# The Prompt panel

Everything prompt-driven happens in one place: the **Prompt panel**, on the side of the
`/create` editor. It stays with you across every step, so you are never hunting for the
right "generate" button.

> **Image: `docs/prompt-panel-full.png`**
> The Prompt panel at full height beside a populated step, showing the conversation
> history and the input box.

## It is a conversation

The panel remembers what you have already asked for. That makes follow-ups work:

> Add a villain named Malachar who runs the dock district

then later, with no further context:

> Make him meaner, and give him a reason to hate the harbourmaster

You do not need to restate the world every time, and you do not need to phrase requests as
commands to a machine. Plain description is what it is tuned for.

## Ask for the shape, not the row

The panel is at its best given intent and worst given data entry.

| Instead of | Ask for |
|---|---|
| "Add location: Net Shed, description: a shed" | "A flooded net-shed where the fishers hid something" |
| Twelve separate "add an NPC" requests | "Four fishers who each blame a different family" |
| "Set tone to grim" | "Make the whole village feel like it is holding its breath" |

## Plans

When a request would touch a lot of the game, the panel shows you a **plan** first — what
it intends to do and how many things it will change — and waits for you to approve it.

Read the plan. It is the cheapest moment to catch *"I meant three taverns, not thirty."*

> **Image: `docs/prompt-panel-plan.png`**
> A plan awaiting approval, listing the intended changes with a count, and the
> approve/reject controls.

## Undo

Every applied change can be undone from the panel. Experiment freely; you are not one bad
prompt away from losing your world.

## What it will not do well

**Systems.** Asking for "a hunger system that gets worse in winter" will get you something
shaped roughly right and numerically arbitrary. Rules with real mechanics belong in
[Plugins](/docs/plugins), where you control the numbers and can test them.

**Exact numbers.** If a specific value matters — a drain rate, a threshold, a cost — set it
yourself. The AI has no way to know that 0.4 per hour feels right in your game and 4 does
not.

**Cross-cutting consistency.** It is good at one coherent thing at a time. Sweeping "make
every character secretly related to one another" edits are where plans earn their keep.

## Things worth knowing early

**The Encyclopedia is cheap.** Entries are looked up per turn and only relevant ones reach
the narrator, so you can write as much background as you like without slowing anything
down or paying for it every scene.

**Images are generated per entity.** Each location, character, item and creature can carry
its own art, generated from a prompt you can edit.

**The narrator never sees numbers.** It is told what happened in prose, not that someone
took 5 damage on a 3-turn cooldown. This is deliberate — it is why the writing stays in
voice — and it is worth remembering when you wonder why the narrator did not mention an
exact value.

**You can change how systems work.** Hunger, rest, stamina, mana and encumbrance are
plugins, not fixed engine rules; you can switch any of them off in the Plugins step. How
hit points, travel speed and the XP curve are calculated are editable formulas, not
constants — see [Formulas and dials](/docs/formulas).