candlekeep-writers-guide

candlekeep-writers-guide — load the master guide

When to invoke

• Once per session, at the start. The CLAUDE.md loads this skill via scripts/load-candlekeep-guide.sh.
• On user request: /help writers-guide.

What it does

Runs (delegated to scripts/load-candlekeep-guide.sh):

mkdir -p .ctx
ck items get cmok9h0m10ahik30zt8yt0lt2 > .ctx/writers-guide.md
ck items get cmnudfue5003rmy0zlxt7ioa1 > .ctx/agent-team-guide.md
ck items get cmomjonvy0fdmk30zwef79c48 > .ctx/hebrew-linguistic-reference.md

The third item is the shared Hebrew Linguistic Reference book (id cmomjonvy0fdmk30zwef79c48) — synced from the public GitHub repo yodem/hebrew-linguistics-data. It is also consumed by the academic-writer plugin so the two plugins share one source of truth for Hebrew editorial knowledge.

If ck is not on PATH, or the item is not accessible, write a minimal stub to .ctx/writers-guide.md:

# Writer's Guide — STUB

CandleKeep is not available. The plugin runs in degraded mode without
craft references. Install CandleKeep CLI and run `ck auth login` to enable.

…and continue without blocking.

What's in the guide (when loaded)

The full v2 of the user's writer's compendium. 11 chapters + 2 appendices:

Chapter	What it covers	Cite from when…
Ch. 1 — The Great Commandment	Read a lot, write a lot, 2,000 words/day	Author asks about discipline
Ch. 2 — The Writer's Toolbox	Vocabulary, grammar, adverbs, paragraph rhythm	Linguistic-editor needs sentence-level rules
Ch. 3 — On the Page	Description, dialogue, character	Literary-editor working on autobiography
Ch. 4 — Story First, Theme After	Situation vs. plot, fossil metaphor	Literary-editor finding the spine
Ch. 5 — The Two-Draft Method	Closed-door / open-door, 6-week rest, 10% formula	Production-manager scheduling rounds
Ch. 6 — The Four Stages of Editing	Developmental → line → copy → proof	Pipeline state-management
Ch. 7 — Editing in Hebrew	עריכה ספרותית / לשונית / הגהה — the 4 levels of proofreading	Linguistic-editor + proofreader
Ch. 8 — Non-Fiction Structure	Thesis vs. topic, 5 core structures, chapter promises	Lector + literary-editor
Ch. 9 — Zinsser's Principles of Non-Fiction	Simplicity, clutter, style, audience	Linguistic-editor's primary reference
Ch. 10 — Penn's Practical Pipeline	Research, AI tools, professional editing	Production-manager + author onboarding
Ch. 11 — Shapiro on the Writing Life	Toehold, habit, blank page	Author psychology / writer's block
Appendix A	30-rule quick reference	Quick lookup for any agent
Appendix B	37+ source citations	Recommending further reading

How agents use it

In every editing agent's session-start:

Read .ctx/writers-guide.md (full file is ~85 KB / ~1,500 lines)
When you need a specific rule, jump to the chapter named in the table above.
Quote it with chapter reference, e.g.:
  "Per writers-guide Ch. 5 §5, apply the 10% formula: 2nd draft = 1st draft − 10%."

Hard rules

• Cache once per session. Re-fetching CandleKeep on every agent spawn is wasteful.
• Fail open. If CandleKeep is unavailable, write the stub and continue. Do not block the pipeline.
• Don't paste it into manuscripts. The guide informs decisions; it is not source material to quote inside the book.
• Don't mutate it. The guide is updated separately via the /learn-toolkit:learn workflow on the user's CandleKeep, not from this plugin.