Autonomous Novel Writing AI Agent

中文 | English | 日本語

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Open-source AI Agent that autonomously writes, audits, and revises novels — with human review gates that keep you in control. Supports LitRPG, Progression Fantasy, Isekai, Romantasy, Sci-Fi, and more. Continuation, spinoff, fanfic, and style imitation workflows built in.

InkOS Studio 2.0 is here! — run inkos to launch the local web workbench. Book management, chapter review & editing, real-time writing progress, market radar, analytics, AI detection, style analysis, genre management, daemon control, truth file editing — everything the CLI does, now visual.

InkOS TUI is here! — run inkos tui to launch a full-screen interactive dashboard. Conversational creation, natural-language book operations, slash command autocomplete, themed animations — TUI, Studio, and OpenClaw share the same interaction kernel.

Native English novel writing now supported！ — 10 built-in English genre profiles with dedicated pacing rules, fatigue word lists, and audit dimensions. Set --lang en and go.

Quick Start

Install

npm i -g @actalk/inkos

Use via OpenClaw 🦞

InkOS is published as an OpenClaw Skill, callable by any compatible agent (Claude Code, OpenClaw, etc.):

clawhub install inkos          # Install from ClawHub

If you installed via npm or cloned the repo, skills/SKILL.md is already included — 🦞 can read it directly without a separate ClawHub install.

Once installed, Claw should prefer the shared interaction entry:

inkos interact --json --message "continue the current book, but keep the pacing tighter"

This routes through the same conversation executor used by the project TUI, so OpenClaw, TUI, and Studio stay on the same control brain. The JSON payload includes:

• parsed request
• assistant response text
• updated interaction session
• execution state
• pending decision
• recent events

Atomic commands (plan chapter / compose chapter / draft / audit / revise / write next) are still available, but they are now lower-level tools rather than the preferred OpenClaw entry. You can also browse it on ClawHub by searching inkos.

Configure

Option 1: Global config (recommended, one-time setup)

inkos config set-global \
  --lang en \
  --provider <openai|anthropic|custom> \
  --base-url <API endpoint> \
  --api-key <your API key> \
  --model <model name>

# provider: openai / anthropic / custom (use custom for OpenAI-compatible proxies)
# base-url: your API provider URL
# api-key: your API key
# model: your model name

--lang en sets English as the default writing language for all projects. Saved to ~/.inkos/.env. New projects just work without extra config.

Option 2: Per-project .env

inkos init my-novel     # Initialize project
# Edit my-novel/.env

# Required
INKOS_LLM_PROVIDER=                               # openai / anthropic / custom (use custom for any OpenAI-compatible API)
INKOS_LLM_BASE_URL=                               # API endpoint
INKOS_LLM_API_KEY=                                 # API Key
INKOS_LLM_MODEL=                                   # Model name

# Language (defaults to global setting or genre default)
# INKOS_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=en                        # en or zh

# Optional
# INKOS_LLM_TEMPERATURE=0.7                       # Temperature
# INKOS_LLM_MAX_TOKENS=8192                        # Max output tokens
# INKOS_LLM_THINKING_BUDGET=0                      # Anthropic extended thinking budget

Project .env overrides global config. Skip it if no override needed.

Option 3: Multi-model routing (optional)

Assign different models to different agents — balance quality and cost:

# Assign different models/providers to different agents
inkos config set-model writer <model> --provider <provider> --base-url <url> --api-key-env <ENV_VAR>
inkos config set-model auditor <model> --provider <provider>
inkos config show-models        # View current routing

Agents without explicit overrides fall back to the global model.

v1.2 Update

Unified Interaction Kernel + TUI Dashboard + Studio Assistant

• Shared Interaction Runtime: TUI, Studio, inkos interact, and OpenClaw Skill share a single NL understanding + execution kernel, supporting 15+ intents (write, revise, rewrite, rename, export, switch book, etc.)
• Ink TUI Dashboard: inkos launches a full-screen interactive dashboard (Ink + React) with conversational creation, slash command autocomplete, themed animations, and bilingual i18n
• Studio Assistant Panel: right-side AI assistant panel connects to the shared interaction kernel — natural language book operations (rename, write, audit, export) with real-time execution status
• Conversational Book Creation: brainstorm book settings through natural language dialogue, one-click create when draft is ready
• Book-wide Entity Rename: rename Lin Jin to Zhang San or /rename Lin Jin => Zhang San — scans all chapters + truth files in one pass
• inkos interact: shared interaction JSON endpoint for OpenClaw / external agent integration
• Thinking Model Temperature Clamp: kimi-k2.5 and similar thinking models auto-clamped to temperature=1, compatible with per-call temperature overrides
• Studio Dead Code Cleanup: removed unused shadcn components and dependencies, -2800 lines

Write Your First Book

English is the default for English genre profiles. Pick a genre and go:

inkos book create --title "The Last Delver" --genre litrpg     # LitRPG novel (English by default)
inkos write next my-book          # Write next chapter (full pipeline: draft → audit → revise)
inkos status                      # Check status
inkos review list my-book         # Review drafts
inkos review approve-all my-book  # Batch approve
inkos export my-book --format epub  # Export EPUB (read on phone/Kindle)

Language is set per-genre by default. Override explicitly with --lang en or --lang zh. Use inkos genre list to see all available genres and their default languages.

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English Genre Profiles

InkOS ships with 10 English-native genre profiles. Each includes genre-specific rules, pacing, fatigue word detection, and audit dimensions:

Genre	Key Mechanics
LitRPG	Numerical system, power scaling, stat progression
Progression Fantasy	Power scaling, no numerical system required
Isekai	Era research, world contrast, cultural fish-out-of-water
Cultivation	Power scaling, realm progression
System Apocalypse	Numerical system, survival mechanics
Dungeon Core	Numerical system, power scaling, territory management
Romantasy	Emotional arcs, dual POV pacing
Sci-Fi	Era research, tech consistency
Tower Climber	Numerical system, floor progression
Cozy Fantasy	Low-stakes pacing, comfort-first tone

Also supports 5 Chinese web novel genres (xuanhuan, xianxia, urban, horror, other) for bilingual creators.

Every genre includes a fatigue word list (e.g., "delve", "tapestry", "testament", "intricate", "pivotal" for LitRPG) — the auditor flags these automatically so your prose doesn't read like every other AI-generated novel.

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Key Features

33-Dimension Audit + De-AI-ification

The Continuity Auditor agent checks every draft across 33 dimensions: character memory, resource continuity, hook payoff, outline adherence, narrative pacing, emotional arcs, and more. Built-in AI-tell detection automatically catches "LLM voice" — overused words, monotonous sentence patterns, excessive summarization. Failed audits trigger an automatic revision loop.

De-AI-ification rules are baked into the Writer agent's prompts: fatigue word lists, banned patterns, style fingerprint injection — reducing AI traces at the source. revise --mode anti-detect runs dedicated anti-detection rewriting on existing chapters.

Style Cloning

inkos style analyze examines reference text and extracts a statistical fingerprint (sentence length distribution, word frequency patterns, rhythm profiles) plus an LLM-readable style guide. inkos style import injects this fingerprint into a book — all future chapters adopt the style, and the Reviser audits against it.

Creative Brief

inkos book create --brief my-ideas.md — pass your brainstorming notes, worldbuilding doc, or character sheets. The Architect agent builds from your brief (generating story_bible.md and book_rules.md) instead of inventing from scratch, and persists the brief into story/author_intent.md so the book's long-horizon intent does not disappear after initialization.

Input Governance Control Surface

Every book now has two long-lived Markdown control docs:

• story/author_intent.md: what this book should become over the long horizon
• story/current_focus.md: what the next 1-3 chapters should pull attention back toward

Before writing, you can run:

inkos plan chapter my-book --context "Pull attention back to the mentor conflict first"
inkos compose chapter my-book

This generates story/runtime/chapter-XXXX.intent.md, context.json, rule-stack.yaml, and trace.json. intent.md is the human-readable contract; the others are execution/debug artifacts. plan / compose only compile local documents and state, so they can run before you finish API key setup.

Length Governance

draft, write next, and revise now share the same conservative length governor:

• --words sets a target band, not an exact hard promise
• Chinese chapters default to zh_chars; English chapters default to en_words
• If the chapter drifts outside the soft band, InkOS may run one corrective normalization pass (compress or expand) instead of hard-cutting prose
• If the chapter still misses the hard range after that one pass, InkOS still saves it, but surfaces a visible length warning and telemetry in the result and chapter index

Continuation Writing

inkos import chapters imports existing novel text, auto reverse-engineers all 7 truth files (world state, character matrix, resource ledger, plot hooks, etc.), supports Chapter N and custom split patterns, and resumable import. After import, inkos write next seamlessly continues the story.

Fan Fiction

inkos fanfic init --from source.txt --mode canon creates a fanfic book from source material. Four modes: canon (faithful continuation), au (alternate universe), ooc (out of character), cp (ship-focused). Includes a canon importer, fanfic-specific audit dimensions, and information boundary controls to keep lore consistent.

Multi-Model Routing

Different agents can use different models and providers. Writer on Claude (stronger creative), Auditor on GPT-4o (cheaper and fast), Radar on a local model (zero cost). inkos config set-model configures per-agent; unconfigured agents fall back to the global model.

Daemon Mode + Notifications

inkos up starts an autonomous background loop that writes chapters on a schedule. The pipeline runs fully unattended for non-critical issues, pausing for human review when needed. Notifications via Telegram and Webhook (HMAC-SHA256 signing + event filtering). Logs to inkos.log (JSON Lines), -q for quiet mode.

Local Model Compatibility

Supports any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (--provider custom). Stream auto-fallback — when SSE isn't supported, InkOS retries with sync mode automatically. Fallback parser handles non-standard output from smaller models, and partial content recovery kicks in on stream interruption.

Reliability

Every chapter creates an automatic state snapshot — inkos write rewrite rolls back any chapter to its pre-write state. The Writer outputs a pre-write checklist (context scope, resources, pending hooks, risks) and a post-write settlement table; the Auditor cross-validates both. File locking prevents concurrent writes. Post-write validator includes cross-chapter repetition detection and 11 hard rules with auto spot-fix.

The hook system uses Zod schema validation — lastAdvancedChapter must be an integer, status can only be open/progressing/deferred/resolved. JSON deltas from the LLM are processed through applyRuntimeStateDelta (immutable update) and validateRuntimeState (structural check) before persistence. Corrupted data is rejected, not propagated.

User-configured INKOS_LLM_MAX_TOKENS now acts as a global cap on all API calls. Reserved keys in llm.extra (max_tokens, temperature, etc.) are automatically stripped to prevent accidental overrides.

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How It Works

Each chapter is produced by multiple agents in sequence, with zero human intervention:

Agent	Responsibility
Radar	Scans platform trends and reader preferences to inform story direction (pluggable, skippable)
Planner	Reads author intent + current focus + memory retrieval results, produces chapter intent (must-keep / must-avoid)
Composer	Selects relevant context from all truth files by relevance, compiles rule stack and runtime artifacts
Architect	Plans chapter structure: outline, scene beats, pacing targets
Writer	Produces prose from the composed context (length-governed, dialogue-driven)
Observer	Over-extracts 9 categories of facts from the chapter text (characters, locations, resources, relationships, emotions, information, hooks, time, physical state)
Reflector	Outputs a JSON delta (not full markdown); code-layer applies Zod schema validation then immutable write
Normalizer	Single-pass compress/expand to bring chapter length into the target band
Continuity Auditor	Validates the draft against 7 canonical truth files, 33-dimension check
Reviser	Fixes issues found by the auditor — auto-fixes critical problems, flags others for human review

If the audit fails, the pipeline automatically enters a revise → re-audit loop until all critical issues are resolved.

Canonical Truth Files

Every book maintains 7 truth files as the single source of truth:

File	Purpose
current_state.md	World state: character locations, relationships, knowledge, emotional arcs
particle_ledger.md	Resource accounting: items, money, supplies with quantities and decay tracking
pending_hooks.md	Open plot threads: foreshadowing planted, promises to readers, unresolved conflicts
chapter_summaries.md	Per-chapter summaries: characters, key events, state changes, hook dynamics
subplot_board.md	Subplot progress board: A/B/C line status tracking
emotional_arcs.md	Emotional arcs: per-character emotion tracking and growth
character_matrix.md	Character interaction matrix: encounter records, information boundaries

The Continuity Auditor checks every draft against these files. If a character "remembers" something they never witnessed, or pulls a weapon they lost two chapters ago, the auditor catches it.

Since 0.6.0, the authoritative source for truth files has moved from markdown to story/state/*.json (Zod schema validated). The Settler no longer outputs full markdown files — it produces a JSON delta that is immutably applied and structurally validated before persistence. Markdown files are retained as human-readable projections. Existing books auto-migrate on first run.

On Node 22+, a SQLite temporal memory database (story/memory.db) is automatically enabled, supporting relevance-based retrieval of historical facts, hooks, and chapter summaries — preventing context bloat from full-file injection.

Control Surface and Runtime Artifacts

Alongside the 7 truth files, InkOS splits guardrails from customization into reviewable control docs:

• story/author_intent.md: long-horizon author intent
• story/current_focus.md: near-term steering
• story/runtime/chapter-XXXX.intent.md: chapter goal, keep/avoid list, conflict resolution
• story/runtime/chapter-XXXX.context.json: the actual context selected for this chapter
• story/runtime/chapter-XXXX.rule-stack.yaml: priority layers and override relationships
• story/runtime/chapter-XXXX.trace.json: compilation trace for this chapter

That means briefs, outline nodes, book rules, and current requests are no longer mashed into one prompt blob; InkOS compiles them first, then writes.

Writing Rule System

The Writer agent has ~25 universal writing rules (character craft, narrative technique, logical consistency, language constraints, de-AI-ification), applicable to all genres.

On top of that, each genre has dedicated rules (prohibitions, language constraints, pacing, audit dimensions), and each book has its own book_rules.md (protagonist personality, numerical caps, custom prohibitions), story_bible.md (worldbuilding), author_intent.md (long-horizon direction), and current_focus.md (near-term steering). volume_outline.md still acts as the default plan, but in v2 input governance it no longer automatically overrides the current chapter intent.

Usage Modes

InkOS provides three interaction modes, all sharing the same atomic operations:

1. Full Pipeline (One Command)

inkos write next my-book              # Draft → audit → auto-revise, all in one
inkos write next my-book --count 5    # Write 5 chapters in sequence

write next now uses the plan -> compose -> write governance chain by default. If you need the older prompt-assembly path, set this explicitly in inkos.json:

{
  "inputGovernanceMode": "legacy"
}

The default is now v2. legacy remains available as an explicit fallback.

2. Atomic Commands (Composable, External Agent Friendly)

inkos plan chapter my-book --context "Focus on the mentor conflict first" --json
inkos compose chapter my-book --json
inkos draft my-book --context "Focus on the dungeon boss encounter and party dynamics" --json
inkos audit my-book 31 --json
inkos revise my-book 31 --json

Each command performs a single operation independently. --json outputs structured data. plan / compose govern inputs; draft / audit / revise handle prose and quality checks. They can be called by external AI agents via exec, or used in scripts.

3. Natural Language Agent Mode

inkos agent "Write a LitRPG novel where the MC is a healer class in a dungeon world"
inkos agent "Write the next chapter, focus on the boss fight and loot distribution"
inkos agent "Create a progression fantasy about a mage who can only use one spell"

18 built-in tools (write_draft, plan_chapter, compose_chapter, audit_chapter, revise_chapter, scan_market, create_book, update_author_intent, update_current_focus, get_book_status, read_truth_files, list_books, write_full_pipeline, web_fetch, import_style, import_canon, import_chapters, write_truth_file), with the LLM deciding call order via tool-use. The recommended agent flow is: adjust the control surface first, then plan / compose, then choose draft-only or full-pipeline writing.

CLI Reference

Command	Description
inkos init [name]	Initialize project (omit name to init current directory)
inkos book create	Create a new book (--genre, --chapter-words, --target-chapters, --brief <file>, --lang en/zh)
inkos book update [id]	Update book settings (--chapter-words, --target-chapters, --status, --lang)
inkos book list	List all books
inkos book delete <id>	Delete a book and all its data (--force to skip confirmation)
inkos genre list/show/copy/create	View, copy, or create genres
inkos plan chapter [id]	Generate the next chapter's intent.md (--context / --context-file for current steering)
inkos compose chapter [id]	Generate the next chapter's context.json, rule-stack.yaml, and trace.json
inkos write next [id]	Full pipeline: write next chapter (--words to override, --count for batch, -q quiet mode)
inkos write rewrite [id] <n>	Rewrite chapter N (restores state snapshot, --force to skip confirmation)
inkos draft [id]	Write draft only (--words to override word count, -q quiet mode)
inkos audit [id] [n]	Audit a specific chapter
inkos revise [id] [n]	Revise a specific chapter
inkos agent <instruction>	Natural language agent mode
inkos review list [id]	Review drafts
inkos review approve-all [id]	Batch approve
inkos status [id]	Project status
inkos export [id]	Export book (--format txt/md/epub, --output <path>, --approved-only)
inkos fanfic init	Create a fanfic book from source material (--from, --mode canon/au/ooc/cp)
inkos config set-global	Set global LLM config (~/.inkos/.env)
inkos config set-model <agent> <model>	Per-agent model override (--base-url, --provider, --api-key-env)
inkos config show-models	Show current model routing
inkos doctor	Diagnose setup issues (API connectivity test + provider compatibility hints)
inkos detect [id] [n]	AIGC detection (--all for all chapters, --stats for statistics)
inkos style analyze <file>	Analyze reference text to extract style fingerprint
inkos style import <file> [id]	Import style fingerprint into a book
inkos import chapters [id] --from <path>	Import existing chapters for continuation (--split, --resume-from)
inkos analytics [id] / inkos stats [id]	Book analytics (audit pass rate, top issues, chapter ranking, token usage)
inkos studio	Start web workbench (-p for port, default 4567)
inkos up / down	Start/stop daemon (-q quiet mode, auto-writes inkos.log)

[id] is auto-detected when the project has only one book. All commands support --json for structured output. draft / write next / plan chapter / compose chapter accept --context for steering, and --words overrides the target chapter size. book create supports --brief <file> to pass a creative brief — the Architect builds from your ideas instead of generating from scratch. plan chapter / compose chapter do not require a live LLM, so you can inspect governed inputs before finishing API setup.

Roadmap

• packages/studio Web UI workbench (Vite + React + Hono) — shipped, run inkos studio
• Interactive fiction (branching narrative + reader choices)
• Partial chapter intervention (rewrite half a chapter + cascade truth file updates)
• Custom agent plugin system

Contributing

Contributions welcome. Open an issue or PR.

Development is moving quickly. More features and writing-quality improvements will keep landing. Feedback, feature requests, and project follow-up are all welcome. The goal is to build the strongest AI novel-writing Agent.

pnpm install
pnpm dev          # Watch mode for all packages
pnpm test         # Run tests
pnpm typecheck    # Type-check without emitting

Star History

Repobeats

Contributors

License

AGPL-3.0