Four product surfaces told the agent to call start_planning FIRST for any "non-trivial" work, while a fifth — the milestone bullet four lines up in the same file — had the criterion right: use one when the work has an arc. The loudest surface won, so sessions wrapped bug fixes and one-file changes in milestones that never meant anything. Mandating one project shape is what rule #115 forbids: some projects are milestone-shaped, others are a flat task list and always will be. Now the arc test is stated ONCE in full, in writing-plans, along with what to do when there is no arc (a task, driven by status and work-logs). The other surfaces name it and defer: - writing-plans/SKILL.md gains a "first decide whether this work wants a plan" section; its frontmatter trigger is the arc, not "non-trivial" - using-scribe reflex #4 points at the skill instead of restating it - server.py's Plan bullet adopts the milestone bullet's own criterion - server.py's planning paragraph drops from 11 lines to 6: it keeps the claim MCP instructions should make (a plan's HOME is a milestone, not a local .md) and drops the how, which the skill carries - start_planning's docstring gains the when Also removed "call start_planning FIRST — before any brainstorming, design, or plan-writing skill runs." That was the server asserting priority over the skill layer. Tools describe what they do; skills decide when they apply. The structural point outlasts the wording: a surface that restates a rule is a surface that will eventually contradict it, and nothing checks prose against prose. Closes #2322. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01UaYUaouG9jjhATyuxCKrQs
Fabled Scribe
A self-hosted work system-of-record for software projects, built to be driven by Claude Code. Notes, tasks, issues, projects, milestones, rules, and stored processes — reachable from Claude via a built-in MCP endpoint and a bundled Claude Code plugin, with a clean web UI for humans. No in-app LLM; Claude is the sole assistant.
Features
Notes and tasks with a Markdown editor, sub-tasks, milestones, issues, and kanban project workspaces. Stored processes, an engineering rulebook system, and semantic search with proactive knowledge-injection into Claude's context. A knowledge graph, per-user/group sharing, and a built-in MCP server (/mcp) plus a bundled Claude Code plugin so Claude can record and recall your work directly.
Quick Start
Prerequisites: Docker and Docker Compose. No GPU or local model needed — Claude is the sole assistant, reached over MCP.
Download docker-compose.quickstart.yml from this repo, then:
# Optional but recommended — set a secret key
export SECRET_KEY=your-random-secret-here
docker compose -f docker-compose.quickstart.yml up -d
Open http://localhost:5000. The first user to register becomes admin. To connect Claude, create an API key under Settings → API Keys and install the Claude Code plugin — see API Keys & MCP.
Development: To build from source, see Development.
Documentation
| Doc | Contents |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Stack, design decisions, data models, key services |
| Configuration | Environment variables, Docker Compose, production setup, security |
| Features | Detailed feature breakdown and keyboard shortcuts |
| Development | Dev workflow, CI/CD, migrations, release process |
| API Keys & MCP | API key management and Fable MCP install guide |
| SSO / OAuth | OIDC setup for Authentik, Keycloak, and other providers |
| API Reference | All REST API endpoints |
License
This project is privately maintained.