing-expert → launch strategy
• Metadata, title candidates, KDP checklist

Interior Illustrations (/book-illustrate)

• Can run after Phase 3 (Drafting) or during Phase 5 (Publishing)
• Agent: illustrator → scene extraction, style bible, prompts
• Produces illustration plan with placement metadata
• Integrates image references into chapter drafts

Project Structure

{project-dir}/
├── PRD.md              # Book requirements (Phase 0)
├── STYLE.md            # Voice, tone, conventions (Phase 0)
├── ideation.md         # Ideas, market research (Phase 1)
├── outline.md          # Full chapter outline (Phase 2)
├── drafts/             # Chapter drafts (Phase 3)
│   ├── ch00-foreword.md
│   ├── ch01-xxx.md
│   └── ...
├── edits/              # Editing reports (Phase 4)
│   └── editorial-report.md
├── publish/            # Final outputs (Phase 5)
│   ├── book.epub
│   ├── book.pdf
│   └── metadata.yaml
└── sources/            # Source material references

Sub-Skills

Each phase has a dedicated skill in skills/book-{name}/SKILL.md:

Agents

Quality Gates

Each phase has mandatory completion criteria before proceeding:

Integration with Existing Tools

• alcove: Search existing project docs as source material
• episteme: Validate technical content against knowledge graph
• discover: Run problem discovery for book concept
• council: Get multi-voice input on structure/outline decisions