define-referenceslisted

# Skill: define-references **What it does.** Builds or updates `.project/config/references.md` — the sheets of authors and works informing this book's voice. Turns "I love Murakami" into instructions a generation skill can actually follow. **Triggers** - "define the references" - "/define-references" - "add {author} as a reference" - "let's work on the influences" - Equivalent phrasing in the project's output language **Input.** Optionally, a starting list of authors/works from the author. **Output.** `.project/config/references.md`, one sheet per reference. > **Write the file in the project's output language.** --- ## Core principle > **A reference is a borrowing instruction, not an homage.** "I'm inspired by Vonnegut" is a feeling. It cannot be loaded into a generation pass. What can: > *"From Vonnegut: the flat delivery of catastrophic events — one plain sentence where another author would write a paragraph. NOT the authorial intrusions or the refrain tags — this book's narrator doesn't address the reader."* Every sheet must answer three questions: 1. **What exactly to take** — a concrete, imitable device 2. **What explicitly NOT to take** — the parts of that author that would poison this book 3. **Where it shows up** — a passage in the manuscript that already does it, or a place it should The NOT list matters as much as the take list. Influence without exclusions drifts into pastiche. --- ## Protocol ### Step 1 — Load context 1. `.project/config/project.ya