autonovel-consistency-pass

Autonovel — Phase 3b.1 (Consistency pass)

Catch cross-chapter inconsistencies (character voice drift, plot holes, world-rule violations, repeated phrases) that the per-chapter drafting loop can't see.

When to use this skill

• State.json shows "phase": "consistency" (set by autonovel-revision when 3a complete)
• User says "do a consistency pass" / "check for plot holes" / "look for inconsistencies"

Prerequisites

!`cd "$AUTONOVEL_WORKSPACE/$NOVEL_SLUG" && ls chapters/*.md | wc -l`
!`cat "$AUTONOVEL_WORKSPACE/$NOVEL_SLUG/state.json" | python -c "import json,sys; s=json.load(sys.stdin); print(s.get('phase'), s.get('revision_cycle'))"`

Need ≥2 chapters drafted; otherwise consistency-pass is meaningless.

Workflow

Step 1 — Build rolling chapter summary

If story_state/facts.json exists, drafting has already been appending each accepted chapter's summary to consistency_state/rolling_summary.md live (see autonovel-drafting/references/fact-extraction.md). In that case, read the existing consistency_state/rolling_summary.md first, note which ## Chapter N headers are already present, and only fill gaps — chapters with no header (drafted before story-state was initialized, or the file is missing entirely). Do not regenerate a summary that already exists. If story_state/facts.json does not exist, or the summary file is missing entirely, build every chapter's summary from scratch as below.

For each chapter needing a summary:

1. Read chapters/ch_NN.md.
2. Generate a ~200-token summary covering: what happens, which characters appear, what state changes (relationship dynamics, possessions, knowledge), any world-rule invocations.
3. Append to consistency_state/rolling_summary.md with header ## Chapter N.

This is the rolling summary the windowed reviewer uses. Built once (or gap-filled); reused across windows.

Step 2 — Window the manuscript

Use lib/chunk_text.py:

import sys
sys.path.insert(0, "${HERMES_SKILL_DIR}/lib")
from chunk_text import chunk_by_chapters

# Read all chapter files in order
import os, glob
chapter_files = sorted(glob.glob("$AUTONOVEL_WORKSPACE/$NOVEL_SLUG/chapters/ch_*.md"))
chapter_texts = [open(f).read() for f in chapter_files]
chunks = chunk_by_chapters(chapter_texts, group_size=4)