Storytime — Continuity System for Claude Code

How It Works

Describe a problem. Storytime surveys your codebase, assembles a team of domain-expert personas, and runs a structured conversation that produces a plan — grounded in your actual code, with citations, decisions, and visual aids. Underneath the spec workflow is a consolidation loop that preserves continuity across compactions and sessions.

Phases collapse when empty. Not every run uses every gear. See a full walkthrough →

/storytime "our public API has no rate limiting and we're getting abuse"

Storytime surveys your code, finds the Express middleware chain has no
throttling layer. Assembles @owner [anchor], @systems [lattice],
@critic [forge], @operator [tide]. They investigate, and produce:

  specs/.storytime/sessions/rate-limiting/001/
  ├── survey.md          Codebase context + fingerprint
  ├── team.md            Persona definitions
  ├── icebreaker.md      Status quo discussion
  ├── breakout-algo.md   Token bucket vs sliding window
  ├── breakout-store.md  Redis vs in-memory for counters
  └── plan.md            ASCII slide deck + implementation steps

Key Concepts

Consolidation

The core loop. Context → consolidation events → document structure → continuity. Six scales: phase, commit, nap, shift, session, compact. The spec workflow is one surface on this loop. /storytime-remember stages remembrance before /compact.

Personas

Domain-expert lenses with non-human codenames (anchor, lattice, kestrel). Default core: OWNER, OPERATOR, CRITIC ×2. One driver per leg — supporters stay silent unless useful AND non-distortive. @role is a lens directive, not just a skill trigger.

Remembrance

A workday-shaped wakeup document + consolidation prompt, staged before /compact and loaded as the first action post-compact. Carries session state across context boundaries. Written at pauses and pre-compact.

Decisions & Callouts

Append-only, numbered per topic (RATE-001), pinned to commits, stored in per-topic threads (not a separate file). Cross-topic references use Callout-> / Callout<- sigil lines — forward authoritative, reverse is lint-cached.

Episodes & Threads

Sessions are chapters. _thread.md is the continuity ledger — decisions, consolidation log, open questions. Park mid-session and resume with full context.

Dreams

Optional, ancillary, disablable. Per-commit side artifacts capturing hunches, noticed-but-not-said observations, and daydream design material. Not on the critical path — just accumulated hunch value over time.

All 19 Skills

Core Workflow

Skill	Description
/storytime	Full workflow: survey, team, icebreaker, breakouts, plan
/storytime-survey	Standalone codebase survey with artifact inventory
/storytime-breakout	Focused investigation with one driver + silent supporters
/storytime-converge	Merge breakout results into a unified plan
/storytime-buildout	Implement the plan with persona-driven pair programming
/storytime-retro	Retrospective: plan vs what was built + evaluation scorecard

Team & QA

Skill	Description
/storytime-cohort	Hire, fire, bench, promote, evolve personas
/storytime-qa	Formal queries to personas about past decisions (context-loaded)
/storytime-echo	One-shot spawning-pool voice test (ephemeral, no state)
/storytime-pr-qa	Team handles PR review comments

Continuity & Control

Skill	Description
/storytime-remember	Stage remembrance for /compact (wakeup document + prompt)
/storytime-lint	Mechanical + reasoning-tier validation against process rules
/storytime-bootstrap	Initialize .storytime/ in a repo
/storytime-consolidate	Organize, archive, roll up documents
/storytime-absorb	Team reads and interprets existing docs
/storytime-export	Convert to ADRs, issues, Kiro specs
/storytime-status	Dashboard: cohort, threads, decisions, tutorial progress
/storytime-undo	Revert: phase, episode, thread, or file

When To Use It