Muse

AI-assisted essay writing for Claude Code. A structured thinking partner that interviews you to sharpen your ideas, then orchestrates the full pipeline from fuzzy thought to polished essay to shareable social content.

Not a ghostwriter. A thinking partner that helps you discover what you actually think.

Install

npx muse-cc

Or clone and install locally:

git clone https://github.com/yourname/muse.git
cd muse
node bin/install.js

Quick Start

Open Claude Code in any project directory:

/muse:help           — see all commands
/muse:voice          — create your voice profile (recommended first)
/muse:new            — start a new essay project
/muse:start          — begin the Socratic interview

The Pipeline

idea -> interview -> research -> outline -> draft -> edit -> polish -> export -> social

| Stage | Command | What happens | |-------|---------|-------------| | Capture | /muse:idea "thought..." | Save a half-formed idea to your journal | | Interview | /muse:start | Socratic conversation that challenges your thinking | | Research | /muse:research | Autonomous web research based on your brief | | Outline | /muse:outline | Structured outline with approval gate | | Draft | /muse:draft | Length-adaptive drafting (whole or section-by-section) | | Edit | /muse:edit | Three-pass editing: structural, line-level, voice | | Polish | /muse:polish | Voice consistency + AI-pattern removal | | Export | /muse:export | Clean FINAL.md + clipboard copy | | Social | /muse:social | Tweet, carousel, best-bits from your essay |

Additional commands:

| Command | What it does | |---------|-------------| | /muse:ideas | Browse and manage your idea journal | | /muse:portfolio | View your writing portfolio summary | | /muse:status | Check essay progress and next action | | /muse:resume | Pick up where you left off | | /muse:settings | Configure preferences | | /muse:voice | Create/update your voice profile |

How It Works

Everything is markdown. Your essays, interviews, research, outlines, drafts, and voice profiles are all human-readable files in .writing/ (per project) and ~/.claude/muse/voices/ (global).

The interview is the core. Muse's Socratic interview challenges your thinking, surfaces assumptions, and helps you find your actual argument before you write a word. It adapts to your responses -- follows threads, pushes back on weak claims, scales length to complexity.

Your voice, not AI voice. Create a voice profile from your writing samples. Muse loads it into every prose-generating step and flags anything that doesn't sound like you.

Portfolio-aware. Muse knows your past essays and weaves that context into interviews -- identifying gaps, suggesting angles, referencing past work naturally.

File Structure

After installation:

~/.claude/
├── muse/
│   ├── bin/              # CLI tools (muse-tools.cjs + lib modules)
│   ├── workflows/        # Interview, drafting, editing prompts
│   ├── references/       # Banner, fallback voice profile
│   ├── voices/           # Your voice profiles (created by /muse:voice)
│   └── config.json       # Global preferences
└── commands/muse/        # Slash commands (/muse:start, /muse:new, etc.)

.writing/                 # Per-project essay workspace
├── essays/
│   └── my-essay/
│       ├── STATE.md      # Stage, progress, metadata
│       ├── INTERVIEW.md  # Interview transcript + findings
│       ├── BRIEF.md      # Thesis, audience, angle
│       ├── RESEARCH.md   # Sources and synthesis
│       ├── OUTLINE.md    # Section structure
│       ├── DRAFT.md      # The essay itself
│       ├── FINAL.md      # Clean export
│       └── SOCIAL.md     # Social derivatives
├── ideas/
│   └── IDEAS.md          # Idea journal
└── STATE.md              # Active essay tracker

Development

Run tests:

node --test tests/test-*.cjs

The repo mirrors the installed structure:

muse/
├── bin/                  # -> ~/.claude/muse/bin/
├── commands/muse/        # -> ~/.claude/commands/muse/
├── workflows/            # -> ~/.claude/muse/workflows/
├── references/           # -> ~/.claude/muse/references/
├── tests/                # Test suite (not installed)
└── .planning/            # GSD planning artifacts (not installed)

Uninstall

npx muse-cc --uninstall

This removes Muse from ~/.claude/ but leaves your .writing/ directories and voice profiles intact.

License

MIT