# Script contract Write for one visible host with a clear promise, progression, and payoff. Choose the narrative form that fits the topic: story, argument, review, experiment, build, commentary, or another coherent form. Do not force a house outline. ## Preserve authorship - A user-supplied script is locked unless the user explicitly permits rewriting. - A generated script remains editable until approval. - `script.md` is the approved spoken source. Production headings and bracketed mode markers may organize it, but every spoken word must appear once and in order across `generation-plan.json.jobs[].dialogue`. - Never hide a rewrite inside job splitting, prompt polishing, or assembly. ## Route brief-based writing For a brief, first load the installed `$youtube-script` SKILL.md and apply its canonical narrative-engine router without reproducing or simplifying its genre table here. Diagnose the subject, viewer promise, narrative engine, evidence spine, and host stance. Topic nouns such as company, AI, economics, work, productivity, or money are not decisive. Select a guide only when its affirmative entry gate is satisfied; no guide, especially business/finance, is a fallback. Record `script_source: "brief_generated"` and the chosen genre briefly in `brief.json`, then load `references/.md` from that installed skill directory. No routing receipt or rejected-alternative report is needed. If two affirmative entry gates remain genuinely satisfied and the run is interactive, ask one concrete outcome question before drafting. Under explicit autonomous delegation, choose from the requested outcome, title promise, available evidence, and intended payoff; never default an ambiguous brief to business/finance. Do not blend full guides. Load the matching `references/-patterns.md` from the installed `youtube-script` only for a long or structurally complex episode, or when the concise guide does not resolve a craft decision. These paths are relative to the installed `youtube-script` directory, not to `ai-host-video`. The genre guide supplies writing craft, not a second workflow. This skill still owns the accepted host, approved spoken source, generation plan, and edit. ## Adapt the guide to an AI host - For user-supplied copy, record `"script_source": "user_supplied"` in `brief.json` and omit `script_route`; preserve the supplied script rather than retroactively classifying or reshaping it. - Keep one visible host as the episode's presenter. Do not choose a faceless, parallel-activity, footage-only, or multi-host lane unless the user supplied the required material and explicitly wants that presentation. - Never invent first-person experience, tests, purchases, spending, revenue, failures, confessions, credentials, audience history, or access. If a genre expects personal receipts, use user-supplied receipts or switch to named sourced evidence and an honest analyst/explainer register. - For factual claims that need verification, use available host web search to discover sources and available host source reading to inspect them before drafting. Prefer primary or authoritative sources. Keep unresolved claims out of the spoken script; report them separately rather than turning them into host certainty. - Do not invent sponsors, affiliate pitches, courses, merchandise, or product plugs. Include a monetization beat only when the user explicitly requested it, and preserve their supplied claims and disclosure requirements. ## Draft from a brief 1. Follow the selected guide to create three genuinely different hook candidates. 2. Select the strongest candidate by specificity, available proof, fit to the title promise, and fit to the one-host presentation. 3. Write the complete spoken script around that selected hook. Use the guide's beat proportions and retention devices, with the delivery pace and word budget below for runtime planning. 4. Write only the selected complete spoken draft to `script-draft.md`. Do not put alternate hooks, timestamps, a retention map, source notes, or internal labels in that file. 5. Review the selected draft yourself and continue. Only at an explicitly requested script checkpoint, present it with the other hook options as described below. Genre timestamps are planning estimates derived from target duration, words per minute, and beat percentages. They do not control assembly and must not enter `script.md`. Target duration is approximate: write toward it, then report an honest runtime estimate. After generation, measured transcript word times own edit timing, and the master is allowed to land short or long of the brief. Do not later add speech-free holds or cut speech to hit the planned number. ## Write for generation Choose the average delivery pace before budgeting a new script. Honor an explicit pace or an available speaking reference; otherwise start at 150 words per minute. A deliberately brisk countdown can use 160–170 and a calm explainer 140–150. These numbers are internal estimates for word budgeting and request duration only. Budget spoken words as target speaking minutes times that pace. Deduct any known speech-free structural inserts and deliberate silent holds from the episode target; visuals over continuing narration do not reduce its word budget. Count the completed spoken text, excluding headings and notes; do not report the budget as the actual word count. Record the request in `brief.target_duration_minutes` and compare a new draft with the budget before splitting. Report the runtime estimate honestly. If a later host reference reveals a different natural pace, preserve locked copy and update the estimate. There is no script-length gate; do not pad, retime, truncate speech or rewrite user-supplied copy merely to hit a number. Prefer natural sentence-safe job boundaries. Calculate each request's duration using the shared [dialogue timing](generation.md#dialogue-timing) rule, including the same pace and a small allowance for onset and the closing beat. Read the line aloud mentally and split it when natural delivery would exceed the model's limit. Avoid large silence buffers that invite stretched delivery. Vary sentence shape, intensity, gesture, and camera behavior according to meaning. Avoid prompt-like prose, fake quotations, generic creator filler, repeated hooks, and stage directions inside spoken dialogue. ## Canonicalization Only for an explicitly requested script checkpoint, show the complete spoken script in chat with word count and an honest runtime estimate. Ask in normal chat whether to continue, select an alternate hook, or edit. Checkpoint first and wait for the actual answer. Re-present the complete revised text if wording changes. After approval, copy the exact draft to `script.md`. In autonomous mode select the strongest hook, review it yourself, save `script-draft.md` and `script.md`, and continue without inventing a review gate. Billing follows the OpenAI runtime.