---
creative_pillar: record
always_load_for: [discuss, plan, draft, editor-review, next, scan, continuity-check]
authority: established
---

# Record

This file tracks what the work has established so far. It is not the manuscript, and it is not workflow state.

- `STATE.md` tracks where the project is in the workflow.
- `OUTLINE.md` tracks how the work is structured.
- `RECORD.md` tracks what the work has established and what future units must honor.

Use this file across work types. In fiction it can hold story facts. In nonfiction it can hold argument movement. In sacred commentary it can hold interpretive claims and source-handling obligations. In technical writing it can hold system facts, procedure truths, and reader expectations.

## Established on page

Facts, claims, decisions, events, procedures, definitions, relationships, images, or constraints that have already appeared in drafted text.

| Established item | First established | Current status | Notes |
|------------------|-------------------|----------------|-------|
| | | | |

## Open threads

Questions, tensions, mysteries, arguments, promises, risks, procedures, motifs, images, relationship shifts, or reader expectations that remain open.

| Thread | Opened in | Needs payoff or handling | Urgency |
|--------|-----------|--------------------------|---------|
| | | | |

## Promises and payoffs

Reader-facing promises and planted devices, and whether they have paid off. The `Type` names the device so a setup is never silently lost; the `Status` is its lifecycle.

Device types: `promise` (a reader expectation), `chekhovs_gun` (a planted element that must fire), `red_herring` (intentional misdirection that pays off as a deliberate dead end), `macguffin` (an object that drives pursuit), `foreshadow` (an early hint of a later beat).
Status lifecycle: `planted` (set up, not yet resolved), then `paid_off` (resolved as intended), `subverted` (resolved against expectation, by design), or `abandoned` (dropped -- a planted gun that never fires is a flaw to flag).

| Type | Promise or device | Setup location | Payoff location | Status |
|------|-------------------|----------------|-----------------|--------|
| | | | | |

## Continuity facts

Durable facts future drafting must not contradict.

| Fact | Applies to | Source location | Notes |
|------|------------|-----------------|-------|
| | | | |

## Movement

Character, figure, subject, argument, reader, doctrine, procedure, image, object, setting, or relationship movement that future units should preserve.

| Moving element | Starting state | Current state | Next pressure |
|----------------|----------------|---------------|---------------|
| | | | |

## Next unit obligations

Specific obligations the next planned or drafted unit should honor.

-

## Notes

Use plain language. Keep this file short enough to load. Move detailed material into the relevant adapted source file when it becomes permanent: cast, themes, world, questions, procedures, doctrines, or another context file.

---
*This file is the living record of what the work has established. Update it after drafting, review, import, and major continuity decisions.*