assets/scaffold/published/README.md

# Published Output

This directory is for rendered artifacts generated from `chapters/`.

Do not edit generated book output directly. Update source material or chapter files, then regenerate the published files and final `.epub`.

Ask the available Novelist publication skill to generate and validate these
artifacts from an author publication request.

Chapter source files are editorial containers. Publication renders only the
content inside each chapter's unique `## Draft` section, with the chapter title
supplied from canonical metadata. `## Synopsis` and `## Revision Notes` are
writer-facing material and must not appear in EPUB chapter XHTML. A standalone
`---` in Draft is the canonical scene break and renders as a semantic separator
with a centered `* * *` ornament, not a list. Prose paragraphs render with a
sans-serif stack. Each exact `*“…”*` speech range becomes
`<i class="dialog">` in a serif italic stack without creating a paragraph,
while unquoted `*…*` remains interior thought rendered as `<em>`.

Publication retains both generated forms:

- `published/epub/` is the inspectable staging tree;
- `published/*.epub` is the ZIP-based container used by reading software, with
  `mimetype` first and uncompressed as required by EPUB packaging.

Rebuilding may replace the staging contents, but successful packaging does not
delete the staging directory.