Adding content

Techniques, traits, events, arc beats, programs, philosophies, upgrades, trainings, milestones and campaign stages all live in typed files under src/content/. Adding the 49th technique is a data change, never an engine change.

Everything is re-exported and indexed by src/content/index.ts. The sim never reaches into a specific content module — it reads techniqueById, eventsByScope, beatsByChapter and friends.

Run bun run test after any content change: src/sim/content.test.ts checks that every cross-reference resolves, every id is unique, and every effect magnitude is in range.

ID conventions

Kind	Pattern	Example
Technique	`<modality>_<snake_name>`	`cbt_thought_record`
Trait	`trait_<snake_name>`	`trait_night_owl`
Event	`ev_<scope>_<snake_name>`	`ev_staff_corner_office`
Arc beat	`beat_<snake_name>`	`beat_first_time_crying`
Upgrade	`up_<snake_name>`	`up_group_room`
Training	`train_<modality>_<tier>`	`train_emdr_2`
Milestone	`ms_<snake_name>`	`ms_first_goodbye`
Campaign stage	`camp_<n>_<snake_name>`	`camp_3_outcomes_review`

Adding a technique

Techniques are the cards the player picks mid-session, so they are the depth engine. A good one is situationally right and wrong, not globally strong.

{
  id: 'dbt_opposite_action',
  name: 'Opposite Action',
  modality: 'dbt',
  tier: 2,
  blurb: 'Name the urge, then do the opposite of what it wants, on purpose.',
  flavor: 'She went to the party. She hated forty minutes of it and stayed for the rest.',
  focuses: ['build_skills'],
  goodFor: ['depression', 'anxiety'],
  poorFor: ['trauma'],
  chapters: ['work', 'consolidation'],
  minStability: 0.5,
  effects: { progress: 1.15, resilience: 0.06, energy: 2, regression: 0.9 },
}

Guidance that keeps the card pool honest:

Every technique needs at least one goodFor, and about half should have a poorFor — a bad pick has to be possible, and it has to be legible.
Restrict roughly a third by chapters, and most by focuses. A card that is fine everywhere is a card that never creates a decision.
Set minStability (0.5–0.7) on genuinely activating work — exposure, trauma processing, chair work. The UI shows the client's current stability against it.
Potent progress must be paid for somewhere: energy, stability, or regression above 1.
Ranges: progress 0.8–1.45, quality −0.04…+0.09, rapport/stability/resilience −0.08…+0.10, energy 0–5, regression 0.5–1.5, breakthrough 0–0.08.
Tier 3 cards are stronger but narrower.
If you set philosophy, the technique is granted to the whole practice when that philosophy is chosen — and is unreachable otherwise, so it must not be a training's grants target.

Then add it to the right TrainingDef.grants in trainings.ts, or it will never reach a therapist.

Adding an event

{
  id: 'ev_client_asks_to_end',
  scope: 'client',
  title: 'They think they are done',
  body: '{client} says the thing that brought them in has stopped running the show...',
  weight: 3,
  chapters: ['consolidation'],
  mood: 'warm',
  choices: [
    {
      id: 'agree',
      label: 'Agree, and plan a proper ending',
      hint: 'Ends treatment sooner. A clean goodbye is worth reputation.',
      effects: { clientProgress: 12, reputation: 2 },
      outcome: 'You spend the hour on what they will do when it gets hard again.',
    },
    // …
  ],
}

Rules the whole event set holds to:

2–4 choices, and every choice states its consequence in hint. The hint must not lie or omit the main cost. This is a design commitment, not a style preference — the UI renders the hint directly beneath the label, and also renders a derived preview of effects.
Real dilemmas: time vs. money, this client vs. the waitlist, the rule vs. the person. If one option is obviously correct, the event is not doing its job.
Use requires on a choice to unlock a better path when the player has the resource, trait or standing for it.
Set once: true on story-heavy beats and minDay on anything that assumes an established practice.
Magnitudes: cash ±80–1500, reputation ±1–6, communityTrust ±1–8, clientRapport ±0.05–0.15, clientStability ±0.05–0.2, clientPatience ±5–25, therapistMorale ±3–12.
Tokens {client}, {clientFirst}, {therapist}, {therapistFirst}, {practice} are substituted at runtime.

scope determines when it can fire: client (after a session), staff / day / practice (overnight), program (while that program runs), session (reserved for the technique beat).

Adding an arc beat

Beats are the narrative spine — a sentence or two of a real person's life, plus a small mechanical nudge. Keyed by chapter, optionally by conditions and severity band.

Keep effects small (stability ±0.05–0.18, rapport ±0.04–0.12, progress ±3–8) and let the writing carry the weight. Rarer, more dramatic beats get lower weight. A beat can raise a full event via event, and can add a comorbidity mid-treatment via effects.addComorbidity — which is how a life event genuinely shifts what a client needs.

Tone

Warm, specific, humane; never clinical-cold and never twee. Clients are people, not diagnoses. Real modality vocabulary and real pacing wisdom — you do not process trauma with an unstable client. Anonymised dignity: clients are "A.M., 34" in the UI. Concrete images beat adjectives, and every line should still be worth reading the tenth time you see it.

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