---
description: Extract world-building and research elements from a manuscript
argument-hint: "[path, glob, or selection]"
allowed-tools: [Read, Glob, Grep]
---

Read the material at `$ARGUMENTS` and extract the world-building scaffolding — the rules, systems, places, peoples, technologies, history, and other invented or researched elements the story relies on. Report directly to the conversation as a reference document.

## What to extract

Inventory each of the following that appears in the text. Skip categories that don't apply.

### Systems and rules
- **Physical / magical** — laws, limits, costs, exceptions
- **Technological** — devices, infrastructure, capabilities and constraints
- **Biological / species** — characteristics, abilities, lifecycles
- **Cultural** — customs, taboos, ceremonies, norms

### Social and political
- **Governance** — structures, hierarchies, factions, leaders
- **Economic** — currencies, trade, scarcity, class
- **Legal** — laws, enforcement, punishments
- **Communication** — protocols, etiquette, who speaks to whom

### Geography and setting
- **Locations** — planets, regions, cities, landmarks, interiors of note
- **Timeline / history** — past events the story references
- **Distances and travel** — how long things take, how movement works

### Themes and ideas
- **Concepts the story is wrestling with** — identity, freedom, memory, etc.
- **Real-world research areas** that ground the fiction — flag where the writer leaned on specialist knowledge (medicine, military, law, science, history, language)

## Output format

For each element:

- **Name / label** — the thing as it appears in the text
- **What we know** — extracted facts, with brief chapter/scene refs
- **Consistency notes** — contradictions or vague spots worth firming up
- **Open questions** — gaps where the writer hasn't yet decided something the text implies

Close with:
- **Research gaps** — areas where the writer should do more homework before the next draft
- **World-building gaps** — invented systems that need more definition to stay coherent