/project: the works, and the tales they pay for

The works are the a-la-carte goals: one real goal at a time, outside the knee, in 2–5 tasks he can report done. The Ledger keeps them (real/projects.json); the sheet counts them (WORKS); each task reported pays one piece of a tale from the past (saga/chronicle/tales/), and the last piece leaves a keepsake on someone's page. Titles and tasks are real-world words and never reach the Chronicle, the site or a commit message. No shame: a project set aside stays as far as it got, and its pieces stay told. He discovers the tale piece by piece: never say which tale a project pays for, or what the keepsake will be.

1. Opening a project (usually Sunday, with the week's plan)

1. Take his goal and its tasks as he gives them. A goal with no tasks: cut it into 2–5 with him, one line each, things he can say "done" to ("clean the car", "park it on the street", "list it on both sites"), and confirm the order once.
2. python3 engine/darrow.py project open "<title>" --tasks "<task 1>" "<task 2>" … (one live project at a time; --id for a short slug when the title is long; --date when he opened it earlier in the week). It is due the Saturday of the week it opens (--due moves it when he names another day): finished in its week, its tale ends on the full keepsake; finished after that day, on the lesser one (the brief says which; nothing else changes). Say the due day once when it opens and never nag it.
3. Bind its tale: python3 engine/saga.py tale list shows the plans in saga/bible/_gm/tales.md not yet bound, with their piece counts and whose past each is. python3 engine/saga.py tale bind <project id> takes the first unbound plan with a piece per task; --tale tale.<id> names one. Pick by what the story wants told next (alternate Darrow's past and Rae's over the months). No plan fits the task count: re-cut one in tales.md (pieces, and the ### piece K plans, a piece per task) or write a new one by the file's rules, then bind. The bind starts the tale's file with its opening line.
4. Reply in the Ledger's voice: the project and its tasks, one line each, and that the day plan will remind him of the next one. Nothing of the tale. python3 engine/darrow.py ship -m "the week's work opened".

2. A task reported ("cleaned the car", "crv is parked", "listed it")

1. python3 engine/darrow.py project done "<its number, or a few of its words>" (--date for an earlier day), then python3 engine/darrow.py sync: the RECKONING CHANGES carry a WORK: line; the finishing task carries WORK FINISHED and an INSPIRATION line (a Reckoning line in the reply, unexplained). A project finished after its due day is late: the brief for the last piece gives the lesser keepsake, and the page gives it without comment.
2. The piece, now, in the same reply. python3 engine/saga.py brief --tale prints what the piece must carry (the tale's plan and this piece's, the keepsake on the last piece, the never list, the plants), the pieces told so far, the people in it, the Annals the plan names, the format and the record skeleton. Read saga/bible/style.md §1 and §2. Write the piece under ### Piece K — Title at the end of the tale's file (the brief names it): 400–700 words, past tense, close third on the tale's own person, a whole small story (a want, a turn, a last image); the last piece ends on the keepsake in the page's words. The wall holds: nothing of the project, nothing of the present but what a reader can feel as an echo, nothing the never list names. Then the reread (style.md §4).
3. python3 engine/saga.py record '<the skeleton, filled>': the people in it with their facts and evidence, codex items for a new thing (section Histories), threads planted or touched, the Annals spoken, and on the last piece the keepsake ({"name", "text", "to", "mark"}; the mark is its drawing on the shelf, from the set the brief lists). It refuses, writing nothing, a piece ahead of its task, out of order, a title that is not the heading, evidence not in the piece, a last piece without its keepsake; fix what it names and run it again. A new person in the past: their base file first (saga/characters/README.md; status as the present knows it) and their line in saga/bible/cast.md.
4. Reply: the Ledger line (task k of n done, what is left, a finished project in one line), the level-up block if sync reported one, the Reckoning line, then the piece in story voice under its heading, nothing explained. A log in the same message is handled first (/log); the piece takes the glimpse's place (no glimpse in a reply that carries a piece).
5. python3 engine/darrow.py ship -m "a task of the week's work done; tale N piece K, <the piece's title>". The message is reader-safe: the task's own words never go in it.

3. The rest

• What is left: python3 engine/darrow.py project show (--all for every project); today, week and the Ledger's NOW carry the live project and its next task. /today names the next task under the sessions, as a reminder, never as a debt.
• Set aside ("drop the car thing", "not this week"): python3 engine/darrow.py project drop --why "<his words>"; the pieces told stay told and its tale rests, told in part (the site says so and the shelf stops waiting for it); a piece already owed by a reported task is still written. The next project may open. No lecture, no story cost.
• A task reported late (last week's, or two at once): project done … --date YYYY-MM-DD for each, oldest first; each owes its piece, written now, in order (saga.py now shows TALE OWED until they are).
• A piece owed and not written (a phone session ended early): the next session writes it first, before any log reply, from saga.py brief --tale.
• Sunday, with /checkpoint: if no project is open, ask him in one line for the coming week's work (a goal outside the knee and its 2–5 tasks), and open it here. One at a time.