theme-craft skillA
theme-craft is agent-read markdown (skill) from danjdewhurst/story-skills: This skill should be used when the user asks to "theme", "controlling idea", "premise", "moral argument", "character arc", "flat arc", "negative arc", "the lie", "antagonist design", "motif", "symbolism", "theme audit", or wants to plan, track, or revise the thematic layer of a story..
Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.
What the file says
# Theme Craft
## Overview
Plan and audit theme as a working mechanism, not decoration. Covers the
controlling idea (value + cause, in McKee's sense), the lie/truth machinery
and the three canonical arc types, antagonist design as the embodied
counter-argument, motif tracking, and a revision-time theme audit. Use at
story start (working premise), during character design (lie/truth/arc-type),
and after a complete draft (theme audit).
## Prerequisites
A story project must already exist (created via the story-init skill).
Character files (character-management) and a plot structure
(plot-structure) should exist or be in progress.
## Workflow
1. **Draft the working premise.** Read `story.md` for genre and themes.
Consult `references/controlling-idea.md` and write a one-sentence
premise (value + cause) and counter-premise. Store them in `story.md`
frontmatter:
```yaml
premise: "{Value} triumphs because {cause}."
counter-premise: "{Opposing value} triumphs because {opposing cause}."
```
If the user prefers discovering theme in the draft, record
`premise: tbd-discovery` and skip to step 3.
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add danjdewhurst/story-skills/theme-craft@git:20260922.11ed642mdr add danjdewhurst/story-skills/theme-craft@sha256:d476a223655aedf1Pin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_erzrqaicfjjqscqw)
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Versions
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260922.11ed642 latest | 2026-09-22 | 11ed642 | 5,669 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260920.f646308 | 2026-09-20 | f646308 | 5,528 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260920.5444aa3 | 2026-09-20 | 5444aa3 | 5,195 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260920.620c8c2 | 2026-09-20 | 620c8c2 | 5,475 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (5669 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
danjdewhurst/story-skills · 242 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-22 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_erzrqaicfjjqscqw GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=danjdewhurst/story-skills/theme-craft GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/d476a223655aedf115f848828adc46f508a4c7889825a5368fdaebfd604b6a2c
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