Convention: see _brain-filing-rules.md for the sanctioned

media/<format>/<slug>

exception this skill files under.

Convention: see conventions/quality.md for citation rules, back-link enforcement, and output quality bars.

Convention: see conventions/brain-first.md for the lookup chain (brain → search → external) the context-gathering phase follows.

gbrain book-mirror

• The CLI submits N read-only subagent jobs (one per chapter). Each subagent has

  allowed_tools: ['get_page', 'search']

  only. They CANNOT call put_page or any mutating op. They produce markdown analysis via their final message.
• The CLI reads each child's

  job.result

  , assembles the final two-column page, and writes it via a single operator-trust

  put_page

  .
• This means untrusted EPUB/PDF content cannot prompt-inject any

  people/*

  page. The trust narrowing happens at the tool allowlist, not at the slug-prefix layer.

• Word count > 1500 (typical chapter range 2k–8k words).
• No HTML tags.
• Paragraphs preserved with

  \n\n

  .

chapters/INDEX.md

1. Templates: USER.md and SOUL.md if the user maintains them (gbrain ships templates at

   templates/USER.md

   and

   templates/SOUL.md

   ; they live in the brain repo when populated). Read full.
2. Recent daily memory — last 14 days of brain pages under

   wiki/personal/reflections/

   or wherever the user files daily notes.
3. Topic-relevant brain searches tuned to the book's themes:

   • gbrain query "marriage"

     ,

     gbrain query "couples therapy"

     for a marriage book.

   • gbrain query "founders"

     ,

     gbrain query "fundraising"

     for a business book.

   • gbrain query "shame"

     ,

     gbrain query "anger"

     for a psychology book.
4. Brain pages for relevant entities —

   gbrain query "<name>"

   for people who will likely come up.
5. Standing patterns — anything in the user's reflections or originals that's been recurring.

gbrain book-mirror \
  --chapters-dir "$WORK/chapters" \
  --context-file "$CONTEXT" \
  --slug "$SLUG" \
  --title "Book Title Goes Here" \
  --author "Author Name" \
  --model claude-opus-4-7

• Validates inputs and loads chapter files.
• Prints a cost estimate (~$0.30/chapter at Opus) and prompts to confirm.
• Submits N child subagent jobs with read-only

  allowed_tools

  .
• Waits for every child to complete.
• Reads each child's

  job.result

  (the markdown analysis text).
• Assembles all chapters into one page with frontmatter + intro + per-chapter sections + closing.
• Writes ONE

  put_page

  to

  media/books/<slug>-personalized.md

  .
• Reports a JSON envelope on stdout:

  {"slug": "...", "chapters_total": N, "chapters_completed": N, "chapters_failed": 0}

  .

book-mirror:<slug>:ch-<N>

• Conflating the reader's parents' relationship with patterns in extended family.
• Inventing therapy backstory ("after his parents' divorce…") when the reader's parents are still together.
• Wrong number/age of children, wrong spouse / kid / sibling names.

• For every person the right column references with a brain page, add a back-link from

  people/<slug>

  to the new

  media/books/<slug>-personalized

  page (per

  conventions/quality.md

  Iron Law).

• Preserve the author's actual stories, statistics, frameworks, examples.
• Quote memorable phrases verbatim.
• Be detailed enough that the reader could skip the book and not lose much.

• Use the reader's actual quoted words from the context pack.
• Reference specific dates, situations, people by name.
• Read like a therapist who knows the reader is leaving notes in the margins.
• Be plain about direct hits ("This is exactly the [name a real situation]").
• Be honest about misses ("This chapter is less directly relevant because…"). Don't force connections.

• ❌ Skimming chapters. Standing instruction: preserve detail.
• ❌ Generic right column. "This might apply if you've ever felt…" → kill on sight.
• ❌ Factual errors about the reader's life. Always fact-check after assembly.
• ❌ Giving the subagent put_page access. Trust contract is read-only; the CLI does the writing.
• ❌ Forcing connections. If a chapter doesn't apply, say so plainly.
• ❌ Sycophancy or moralizing in the right column. No "you should…", no "consider…", no "perhaps it's time to…".
• ❌ Truncating the LEFT column. The book's actual content needs to survive.

• Book file exists locally (path known).
• Chapter texts under

  $WORK/chapters/*.txt

  with sane word counts.
• Context pack at

  $WORK/context.md

  is dense.

• gbrain book-mirror --chapters-dir … --context-file … --slug … --title …

  returned exit 0.

• media/books/<slug>-personalized.md

  exists in the brain.
• Fact-check pass complete (no errors against USER.md or other source-of-truth pages).
• Cross-links added from referenced people/companies.
• Optional: PDF rendered via brain-pdf and delivered.

• skills/brain-pdf/SKILL.md

  — render the personalized page to PDF.

• skills/strategic-reading/SKILL.md

  — read a book through a specific problem-lens instead of personalizing to the whole reader.

• skills/article-enrichment/SKILL.md

  — same shape applied to articles rather than books.

• Routing matches the canonical triggers in the frontmatter.
• Output written under the directories listed in

  writes_to:

  (when applicable).
• Conventions referenced (

  quality.md

  ,

  brain-first.md

  ,

  _brain-filing-rules.md

  ) are followed.
• Privacy contract preserved: no real names, no fork-specific filesystem path literals, no upstream-fork references.