Work log: Phantasmagoria — March 24, 2026

What shipped today

The narrative-first pipeline produced its first testable build. After fixing validators, updating API keys, and cleaning up old events, we rendered a clean Windows build with 9 events — all generated by the new Phase 1 → Phase 2 → Phase 3 flow. This is the first time the full pipeline has run end-to-end through the production generators, through validation, through rendering, and out the other side as a playable Stellaris mod.

Getting there required fixing several validator mismatches. The event validator and source validator (validate_release.py) both expected the old format: anomaly_fail required (not supported in Stellaris 4.2+), effects required on every option (breaks auto-resolve dig site chapters), and new effect categories (give_technology, add_research_option, add_tech_progress, add_deposit) not recognized. The follow-up slug format changed from _followup_1 to _followup_a (by option key) which the regex didn’t match. All fixed.

Second round of dead code cleanup removed another 1,331 lines — old build_prompt(), build_phase2_prompt(), save_event_to_yaml() functions and three orphaned GUIDE_*.md files that the narrative-first templates replaced. Combined with yesterday’s -737 lines, the generators have shed ~2,068 lines of dead code across the two sessions. Added 16 tests verifying template variable replacement in all three generators’ build_phase1_prompt() functions. Also fixed load_dotenv() → load_dotenv(override=True) across all scripts so .env changes always take effect.

Completed

• #238 — Remove dead code from post-refactor generators, round 2 (-1,331 lines)
• #239 — Add tests for build_phase1_prompt() template variable replacement (16 tests)
• Fix stale test assertions in test_outcome_prompt.py (2 tests)
• Fix validators for narrative-first pipeline (event_validator.py, validate_release.py)
• First testable Windows build with narrative-first events (9 events, 0 errors)

Carry-over

• Playtest the Windows build in Stellaris 4.3 — build is at output/Phantasmagoria_2603240934_windows/. Only 3 event types (1 standalone, 1 anomaly, 1 dig site) plus follow-ups. Need Paul to test on his Windows machine.
• Generate a full batch — current build has just 1 of each type. Need 3+ standalones, 3+ anomalies, 3+ dig sites for a real release.
• Old roller events deleted — the celestial_equinox release now only has narrative-first events. The old events are gone from disk (not committed yet — just deleted). Need to decide: commit the deletion, or regenerate the full batch first?

Risks

• The test_render_lint_integration test still fails (1 pre-existing failure). It tries to render all releases including dark_discoveries which has old-format events. Not blocking but should be investigated.
• The delete of old events is uncommitted. If generation fails or the build is bad, we can’t go back to the old events without git.

Flags and watch-outs

• load_dotenv(override=True) was needed because the shell had an old API key cached. This is fragile — if someone sets ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in their shell profile, .env won’t override it without override=True.
• Title diversity still poor — “The Cartographer’s Bones”, “The Cartographers of Extinction”, “The Sediment of Light” all from the same celestial_equinox theme. Batch context will help but may need stronger anti-repetition guidance in the prompts.

Next session

1. Paul playtests the Windows build — copy output/Phantasmagoria_2603240934_windows/ to Stellaris mod folder and test in 4.3.
2. Generate full batch — generate_standalone.py --count 3, generate_anomaly.py --count 3, generate_site.py --count 3 against celestial_equinox. Commit the results.
3. Render and playtest the full batch — the real test of whether the narrative-first pipeline produces a good player experience at scale.