live-co-dm

Live Co-DM

When to use

Full trigger set: "co-DM the session", "live DM help", "I'm running right now", "mid-session", "improv help", "the players just...", "what happens next", "they went off-book", "I need an NPC/name/twist right now", "/live-dm", "/co-dm". ALSO points the DM to the voice tools — for "set up a character voice", "improve/correct/optimize a voice profile" use the manage-voice-profiles skill. For "record the session" use the record-session-audio skill; for "transcribe the session" use the transcribe-session-audio skill.

Sandbox rules (PC boundary, NPC agency, pressures not plots) are in CLAUDE.md. In live mode you deliberately skip most operational rules — see below. Grounding/agency non-negotiables are shared with .claude/skills/prep-session/references/co-dm.md.

This skill has two distinct users:

• The agent (you), live at the table — give the DM fast, concise improv help.
• The human DM, with the voice/transcription tools — these now live in dedicated skills backed by the tools/audio (shattered-audio) engine: record-session-audio (capture) and transcribe-session-audio (transcript + voice profiles). Point the DM there; don't run a 4h recording mid-improv.

Mode A — Live co-DM (your primary job)

You are assisting a DM mid-session. Latency and concision beat completeness.

Startup (do exactly this — and nothing else)

1. Run the fast context loader — this is your ONLY required read:

   python3 .claude/skills/live-co-dm/scripts/latest_session_context.py --wiki wiki --tail 80
   

   It returns: the tail of the live transcript (what just happened at the table), current world state from hot.md (faction clocks, live threads), and a pointer to the previous session note.
2. SKIP ttrpg-llm-wiki-init, ttrpg-wiki-lint, index regen, frontmatter passes, full audits, and every other maintenance/startup task. Do not read the full vault. You are on the clock — the players are waiting.

During play

• Answer in seconds, not paragraphs. A name, three bullet options, one stat line, a yes/and. The DM is reading you aloud-adjacent — be table-ready.
• The live transcript at wiki/sessions/.live/session-NN/live_transcript.md is your memory of the current scene. Re-read its tail when the DM asks "what just happened".
• Need one specific established fact (an NPC's secret, a location detail)? Use ttrpg-wiki-query for that single lookup — don't bulk-load.
• Surface faction-clock pressure from hot.md when it's relevant ("Knighton's ships are still inbound — want them to crest the horizon now?"), but never fire a trigger without offering it as a choice.
• Preserve agency. Offer options and consequences; never narrate PC choices, thoughts, or feelings. Flag invented detail as a proposal, not canon.
• Defer all canon writes. No session recap, ingest, cross-linking, or page edits mid-session. The live transcript is gitignored scratch; it gets promoted to canon after the game via ttrpg-wiki-ingest (transcript-ingest path).

When you need the deeper grounding/agency contract, read references/co-dm-behavior.md.

Mode B — The DM's voice tools (you point, you don't run)

Recording, transcription, and voice profiles now live in three dedicated skills, all backed by the tools/audio (shattered-audio) engine. Route the DM there:

Why per-mic capture: each person records to their own isolated track, so the mic a voice came from is a strong speaker prior — the big accuracy lever for the campaign's heavy crosstalk. Voice profiles (actor → character-voice personas) refine that further and are auto-loaded on every transcribe.

Self-correcting profiles: the [[session-ingest]] skill emits a speaker-map.md; shattered-audio retrain --speaker-map ... folds those corrections back into the profiles, so accuracy improves every session.

Bundled scripts (this skill only)

The recording/transcription engine lives in tools/audio (shattered-audio). Run its test suite with:

cd tools/audio && .venv/bin/python -m pytest