refactor(songwriting): split object-writing into object-writing, metaphor, cliche, point-of-view

[kyle-sexton]

Keep the Pattison term object-writing as its own skill; extract metaphor, cliche repair, and POV into sibling skills. Also split co-write: title generation and line/section brainstorm are solo-usable generation tools misfiled under co-write. Needs its own interview when picked up (USER-RESERVED details).

Origin: skill-name audit + interview, contract at docs/topics/shadowed-skill-renames/PLAN.md (PR #256).

[kyle-sexton]

Decision brief — 2-minute read

This is a brief, not a request to approve. The originating contract flagged this issue as USER-RESERVED — "own interview when picked up", so the goal below is to give you what the repo already settles, and put the genuinely open calls in front of you as questions. Nothing here decides anything.

Problem (2 sentences)

The object-writing and co-write skills are each a single directory hosting several independently-usable tools, so their names under-describe what they contain and a user reaching for "a metaphor" or "10 titles" has to know to invoke a differently-named parent skill. The skill boundaries don't match the actual standalone-usable units — the method content underneath is already separated per-topic; only the skill wrappers are still fused.

What's verified today (cited)

plugins/songwriting/skills/object-writing/SKILL.md — one skill, Action Router with six actions (SKILL.md lines 31-38):

• object-writing (default), metaphor, metaphor-recipe, cliche, pov, worksheet.
• Description already enumerates four distinct capabilities: "object writing … metaphor … cliche taxonomy + redemption … point of view" (line 3).

plugins/songwriting/skills/co-write/SKILL.md — one skill, five actions (SKILL.md lines 32-36):

• co-write (default, No-Free-Zone session protocol), title-game, title (title generation from an idea), line-brainstorm, section-brainstorm.
• The issue's claim holds: title and line/section-brainstorm are solo-usable generation tools, not co-write-session-bound.

Underlying content is already modular — the split promotes existing files, it does not author new content. Present today under context/pat-pattison/research/: metaphor.md, cliche.md, point-of-view.md, idea-to-title.md, line-brainstorm.md, title-game.md. Each candidate skill already has a dedicated research file to point at.

Provenance — this issue is the deferred item from the shadowed-skill-renames contract (PR #256 codified the naming grammar; the topic PLAN.md was branch-only and has since been pruned from main). That contract's out-of-scope list reads: "songwriting split (keep object-writing; extract metaphor, cliche, point-of-view)", and its deferred-questions list carries: "[USER-RESERVED] Songwriting split details (which content moves to metaphor/cliche/point-of-view) — own interview when picked up." Note: the co-write split is NOT in that contract's deferred list — issue #258 adds it. See open question 4.

USER-RESERVED questions (your call)

1. Final skill names for the object-writing extractions. Contract wording is metaphor / cliche / point-of-view. Current action names differ: pov (short) and the issue prose says "cliche repair". Pick the exact directory/name values.
2. Does metaphor absorb the metaphor-recipe action (8 named recipes) as a sub-action, or does recipe generation warrant its own skill?
3. worksheet action — currently lives in object-writing. Does it stay with the narrowed object-writing, move, or split out? (Not mentioned in the contract.) RECOMMENDED: keep it with the narrowed object-writing as the broad sense-bound worksheet bucket; splitting a general worksheet action into its own skill isn't justified by a distinct standalone-usable unit the way metaphor/cliche/POV are.
4. Is the co-write split in scope for THIS issue at all? It's beyond the original contract. If yes: do title + line-brainstorm + section-brainstorm become one new generation skill or two/three? And what name(s)? If no: I can note it should be its own tracker item.
5. Deprecation / redirect period. The program's standing constraint is "NO renames-map entries — every rename is a clean breaking change with a version bump." A split differs from a rename: the parent names (object-writing, co-write) survive (narrowed), so no dead top-level names result — but user muscle-memory for e.g. /songwriting:object-writing metaphor (an action path) would break. Do you want the narrowed parents to keep a soft redirect/hint for the moved actions for one release, or hard-break per program policy?

RECOMMENDED starting shape

Answering only what the repo's own conventions settle — flagged where a sub-decision is genuinely yours:

• Naming pattern: the default marketplace grammar is imperative-verb, but docs/PLUGIN-PHILOSOPHY.md carves an explicit per-name exception for "a knowledge router named by its method's own literature term … when renaming would destroy recognized craft vocabulary," and names songwriting:object-writing, meter-prosody, song-form — "Pattison's terms" — as the sitting entries. metaphor / cliche / point-of-view are Pattison craft terms in exactly that class, so they belong as new per-name entries on that same exception list (the doc is explicit that "a name class is never blanket-sanctioned" — each is decided individually, but the precedent is directly on point). This also matches the contract's own spelling: metaphor, cliche, point-of-view (full form, not the current pov action, to match the contract text and read cleanly). point-of-view is valid per the agentskills.io name rule (lowercase, hyphens, ≤64 chars). (RECOMMENDED — but names are Q1/your call.)
• object-writing stays as its own skill, narrowed to sense-bound raw-material generation only (per contract: "keep object-writing").
• Fold metaphor-recipe into metaphor as a sub-action — same research file (metaphor.md), same figurative-language surface. (Genuinely open — Q2.)
• co-write split: treat as a separate concern. Recommend confirming scope (Q4) before designing it; if kept here, a single title/brainstorm generation skill vs. splitting title-gen from line/section-brainstorm is a real design fork I'd want your read on, since line-brainstorm and section-brainstorm share one research file (line-brainstorm.md) while title draws on idea-to-title.md/title-game.md.
• Mechanics (settled by program precedent): dir + frontmatter name move together; sharpen each new skill's third-person what+when description; minor version bump on songwriting (currently 0.6.0 → 0.7.0, per the 0.x-breaking-by-minor precedent) with a CHANGELOG breaking-change note; run /docs-hygiene:rename-references before merge so nothing points at a moved action path.
• Redirect: program policy is hard-break, no renames-map. Since the parent names survive, that's low-risk here — RECOMMENDED: hard-break, no redirect, but Q5 is yours.

Cross-links

• Naming grammar + cross-plugin reference rules: PR docs: codify skill-naming grammar and cross-plugin reference rules #256 (merged) → docs/PLUGIN-PHILOSOPHY.md.
• Sibling renames executed under the same program (pattern reference): refactor(debugging): rename diagnose skill to debug #268 (debugging:diagnose→debug), refactor(work-items): rename scan skill to scan-todos #269 (work-items:scan→scan-todos), refactor(machine-health): rename check skill to audit #270 (machine-health:check→audit), refactor(toolchain): rename build skill to check #271 (toolchain:build→check). Note these were 1:1 renames; refactor(songwriting): split object-writing into object-writing, metaphor, cliche, point-of-view #258 is a split, so the renames-map "clean break" rule maps on differently (parents survive).
• Originating contract: docs/topics/shadowed-skill-renames/PLAN.md (branch-only, pruned from main in commit cf789ad8; recoverable via git show cf789ad8^:docs/topics/shadowed-skill-renames/PLAN.md).

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Decision-briefing lane: no labels changed, issue left open. Human operator decides.

[kyle-sexton]

Frontier disposition (drain session)

Ruling: Close as not planned.

Songwriting object-writing split is speculative refactor with no consumer demand.

Re-open trigger: When object-writing skill size or coupling blocks a shipped feature.