JesseMarkowitzandClaude Opus 5
d27ee34901
The planning package had grown to where a new agent could not tell what was authoritative. Phase 0 execution prompts sat beside the specification; four completed milestone reports sat beside the current one; and upstream AI-DnD's own `plan/` build log and `docs/` project site still described a hosted, scripted, multi-user product with accounts — every screenshot in it showed a Scripts tab and a Sign up button, none of which has existed since M2. `planning/archive/` now holds the history and says so in its own README: `phase0/` for the research that chose AI-DnD, `milestone-reports/` for M1 and M2, `decisions/` for ADR 008, the Phase-0-before-build gate Phase 0 satisfied. `planning/reports/` holds only the current milestone's report, because that is the one M4 planning has to read; it moves to the archive when M4's replaces it. Deleted rather than archived: the Phase 0B execution prompts and the handoff/status/summary documents, the Phase 0A discovery and triage reports, upstream's `plan/` and `docs/` trees, and `frontend/README.md`, which was Vite's template boilerplate. All of it is in Git history, and the two recommendation reports carry every conclusion the deleted research reached. Archived documents are kept verbatim. Paths written inside them point at where those files were when the document was written, which is the point: an evidence record that has been quietly edited is no longer evidence. Active documentation is corrected where it pointed at the removed trees or described removed capability as present. `DEVELOPMENT.md`'s "things M1 did not touch" list had gone stale at M2 and claimed QuickJS scripting was still tested; its test count was 604 against an actual 638. `README.md` loses the upstream CI badge, which reported upstream's pipeline rather than this fork's, and a reference to `backend/app/worldstate/engine.py`, a file that does not exist. `planning/README.md` is rewritten as the documentation index. New: `planning/PROJECT-SOURCES.md` and `planning/project-sources.txt`, the manifest of what belongs in the ChatGPT project's Sources. Source comments referring to the deleted trees are reworded; no behaviour changes. 638 backend tests pass, frontend lints and builds, and a reference scan over all 48 tracked Markdown files reports no unresolved path in active documentation. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NCbwH7yLGKsj1rhXXzKSCu
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Open Dungeon — Static Architecture Analysis
Historical status: Static Phase 0A analysis. Phase 0B confirmed Open Dungeon is a UX/media reference rather than the production base.
Repository: https://github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon
Date reviewed: 2026-09-01
Disposition: Finalist #2; strongest product/UI/media fit, but branch persistence requires material redesign.
What maps well to the specification
Open Dungeon already provides a product very close to the desired interaction model:
- browser-first UI,
- local Ollama text generation,
- streaming narration,
- Do / Say / Story-style interaction,
- Continue / Retry / Erase / Edit controls,
- SQLite persistence,
- rolling story summary for long conversations,
- persistent character records,
- local inline image generation,
- character portraits/visual continuity feeding image generation,
- optional ComfyUI path.
The future-media requirement is therefore not hypothetical in this codebase. It already has a concept of the narrator requesting an image after prose and a local image backend producing it.
Current stack
From the current package/config:
- Next.js 16
- React 19
- TypeScript
better-sqlite3- Node.js 22+
- Ollama default endpoint at
127.0.0.1:11434 - local image worker defaults to loopback
- optional remote OpenAI-compatible/OpenRouter configuration
Persistence finding: the major issue
The current database is fundamentally a linear chat model.
The reviewed schema contains:
- chats,
- messages,
- characters,
- app settings,
- rolling story summary fields.
Messages do not expose a parent-turn/branch-lineage model equivalent to AI-DnD or ai-adventure.
More importantly, the data layer includes an operation named deleteMessageAndAfter(). Its own comment says it is used by retry/erase to discard the tail of the story. Prior text can also be updated in place.
That is directly contrary to the target requirement:
Going backward should preserve the abandoned future as an alternate branch.
This means adding robust branching is not simply a UI feature. It requires changing the persistence semantics and all features that assume a single mutable message sequence, including retry/erase/edit and summary lineage.
Memory/context model
The prompt builder contains a history-packing mechanism with block eviction. Old story material is compressed into a rolling story summary, while recent history stays direct.
This is a reasonable lightweight storyteller strategy but is below the target design:
- no established semantic retrieval of old story events,
- no explicit Canon / Reference / Inspiration document library,
- no branch-aware memory lineage,
- no rich authoritative generic story-state graph.
Those systems would need to be added.
Media design
Open Dungeon is the strongest finalist for immediate media UX.
The current narrator prompt exposes a generate_image tool after a passage and passes selected character IDs so the image path can preserve visual identity. The app can use local FLUX tooling and supports ComfyUI in recent releases.
Useful ideas to retain even if Open Dungeon is not the base:
- media is optional; text play does not depend on it,
- image generation is scene/turn-associated,
- character visual identity is stored rather than reinvented each image,
- local backend is behind a service boundary,
- generated media appears inline in the story.
For our architecture, image generation should eventually move behind a generic media-provider interface rather than remain hard-coded to one model/workflow.
Privacy/static network assessment
Positive:
- local Ollama is the default,
- local SQLite is the default,
- local image generation is supported,
- no telemetry requirement was apparent in the inspected package/config.
Hardening needed:
- remove or disable OpenRouter and arbitrary remote OpenAI-compatible provider options in v1,
- review Tailscale/LAN exposure separately from loopback-only default,
- verify built frontend has no remote runtime assets,
- verify image setup does not make unexpected runtime downloads after installation,
- runtime network capture still required.
Testing concern
The inspected package.json exposes build/lint/image checks but no obvious comprehensive automated test command comparable to AI-DnD or Gamentic. This must be verified after clone; if accurate, a branch/persistence rewrite would need a new test foundation before implementation.
Best reuse case
If Open Dungeon becomes the base:
- preserve the browser experience,
- preserve Ollama integration,
- preserve image/visual-continuity concepts,
- replace/extend linear message persistence with a parent-linked turn graph,
- make summary/memory branch-aware,
- add authoritative generic narrative state,
- add local document ingestion and retrieval,
- add prompt/provenance inspection.
If AI-DnD becomes the base:
- use Open Dungeon primarily as a UX and media-generation reference.
Phase 0B questions for Codex
- How many routes/components assume messages are a single ordered list?
- Can a parent-linked turn/branch layer be introduced without replacing most chat APIs?
- What happens to
story_summarywhen retry/erase edits earlier history? - Can current image records attach cleanly to immutable turn IDs/scene IDs?
- Is there an automated test suite not visible from the package manifest?
- With Internet blocked, does ordinary text + local image play produce only loopback traffic?
Primary source links
- Repository: https://github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon
- DB: https://github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon/blob/main/src/lib/db.ts
- Prompt builder: https://github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon/blob/main/src/lib/story-prompt.ts
- Environment: https://github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon/blob/main/.env.example
- Package: https://github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon/blob/main/package.json