Article Corpus

Find what Alan Hirsch says about: $ARGUMENTS

$ARGUMENTS should be a topic, concept, keyword, or question (e.g., "APEST", "incarnational mission", "what does Alan say about discipleship in Metanoia"). If none given, list the available corpus and ask what to search.

The Book Corpus

Local Files

Root path: /Users/joshuashepherd/Desktop/dev/repos/alan-books/corpus/alan_hirsch/

Manifest: /Users/joshuashepherd/Desktop/dev/repos/alan-books/corpus/alan_hirsch_manifest.json

• Contains all book/chapter metadata: canonical_id, book_slug, chapter_number, chapter_slug, chapter_title, word_count

File naming convention: {book-slug}-ch{N}-{chapter-slug}.md

• e.g., 5q-ch01-introduction.md, reframation-ch03-reframing-apest.md

Chapter file format: Markdown with YAML frontmatter

---
canonical_id: alan:5q:ch01
book_slug: 5q
book_title: "5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence..."
chapter_number: 1
chapter_slug: introduction
chapter_title: "Introduction"
language: en
tenant_id: alan-hirsch
word_count: 4231
---
[content here]

Available Books (English Corpus)

Translations available: Spanish (-es), Portuguese (-pt, -pt-BR), German (-de), and French (-fr) versions of select books.

Supabase Tables

Primary tables:

• books — book metadata (slug, title, theological_themes, key_topics)
• book_chapters — chapter content (content as HTML, word_count, chapter_number, title)
• books_chapters — legacy table (same structure, may also be populated)

Useful SQL for research:

-- Find chapters mentioning a topic
SELECT b.title as book_title, bc.chapter_number, bc.title as chapter_title, bc.excerpt
FROM book_chapters bc
JOIN books b ON bc.book_id = b.id
WHERE bc.content ILIKE '%{search_term}%'
ORDER BY b.title, bc.chapter_number;

-- Get all chapters of a specific book
SELECT chapter_number, title, excerpt, word_count
FROM book_chapters bc
JOIN books b ON bc.book_id = b.id
WHERE b.slug = '{book-slug}'
ORDER BY chapter_number;

How to Research a Topic

Step 1 — Identify Relevant Books and Chapters

Start with the manifest to find chapter titles before reading full content:

Grep the manifest for the search term:
Pattern: search term keywords
Path: /Users/joshuashepherd/Desktop/dev/repos/alan-books/corpus/alan_hirsch_manifest.json

Or scan chapter titles across the corpus:

Glob: /Users/joshuashepherd/Desktop/dev/repos/alan-books/corpus/alan_hirsch/**/*.md
Then Grep for the topic within those files

Step 2 — Read Relevant Chapters

Use the file naming pattern to read specific chapters:

Read: /Users/joshuashepherd/Desktop/dev/repos/alan-books/corpus/alan_hirsch/{book-slug}/{book-slug}-ch{N}-{chapter-slug}.md

For a concept likely spanning multiple books, read the most relevant 2–3 chapters (not every chapter).

Step 3 — Cross-Reference with Supabase (Optional)

If the local files are insufficient or you need full-text search across all content:

• Use mcp__supabase__execute_sql with the SQL patterns above
• Project ID: vhaiiiykcukrlyvwlgip

Step 4 — Extract and Format Passages

From the content found, extract:

• Direct quotes — verbatim text worth quoting in an article (2–5 sentences max per quote)
• Key arguments — the logical chain Alan builds (paraphraseable)
• Frameworks/definitions — crisp definitional passages (GEO-valuable)
• Stories and examples — specific historical examples Alan uses in this context

Output Format

Return research findings organized as:

[Topic] — Corpus Research

Books consulted: [list]

[Book Title] — ch[N] "[Chapter Title]"

Key passage:

[verbatim quote if strong enough, or paraphrase clearly marked]

Argument summary: [1–3 sentences on what Alan argues here]

Relevant to article: [how this passage supports the article topic]

[Repeat for each relevant source]

Synthesis:

• Across the corpus, Alan's position on [topic] is: [1–2 sentences]
• Strongest quotable passages: [bullet list of the best direct quotes with citation]
• Argument patterns present: [which of Pattern A/B/C from alan-voice this content fits]
• Pillar this primarily belongs to: [one of the six pillars]

Citation Format

Always cite using this format (same as AI Lab):

**Source:** Book Title — ch[N] "[Chapter Title]"

For direct quotes: Use blockquote formatting with citation below.

Never invent quotes. If a paraphrase is used, mark it as such: (paraphrased from ch[N]).

Pillar-to-Book Mapping (Quick Reference)

Use this to know which books to prioritize for a given pillar: