public-docs

Common Workflows

Task-oriented walkthroughs for things you’ll actually want to do. For the full flag reference on any command, run yherda <command> --help — this page sticks to the common path.


Read your current draft

yherda ideas use 42
yherda expression list
yherda expression print 4

print walks the expression’s segment tree in reading order and prints the content straight to your terminal — the fastest way to read a draft without exporting a file.

Export your manuscript

yherda expression export --expression 4 --format scriv

This writes a file in the requested format (defaulting to <expression-id>.<ext> in your current directory). Run yherda expression export --help to see which formats are currently supported, and pass --output to choose your own filename:

yherda expression export --expression 4 --format scriv --output draft.scrivx

Switch between projects

yherda ideas list
yherda ideas use 17

Switching ideas clears your active person, arc, place, and thing — they’re scoped to whichever idea you were just in.

Build out a character’s arc

yherda person create --name "Detective Marlowe" --idea 42
yherda identity create --name "The Cynic" --person 7
yherda arc create --want "to stop caring" --person 7
yherda beat create --description "He takes the case anyway" --arc 9
yherda beat list --arc 9

Capture research or worldbuilding notes

Idea documents are freeform notes attached to an idea — for anything that doesn’t fit the structured story model.

yherda doc create --idea 42 --title "Worldbuilding notes" --file notes.md
yherda doc list --idea 42
yherda doc show 19

You can also pipe content in directly instead of writing a file first:

echo "The harbor town runs on fish and rumor." | yherda doc create --idea 42 --title "Setting notes"

Check on a project’s status

yherda projects list
yherda projects show 3

For scripting these into something larger — CI, an editor command, a build step — see Integrating with Your Tools.