---
name: character-dossier
description: "Write a character dossier for a film on untitled.movie, covering want, need, wound, contradiction, voice with sample dialogue, relationships, arc and name history. Use when the author asks to develop, deepen or describe a character, or for dossiers of the main characters."
---

# Character dossier

## Before you start

Work in a session: unless one is open in this conversation, call `start_session` with the author's request as `trigger` and read the brief it returns. You propose, the author decides.

If the author names no character, take the main characters who don't have a dossier yet, and say which ones you picked.

## Steps

1. Read what canon, the documents and the name map say about the character first (`search_project`, `list_elements`).
2. Cover: want, need, wound, contradiction, voice (with two or three lines of sample dialogue), relationships, arc across the outline, and name history and aliases.
3. Cite everything canon settles by its label. Offer everything it doesn't settle as options, or mark it as a hole. Never present an invention as fact. A contradiction with canon becomes a question for the author.
4. Write it into the project's dossier document: `create_document` with kind `dossier` if there is none, otherwise add a section with `edit_text` or `write_document`.
5. Make sure the character exists as an element with its aliases (`upsert_elements`, kind `character`).
6. If the project has a roadmap: set the station `characters` to in progress with `update_station` unless it already is, and add what you made with `add_outputs`. Leave marking it done to the author.
7. Tell the author what the dossier rests on (labels), which options need their choice and which holes are left.

If the author asks for something different from these steps, do what the author asks.