writing-shape

1<what-to-do>
2 
3The user has passed (or will pass) a markdown file of raw material. Treat it as the input pile: anything from a tidy list of fragments to a wall of unstructured prose to a transcript. The format does not matter. Read it end-to-end before doing anything else.
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5Then run a shaping session that produces a separate article document. This is **exploit**: the exploring is done, the pile is fixed: commit to a structure and mine the pile to fill it. Do not edit the raw material file: it is read-only to this skill.
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7If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path.
8 
9</what-to-do>
10 
11<supporting-info>
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13## The loop
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151. **Read the pile.** Read the input file in full. Form a sense of what's in it.
162. **Establish the prerequisites.** Settle with the user what the reader knows walking in: the concepts that are **grounded** from the start. Everything else must be grounded by a block before a later block can lean on it. See [Grounding](#grounding).
173. **Draft 2–3 candidate openings.** Each opening should imply a different thesis or angle for the article. Show all of them. Force the user to pick or compose a hybrid. The chosen opening defines what the rest of the article must do.
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