derive-thesislisted

Name the CENTRAL SUBJECT (spine) of a long-form source so selection can tell on-theme moments from clip-shaped tangents. Claude reads the topic chapter list (topics.json) + source duration and emits thesis.json = {subject, thesis_sentence, key_threads[]} — the one durable source-level "what is this video about" artifact the pipeline lacked. Runs AFTER segment-topics and BEFORE pick-segments; pick-segments feeds it as a theme prior + scores each pick's theme_fit against it, and the confidence-floor backfill is gated on it so a high-standalone but off-spine tangent can no longer be auto-injected. Deterministic fallback (subject from the longest topic) on any failure. Non-fatal, idempotent, DERIVE_THESIS=0 skips.
jperrello/C0BALT_CUT · ★ 2 · Data & Documents · score 66

Install: claude install-skill jperrello/C0BALT_CUT

# derive-thesis A 2-hour talk wanders through one core throughline plus dozens of entertaining tangents. Nothing in the pipeline named the throughline, so `pick-segments` maximized standalone virality per span and shipped clip-shaped asides (a beetle anecdote, a DoorDash story) that misrepresent the source. `derive-thesis` computes that missing source-level subject once, as a durable JSON artifact both `pick-segments` (theme prior + `theme_fit` score + backfill gate) and `selection-report` read. ## Invoke ``` .claude/skills/derive-thesis/derive-thesis.sh <transcript.json> [topics.json] [out.json] ``` - `transcript`: full-source transcript (for duration; the digest is the topic list) - `topics`: `segment-topics` output (auto-discovered next to the transcript) - `out`: `thesis.json` (auto-discovered next to the transcript) ## Output `thesis.json`: ```json { "subject": "Donald Hoffman on consciousness and reality", "thesis_sentence": "Perception is a species-specific interface, not a window onto objective reality.", "key_threads": ["conscious agents", "fitness beats truth", "spacetime is not fundamental", "the hard problem"] } ``` On any Claude/parse failure it writes a deterministic fallback (`subject` from the longest topic's title, `key_threads` from the leading topic titles, `"fallback": true`) so downstream always has a subject. ## How `build_prompt.py` renders the whole chapter list and asks Claude to name the SPINE (not summarize every chapter) — the guest