The core loop
The repeating cycle at the heart of Alcove — Next Move, Scene Brief, Generate, State Update, Canon Lock, Reward, Continue.
Everything in Alcove orbits one repeating cycle. Once it clicks, the rest of the console makes sense.
Pick Cartridge → Create Save File → Next Move → Scene Brief →
Generate / Draft → State Update → Canon Lock → Reward → ContinueStep by step
1. Next Move
At the start of a save and after every lock, Alcove recommends three next moves — concrete directions the story could take. This is the Auto Route at work. You never start from a blank page; you start from a recommendation you can accept, tweak, or replace.
2. Scene Brief
Pick a move and Alcove drafts a scene brief: who's in the scene, where it happens, what's at stake, and what should change. You approve or edit the brief before any prose is written, so generation aims at the right target.
3. Generate or draft
Generate the chapter with AI, or write it yourself — or mix both. The brief and your locked canon are the context the model works from, which is why chapters stay consistent with everything that came before.
4. State Update
A generated chapter never edits your world directly. Instead it produces proposed state changes — "Mira now distrusts the Warden," "the bridge is destroyed," "Chapter 7 unlocked the northern route." You review the list.
5. Canon Lock
When you're happy, you lock canon. This is the one moment that actually mutates your world: the chapter becomes permanent, approved state changes apply, and your route, cast, and codex update. See Canon Lock for what happens under the hood.
6. Reward
Locking canon can reveal a reward — earned from the story you just made, never pulled at random. Rewards are a celebration of progress, not a slot machine.
7. Continue
Alcove immediately offers the next three moves, and you're back at step 1.
Why it's shaped this way
- Draft is not canon until you lock it. Generation is cheap and reversible; canon is deliberate. The gap between them is where you stay in control.
- Proposals, not edits. Because chapters emit proposed deltas, the AI can be bold without ever corrupting your world behind your back.
- A recommendation every time. Removing the blank page is the single biggest thing that keeps you in flow.
Next: learn the two building blocks the loop runs on — Cartridges and Save Files.
Your First Chapter
A step-by-step quickstart from opening Alcove to locking your first chapter and seeing what comes next — nothing is permanent until you lock.
Cartridges
A Cartridge is a reusable story world and engine — canon source, characters, tone, and configuration — that any number of save files can be created from.