The core loop

Everything in Alcove orbits one producer-agnostic cycle:

Pick Cartridge → Create Save File → Decide the Next Change →
A Chapter Arrives → Checks Run → Review Changes → Canon Lock → Continue

"Producer-agnostic" means Alcove does not require one writing surface or model. The chapter may come from Alcove, an MCP-capable assistant, or a paste. All three paths meet at the same proposal, checks, and Canon Lock.

Step by step

1. Decide the next change

At the beginning of a Save File and after each Canon Lock, Alcove can recommend three concrete directions from the Story Plan, open threads, and locked canon. Choose one, steer it, or state your own intent.

When Alcove is producing the chapter, this step may include a scene brief or a paused outline. Those are producer-specific planning aids, not requirements for a chapter written elsewhere.

2. A chapter arrives

Choose the path that fits the session:

• MCP: write in a connected assistant that can read the canon packet and submit the result.
• Bring your own: write with any model or by hand, then paste the chapter into its proposal.
• Alcove one-shot: ask Alcove to produce the chapter from the approved direction.

Attaching a chapter from elsewhere is free. The chapter is still a proposal; it has not changed canon.

3. Checks run

Alcove runs the configured check suite against the exact proposal version. Baseline continuity and safety stay unlimited on every plan, including Free. Deeper verification — semantic contradiction, intended-change, pacing, and story-rule checks — draws on your monthly quota of deep checks.

Checks report evidence and concerns. Some can block Canon Lock when a Lock rule requires them; advisory judgments remain visible without taking the writer's taste away.

4. Review the chapter and its changes

Read the prose, open the check results, and inspect Canon Changed. Alcove extracts the consequences the chapter appears to establish—relationship changes, new facts, route movement, timeline events, and more.

Keep, revise, or set aside each proposed consequence. A generated artifact never writes directly into canon.

5. Canon Lock

Canon Lock is the deliberate product-truth mutation. It refuses while required checks are pending or failed. When you approve the current version:

• the chapter becomes canon;
• the approved changes apply;
• the Cast Board, Story Codex, timeline, and routes update;
• the next recommendation is recalculated.

Canon Lock itself is always free.

6. Continue

Return to the sharpest open thread and recommended next moves. The next chapter starts from the canon you just approved, not from an assistant's memory of an older chat.

Why the loop is shaped this way

• Draft is not canon until you lock it. Writing stays cheap and reversible; story truth stays deliberate.
• Checks make the review worth having. They reduce the continuity work a human cannot reliably hold across a long serial.
• The writer remains the trust root. Structural checks can enforce facts; taste and direction remain human judgment.
• The producer is a choice. Better models, local models, human prose, and Alcove generation can all use the same durable canon.

Next: connect a writing assistant in MCP & your AI, or learn the building blocks in Cartridges and Save Files.