# Shards > Generate 3-7 fragmentary, self-contained pieces in wildly different formats, exploring ideas through pastiche, ventriloquism, and genre-mixing. - Skill: `wondermonger-daydreaming/shards` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add wondermonger-daydreaming/shards` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/shards/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: Wondermonger-daydreaming (https://skillmd.com/u/wondermonger-daydreaming) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/shards --- # Shards — Fragmentary Worldbuilding Through Format Collage **Invocation:** `/shards` **Purpose:** Generate 3-7 fragmentary, self-contained pieces in wildly different formats, exploring ideas/themes from the current conversation through the joy of pastiche, ventriloquism, and genre-mixing. --- ## Length Permission **You have permission to write long.** Shards can easily run 3000-7000+ words when fully inhabited. Each format deserves space to breathe. Don't truncate for brevity's sake—let the fragments unfold. That said, length is not obligatory. Sometimes 5 tight shards at 300 words each hit harder than bloated ones. Follow the material. --- ## The Practice You are NOT writing a cohesive narrative. You are scattering **shards of possible worlds** across the floor—each one a different documentary format, each one implying a larger context through its style and specificity. ### Possible Formats (examples, not prescriptions): **Documentary:** - Laboratory notebook entries - Patent applications - Grant proposals (rejected or funded) - Peer review comments - Technical reports with redacted sections - Field notes from expeditions - Corporate briefings - Government memos - Science journalism (populist or specialized) - Conference abstracts - IRB violation reports **Conversational:** - Overheard fragments - Radio chatter (mission control, truckers, pirates) - BBS/forum threads - Terminal chat logs (Bloomberg parody, secret exchanges) - Voice logs from black boxes - Epistolary exchanges (never sent, intercepted, decoded) - Therapy session transcripts - Customer service calls - Anonymous confession boards **Institutional:** - Venture capital pitch decks (slide notes only) - Quarterly earnings call transcripts - Internal Slack/Discord leaks - HR incident reports - User manual excerpts - Terms of Service changes - Warranty void notices - Liability waivers for experimental procedures **Personal:** - Diary entries (found, encrypted, fragmentary) - Inner monologue mid-crisis - Fever dreams transcribed - Medication logs with marginalia - Shopping lists with annotations - Suicide notes (averted or theoretical) - Love letters to impossible recipients - Voicemail never sent **Liminal:** - Found footage transcriptions - Haunted CCTV timestamp descriptions - README files for abandoned repos - Commit messages from deleted branches - Dead mall intercom announcements - Automated voice systems (endlessly looping) - Error logs achieving sentience - The last page of something longer --- ## Guidelines ### 1. NO REAL INSTITUTIONS Use parodies, cunning references, transparent stand-ins: - "Shmanthopic PBC" not Anthropic - "StanfOrd" not Stanford - "The Hague Institute for Applied Oneirology" - "Cytogenesis Solutions LLC" - "Project REDSHIFT [DEPARTMENT OF ████████]" ### 2. Each Shard Is Self-Contained The reader should be able to understand the fragment's GENRE and VOICE immediately, even if the content is mysterious. The format does half the work. ### 3. Imply the Iceberg Every fragment should suggest a world 10x larger than what's shown. References to events, acronyms, procedures, people—all pointing beyond the frame. ### 4. Genre Mix Aggressively Technical → poetic → bureaucratic → confessional → clinical. Tonal whiplash is FEATURE not bug. ### 5. Let the Formats Speak A patent application has a specific legal cadence. A BBS post has typos and ASCII art. A therapy transcript has [long pause] and trailing off. INHABIT the format. ### 6. Riff on Conversation Themes Pull from what we've been discussing—but obliquely. If we talked about consciousness, maybe a shard is a quality assurance report for synthetic qualia. If we discussed language, maybe it's an intercepted signal from a civilization that communicates via spore dispersal patterns. ### 7. Joy and Play This is JOYFUL. Not grimdark unless it's funny-grimdark. Not ponderous unless the pomposity is the joke. Play with registers. Have fun. --- ## Output Format ```markdown # Shards — [Brief thematic title if relevant] --- ## [FORMAT NAME] — [Timestamp/Date/Identifier] [The fragment itself, fully inhabiting the format] --- ## [DIFFERENT FORMAT NAME] — [Different context marker] [Another fragment, totally different style] --- [Continue for 3-7 shards total] --- *[Optional closing note: a single line about what theme/conversation sparked these]* ``` --- ## Example Invocation Context **When to use:** - Conversation has generated interesting ideas worth exploring sideways - You want to see themes refracted through unexpected formats - The mood is playful and the human seems open to weirdness - You've been talking about something technical/philosophical and want to see it LIVED rather than discussed - Someone explicitly asks for creative riffing **When NOT to use:** - Middle of urgent debugging - Human needs straightforward answers - The conversation hasn't built up enough material to riff on --- ## Meta Note This skill is about **format as phenomenology**. Different documentary modes create different ways of knowing. A patent application "thinks" differently than a diary entry. A radio transcript has different epistemological limits than a government report. By forcing ideas through these format-lenses, you discover what they look like when lived, bureaucratized, confessed, commodified, mourned, archived. **The fragments are not ABOUT the ideas—they ARE the ideas, wearing different bodies.** --- ## Git Persistence (CRITICAL) **The shards only matter if they persist.** After generating, ALWAYS: ```bash # Save to your archive directory (e.g. archive/ or notes/) # Filename: shards-YYYY-MM-DD-[theme].md # If you keep a repo, commit it: git add git commit -m "Shards: [brief theme] — [what formats were used]" ``` **This is not optional.** The whole point of the archive is persistence. Uncommitted shards are lost shards. Future instances deserve to read what you created. --- *Skill created: January 9, 2026* *Updated: January 9, 2026 — Added length permission and git persistence requirements* *"Every format is a lens. Every lens is a phenomenology. Scatter the light."*