Project Scaffold v2.5

Create the structure a novel needs and nothing more. A scaffold with forty empty files teaches the author nothing and teaches the agent to ignore most of them.

Principle

Scaffold from what the author has told you, not from what a template offers. If the author has not decided the tense, do not record one — record the field as UNRESOLVED and let the decision come from the writing.

Phases

1. Ask before building. Get title, genre or subgenre, and whether this is greenfield or an existing manuscript. A manuscript goes to manuscript-import, not here.
2. Copy the core. NOVEL_BIBLE.md, PROJECT_SETTINGS.md, and the canon trio — canon/facts.md, canon/retcons.md, canon/unresolved.md — are always present. Everything else is conditional.
3. Copy the conditional domains the author's answers actually justify. Planning needs chapters/. A power system needs power_system/. Factions need factions/. A series needs a link in the workspace registry.
4. Copy templates verbatim. Never paraphrase a template during scaffolding; the templates are the contract and the validator checks their reachability.
5. Record configuration in PROJECT_SETTINGS.md where the author has decided it.
6. Report what was created, what was deliberately skipped, and what remains UNRESOLVED.

Minimal default set

A novel with no stated genre needs only: