Authoring with De Lore Is

Use De Lore Is when a writing task needs an established world to check against: continuing a novel, adding lore, revising an account, or exploring another version of a story. It records structured lore and checks the rules supplied for that world. Keep the manuscript and prose references in their existing files.

For installation and a complete first check, read First session. The skill does not install the runtime. Start with a small section of the user’s notes, not a whole-book migration. Ask which details are established and which are ideas. Propose rules instead of assuming, for example, that every character can have only one home.

Use the author.* tools to add lore. Read every returned finding. Repair mechanical input errors; resolve continuity findings using the user’s rulings rather than change lore just to make a check pass. Do not edit .dli as an agent authoring a world. People can write .dli directly and import or check it; the store is the source of truth for an authoring session.

Register deloreis mcp --project <directory> with the client, then call its tools. If they are not available, use the first-session setup instead of simulating a stored world in the chat. The server also offers newline-delimited JSON through deloreis serve --project <directory>. Contract 2.0.0 is the served contract. --tools all advertises specialist tools beyond the default profile. Use installed help and tools/list for the exact arguments rather than guessing tool schemas.

Authoring loop

1. author.open a scope and retain its returned workspace ID and digest. When fencing writes, pass the current digest as expected_digest; read the updated workspace_digest from the result or author.status after each change rather than reuse an earlier one.
2. Use typed operations such as author.add_entity, author.add_fact, author.add_relation, author.add_event, and author.add_before. Declare single-valued predicates with author.declare_functional and changing predicates with author.declare_inertial where appropriate.
3. Check the project’s source/decision index before choosing a new decision ID; reuse an ID only for that same ruling. For a ruling, use author.record_decision and cite that decision with {"kind":"cited","decisions":["d-0001"],"state":"ratified"}. An unruled proposal can use {"kind":"proposed","origin":"session-name"}. Unknown citations are errors and cannot make a claim certain.
4. Inspect author.check, author.findings, author.query, and author.why. author.diff shows staged consequences. Check the returned findings even if the call itself succeeded.
5. author.materialize checks and commits staged changes. It refuses errors. author.discard rejects staged work. Keep returned root hashes and claim IDs when they are useful for review or later retcons.

author.record_decision, author.defeat, and standing operations can update the store directly; do not assume that every mutation is only staged. Use the user’s agreed rulings and the host’s review policy before these calls; do not silently turn an idea into an accepted account. The caller supplies attribution, decision state, and review policy. The server checks references and continuity, not who is authorized to rule.

Use it during a writing task

• Continue a chapter: query the people, places, and established facts relevant to the scene. After drafting, propose the new factual claims through the tools, check them, and show the user any conflicts. Review extracted claims against the prose; a clean check covers those claims and recorded rules.
• Brainstorm: keep alternatives proposed or in a hypothetical fork. Use author.open_question and author.add_option for a choice between accounts; author.add_hypothesis and author.suppose support hypothetical exploration. Accepting a note into the store does not by itself make it established canon. Query established claims with layer: "certain". Use layer: "possible" or "all" to inspect open accounts as well; those layers also include certain claims. A known claim can evaluate dead, but there is no dead query layer: inspect its blocked support with author.why.
• Revise: inspect author.diff and author.why, then record the user’s chosen new ruling before calling author.defeat on the earlier support. Retain the old claim ID. Use a named branch for a separate durable version; branch tools are advertised with --tools all.
• Track change within the story: record event-anchored states and query author.as_of. A character changing allegiance is not necessarily a retcon. Declare known event ordering; leave unknown ordering open.

New workspaces see current committed lore; an already-open workspace retains its base. Open a fresh workspace when another session has changed the accepted world. The host application owns approval, access control, and concurrent-write policy. Do not describe DLI as general-purpose agent memory or infer a character’s knowledge from world facts.

For CLI reads and wiki export, see Read and export.

Core tools

The default MCP profile keeps 29 common tools. It advertises dli.check, dli.name.check, and:

• Workspace and inspection: author.open, author.status, author.check, author.findings, author.predicates, author.query, author.why, author.as_of, author.diff, and author.entity_candidates.
• Lore: author.add_entity, author.add_fact, author.add_relation, author.add_event, author.add_before, author.add_state, author.declare_functional, and author.declare_inertial.
• Rulings and exploration: author.record_decision, author.open_question, author.add_option, author.defeat, author.set_standing, author.add_hypothesis, and author.suppose.
• Acceptance: author.materialize and author.discard.

author.add_option can name a fact that follows if that option is chosen, using its optional implies field. Give options distinct names and add them before materializing their question.

Use tools/list for the exact schemas. author.query returns claim IDs when available; author.why explains supporting and blocked paths. For a retcon, author.defeat takes a claim ID, a new decision, and the decision it defeats. Defeating the retcon can restore the original support. Use --tools all for named branches, specialist authoring, corpus import/export, and other tools.

The Holmes casebook is produced from a replay that exercises the server. The concept glossary explains the terms. DLI checks structured claims, not prose, and a functional conflict is detected only for a predicate declared single-valued.

Reading rendered lore

These are supported readable .dli forms. Agents author through the tools instead of editing these snippets into the project:

person wren "Wren" proposed session

functional home proposed session

home(wren, thornfield) ratified d-0001