Why WriteIDE stops a LitRPG export instead of flattening

This is a WriteIDE Lab note, not a release. You cannot update to it. I am writing it because the journal has been almost all release notes, and the work between versions is the part LitRPG authors never see.

WriteIDE's promise is simple: the manuscript is a view, and the database is the truth. That promise dies the moment an export "succeeds" by turning a native stat block, a quest block, or a manuscript image into plain text so Word or Excel will open the file.

What fail-closed means for a LitRPG export

Three Office-shaped paths are in progress: a linked Word document, a character-stat workbook, and a registered review PDF. All three stay off in a normal install. When I turn them on for review, a no-op save of a text-only Word file must come back byte-identical. A workbook must not overwrite a file you already have. A returned PDF must attach comments to the same sentence they came from.

If any of those rules would be violated, WriteIDE stops. It does not flatten the node to get a green checkmark. A refusal is the correct result. Flattening is a bug with extra steps.

That is annoying to demo. It is also the only way point-in-time stats stay the same numbers after a round trip. The 0.5.5 trust release was the same rule applied to words: if the UI lies about a small save, why trust it on the big one?

What is in motion, and what is not shipped

Two other threads are live and not a public default:

• Manuscript import can offer a Detected Entities step after scenes land. Character, item, skill, class, location, NPC, creature, faction, and quest. Explicit labels such as "Creature Detected: Rock Borer" come pre-checked. Prose guesses stay unchecked until you accept them. No AI call. If Canon cannot be created with the domain row, neither row should commit.
• Ordinary project images now have one registry so a backup cannot forget a creature portrait because two lists disagreed.

Neither is in a build you should switch to for this. The decision is made, the tests exist, the shipped default has not flipped. What WriteIDE talks to is still the list for network claims.

What Lab notes are for

Release notes keep doing what they do: named versions, download links, what you can click today.

Lab notes are for work that is still open. I will write them when there is a decision worth showing, not on a calendar. If a path is still refused, I will say so. If I change my mind later, the next Lab note will say that too.

If you write LitRPG, ask this when a tool offers to "just export it anyway": what did it delete to make the file open?