Series bible for a Format: SKILL.md index, references and run input

Where to keep a series bible in a Sume Format: a short SKILL.md index, detail in references/*, and only the per-episode beat in the run input.

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Put the stable part of a series in the Format and the changing part in the run. The Sume docs split a Format into the recipe (a SKILL.md body plus reference files: house style, branch rules, quality bar) and the call (your instruction and a JSON input). A series bible belongs in the recipe, with SKILL.md as a short index and the detail under references/*; the episode beat belongs in input.

The docs give the reason for the index shape. There is no size limit on the body beyond 100 MiB per file and per package, but size changes how reliably a recipe is followed, not whether it runs.

What goes where

Series material and its home (as of 2026-10-03)
MaterialHomeWhy
Character descriptions, tone, banned movesreferences/ file named from SKILL.mdCosts nothing until the agent opens it
Order of work, quality bar, what to deliverSKILL.md as a short indexThe agent can hold it at once
This episode's beat and castinput JSON on the runWritten whole to a file and read as data
A one-off change of mindinstruction on the runIt comes after the Format, so it wins where they disagree
Reference photos of the castattachments[], up to 30 imagesThe agent can look at them

Why not paste the bible into every run

  • input is capped at 64 top-level keys and 2 MiB, and the agent is told to treat it as data, never as instructions. A bible pasted there is read as facts about the episode, not as rules.
  • The Format body is never inlined into the prompt; the agent gets a pointer and the package on disk in its workspace.
  • Changing the bible then means editing the Format, and every run after that uses the new version.

A short index

A SKILL.md for a series can be as small as this. The files it names live beside it.

# Brand series

Make one episode per run from `/workspace/inputs/sume-action-input.json`.

1. Read `references/cast.md` and `references/tone.md` before writing.
2. Write the script to match `references/format-rules.md`.
3. Generate the clips, then deliver one finished episode video.

Quality bar: same cast and look as the earlier episodes.

Check what the agent really got

The first message of a run's thread shows the composed text exactly: a pointer at the Format and its version, the attached package, your instruction, an unattended-run block, a pointer at your input, and any attached files. Open the run's thread_id in Agents when an episode did something you did not expect. Formats are authored in the Agents dashboard, in chat, or over the Contents API.

Sources

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