What it does

writing-fragments runs a relentless grilling session to mine raw writing fragments and appends them to a single document without committing to article structure, outlines, or sequence.

It is pure explore: it refuses to organize, outline, or format the piece, treating everything captured as heterogeneous raw material for a future exploit phase.

When to reach for it

You invoke this by typing /writing-fragments, and the agent won’t reach for it on its own.

Reach for it when you want to write an article, essay, or post, but your thoughts are scattered across half-formed observations, punchlines, code snippets, and analogies.

What you have	What you want to do	Reach for
Raw, unorganized ideas in your head	Mine fragments without committing to structure	`writing-fragments`
A pile of raw fragments	Shape them paragraph by paragraph with explicit format choices	writing-shape
A pile of raw fragments	Assemble them as a choose-your-own-adventure journey of beats	writing-beats
Instructions for agents	Author predictable agent-facing documents	writing-for-agents

The quarry and the leading word

flowchart TD
    ScatteredThoughts(["Scattered Observations & Half-Formed Ideas"]) --> Invoke["Run /writing-fragments"]
    
    Invoke --> GrillSession["Relentless Grilling Exploration\n(No premature structure, no outlines)"]
    
    GrillSession --> CaptureTypes["Capture Heterogeneous Fragments"]
    
    subgraph QuarryFile ["Quarry File: fragments-slug.md"]
        F1["Sharp punchlines and sentences"]
        F2["Concrete vignettes and analogies"]
        F3["Claims with 1-line justifications"]
        F4["Leading words and conceptual coinages"]
    end
    
    CaptureTypes --> F1 & F2 & F3 & F4
    
    F1 & F2 & F3 & F4 --> ExploitTrilogy{"Feed into Exploit Phase"}
    ExploitTrilogy -- "Argumentative essay" --> Shape["/writing-shape\n(Paragraph by paragraph)"]
    ExploitTrilogy -- "Narrative journey" --> Beats["/writing-beats\n(Choose-your-own-adventure)"]

A fragment is any piece of writing that might survive into the final piece. It does not need to define its terms or satisfy a cold reader yet: the only bar is that you recognize what it means and that it holds a kernel of good writing.

Fragments are deliberately heterogeneous:

Sharp sentences and punchlines you want to deploy somewhere.
Concrete vignettes, analogies, scenarios, or code snippets.
Claims with a one-line justification.
Halved thoughts (“something about how X feels like Y, work this out later”).
Quotes, overheard lines, complaints, or confessions.
Leading words: a compact metaphor or coinage that encapsulates a whole concept (such as tracer bullets or tight loop).

Landing a strong leading word during explore is the highest-value move in the session. It gives both you and the agent a shared handle to think with, shaping transitions, structure, and title throughout the subsequent exploit phase.

Explore before exploit

Most writing sessions stall because they try to structure before they have raw material. When you outline too early, you force premature commitments to headings and narrative transitions before you know what you are actually noticing.

writing-fragments separates the two phases completely. The document it produces is a quarry, formatted with a working title H1 and fragments separated by horizontal rules (---), with no internal headings, tags, or sequencing.

Common questions

Why doesn’t it organize my fragments into an outline? Organizing is exploit, and doing it early closes off promising directions before you have discovered them. Structure belongs in writing-shape or writing-beats, where the pile is fixed and you are deliberately committing to a path.

Can I edit or cut fragments while the session is running? Yes. You can edit the markdown file directly on disk between turns, or instruct the agent to cut, sharpen, or merge specific fragments. The skill re-reads the file from disk before every write to preserve your manual changes.

How many fragments do I need before moving to shaping? Stop when the session stops uncovering new angles and begins circling ideas you have already captured. A dozen strong fragments, especially with one or two solid leading words, provides plenty of quarry material for an article.

Does it write metadata, tags, or dates to the file? No. It writes an H1 working title at the top, followed by fragments separated by horizontal rules. Keeping the quarry format minimal ensures you can scan and mine it without wading through organizational noise.

It’s working if

Fragments appear in the file after each conversational exchange without interrupting the flow of discussion.
The file contains a rich mix of vignettes, claims, sharp lines, and candidate leading words.
You do not spend time arguing about table of contents, headings, or article flow during the session.
You finish with far more raw material than you will actually need in the finished piece.

Where it fits

writing-fragments is the explore step of the writing trilogy.

It feeds directly into writing-shape (for paragraph-by-paragraph argumentative pieces) or writing-beats (for choose-your-own-adventure narrative journeys). For general idea sharpening without producing written raw material, use grill-me.

When you are unsure which skill fits your current task, ask-fred routes you across the full library.