# Writing Beats Agent Skill
> Turn raw material into a structured article using writing beats that keep readers oriented. Each beat lands one idea before the next pivot. Start free in seconds.
- Canonical: https://nanoskill.ai/fr/skills/writing-beats-agent-skill
- Markdown: https://nanoskill.ai/fr/skills/writing-beats-agent-skill.md
- Author: mattpocock
- Published: 2026-11-09T03:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T13:06:17.430Z
- Language: fr
- Source type: github
- Popularity signal: 244385
## Sources
- https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/in-progress/writing-beats
## Install
```shell
npx skills add https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/in-progress/writing-beats
```
## About
Writing beats helps writers turn a pile of raw material into a structured article by moving through one grounded beat at a time. It prevents the reader from getting lost by making sure every concept is either known before the first beat or introduced before a later beat uses it. The result is a clear journey from opening idea to natural ending.
The skill does not write the article all at once. It establishes prerequisites with you, then presents 2-3 candidate starting beats drawn from your raw material. Each candidate shows what it grounds and what paths it unlocks, so you choose the entry point. After each beat, it offers next beats that fit the current grounded set, and it writes only the beat you pick.
Writers, editors, and content teams can use it to shape long-form drafts, revise individual beats, or steer a piece in a different direction without reworking the whole file. Because it re-reads the file before every write and preserves user edits, it works well when you want tight control over the sequence and pacing.
## Key features
- **Choose-your-own-adventure writing beats**: Presents 2-3 starting beats and next beats, each grounded and showing what new concepts it unlocks, so you control the article's direction.
- **Concept grounding system**: Tracks prerequisites and introduced concepts so no beat leans on an idea the reader hasn't met yet, keeping the audience from getting lost.
- **One beat at a time**: Appends only the selected beat to the article file, never writes ahead, and re-reads the file before each write to preserve your edits.
- **Raw material quarrying**: Pulls from a markdown file of raw material, paraphrasing, splitting, recombining, or quoting as needed to fill each beat.
- **Natural journey ending**: Ends when the article journey is complete, not when the source pile is empty, leaving leftover fragments unused.
## Use cases
- **Draft long-form articles from raw notes**: Writers and researchers feed a markdown pile of notes and receive a beat-by-beat path to a coherent article draft.
- **Plan reader-friendly article structure**: Content teams establish prerequisites and ground concepts before later beats rely on them, preventing confusing jumps.
- **Rewrite individual beats without losing context**: Editors can ask for a different beat, edit in place, and leave the rest of the article untouched.
- **Guide a collaborative writing path**: Authors pick from candidate next beats to steer the article in the direction they want while the skill handles grounding.
## Result preview
See every beat and fork, with what each choice grounded and why the other branches were skipped.
## Result walkthrough
### Install
Add the Writing Beats Skill to your AI agent.
### Point It at a Pile
Give it raw material and the save path. Pick one beat at a time; each must rest only on grounded concepts.
### Get Your Path Report
Receive the full trace: beats, forks, rejected branches, and the grounding ledger.
## Skill definition
The user has passed (or will pass) a markdown file of raw material. This is **exploit**: the exploring is done, the pile is fixed. Commit to a path through it and mine the pile to fill each beat.
If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path.
Then run a beat-by-beat journey, choose-your-own-adventure style:
1. **Establish the prerequisites.** Before any beats, settle with the user what the audience already knows walking in: the concepts that are **grounded** from the start. Everything else must be grounded by a beat before a later beat can use it. See [Grounding](#grounding).
2. Write 2–3 candidate **starting beats**, drawn from the raw material. Each is a different entry point into the article. Each may only lean on grounded concepts; note what new concepts each one grounds. Show the user the beats before writing to the article file. The user picks one. Preview what beats that pick unlocks, as if the user is seeing a little way down the path.
3. Once the user picks a starting beat, write **only that beat** to the article file. A beat may be one sentence or several paragraphs, whatever that beat naturally is. Stop there.
4. Re-read the article file from disk. Then offer 2–3 candidate **next beats**: different directions the journey could pivot to from where the article now stands. Each must be reachable from the current grounded set; note what each one grounds.
5. Loop steps 3–5 until the article reaches a natural end.
## Grounding
Every **concept** has to be **grounded** before a beat can lean on it: the audience either walked in knowing it or met it in an earlier beat. A beat that reaches for an ungrounded concept loses the reader; that is the one move the journey can't make. The unit is the concept, not the word for it: a beat can lean on an idea the reader lacks even with no jargon in sight. Where a concept has a name (a **term**), grounding it means landing the idea and the term together.
A concept gets grounded one of two ways:
- **Prerequisite**: grounded before the first beat. The audience brings it. Fixed at the start.
- **Introduced**: a beat establishes it, and from then on it's grounded for every later beat.
So each beat does two jobs: it **requires** concepts that are already grounded, and it **grounds** new ones. Keep a running list of what's grounded so far, and update it each time a beat lands.
This is what shapes the choose-your-own-adventure. A candidate beat is only reachable if everything it requires is already grounded; picking a beat that grounds concept X unlocks every beat that was waiting on X. When you offer next beats, they must all be reachable from the current grounded set, and say what each one grounds, so the user can see which paths it opens.
The big lever is what you make a prerequisite versus what you ground inside the piece. Demand too much up front and you shut out readers who don't have it; ground too much inside and the early beats drown in definitions. Settle this with the user when you establish prerequisites, and revisit it whenever a tempting beat turns out to require a concept nothing has grounded yet: the fix is either a grounding beat before it, or promoting the concept to a prerequisite.
## What is a beat
A beat is one move in the journey. It does one thing: sets a scene, lands a point, asks a question, drops an aside, twists the angle. Then it stops, leaving the reader at a place where the next beat can pivot.
A beat is sized by what it needs:
- A single sentence if that's all the move is ("And then nothing happened for three weeks.").
- A short paragraph if the move needs setup.
- Multiple paragraphs if the beat is a self-contained vignette, argument, or example.
If a "beat" needs five paragraphs and three subheadings, it's not a beat; it's two beats glued together. Split it.
## Pulling from the pile
Pull material from the raw pile to populate each beat. You can paraphrase, split, recombine, or quote. The pile is a quarry.
## Ending the journey
The article ends when the journey is complete, not when the pile is empty. Most piles will have leftover fragments that don't make it in. That is fine; that is the point of having more raw material than you need.
## Writing rhythm
- Append one beat at a time. Never write ahead.
- Re-read the article file from disk before every write. Preserve user edits absolutely.
- If the user edits a previous beat substantially, let it change what comes next.
- If the user says "rewrite that beat" or "go back and try a different beat 3", do it: edit in place, leave the rest alone.
## FAQ
### What is Writing Beats?
Writing Beats is a skill that turns a markdown file of raw material into a structured article by writing one beat at a time. Each beat lands one idea before the article pivots.
### How does the grounding system work?
Concepts are either prerequisites the reader walks in knowing or introduced by a beat. A later beat can only use grounded concepts, so readers never encounter an idea before it is explained or assumed.
### Do I need to provide raw material?
Yes, the skill expects a markdown file of raw material. It pulls from that pile to populate each beat, paraphrasing, splitting, recombining, or quoting as needed.
### How do I choose the next beat?
After each beat, the skill offers 2-3 candidate next beats that are reachable from the grounded concepts so far. You pick one, and it writes only that beat to the file.
### Can I edit or rewrite previous beats?
Yes. The skill re-reads the article file before every write and preserves your edits absolutely. If you ask to rewrite a beat, it edits in place and leaves the rest alone.
### How long should a beat be?
A beat can be one sentence, a short paragraph, or multiple paragraphs if it is a self-contained vignette, argument, or example. If it needs five paragraphs and subheadings, it should be split into two beats.