Help

Getting Started

Add your API key, create a project, and start writing in under five minutes.

1. Try it with the free trial — no key needed

Every new account includes a 3-day free trial of the OpusSmith AI tools using OpusDraft’s shared Anthropic key. No setup, no credit card — just sign up and start writing. The trial is capped at 50 AI calls per 24-hour window, and the 3-day clock starts the first time you use an AI tool. See the Free Trial section below for full details.

2. Add your Claude API key

To keep using the AI tools after your trial ends, bring your own key. Go to Settings, paste your Anthropic API key, and hit Save. The key is encrypted at rest and never leaves your account. Every writing tool runs against your key directly — OpusDraft never sees your tokens or bills your account.

3. Create your first project

From the Projects dashboard, give your project a title and optional description. A project holds all your chapters, canon entries, and rule packs in one place.

4. Write your first chapter

Open your project, click “New chapter,” give it a title, and start writing. Paste existing work or start fresh — the writing tools activate once you have content and a connected API key.

The “How does this work?” help affordance

The first time you land on Projects, an individual project, the chapter editor, Presentations, or Series, a short intro popup appears explaining what that page is for. Dismiss it (× button, the Close button, ESC, or click outside) and it stays gone for that surface.

If you ever want to re-read the intro, look for a small vertical stack on the right side of the page, roughly at the same eye- level as the page title: a dark navy ? circle on top with a cream How does this work?text pill underneath. Click anywhere on the stack — the circle or the label — and the popup re-opens. It’s always there, even after you’ve dismissed the popup, and it just shows the same explanation again. Nothing else happens, no tour begins, no settings change.

Free Trial

How your 3-day trial works, what the daily cap means, and what happens when the trial ends.

What the trial is

The trial gives you OpusSmith-tier access to OpusDraft’s AI tools — Improve (in all four intent modes), Generate, and Ask AI— running on OpusDraft’s shared Anthropic key so you can try the platform without creating an Anthropic account first. The agentic surfaces that run the full editorial pass against your canon, rules, and voice — Full Polish and Agent Mode (Preview)— are OpusDraft-tier features. They’re the tools writers upgrade for. After the trial, all AI calls go through your own key (BYOK) or stop until one is added.

When the trial clock starts

The 3-day clock does not start at signup. It starts the first time you successfully run an AI tool. Sign up today, come back in a week — your trial hasn’t moved an inch until you actually use it. The countdown pill in the top navigation shows how much time and how many calls you have left.

The daily call cap

The trial is capped at 50 successful AI calls in any rolling 24-hour window. This isn’t a midnight reset — if you made a call 23 hours ago, it rolls off an hour from now, and a slot frees up. The cap exists so a single user can’t burn through OpusDraft’s shared Anthropic budget — 50 calls is enough to draft, rewrite, and tighten a full sermon or several chapters worth of prose in a day.

BYOK users have no cap — your key, your quota with Anthropic.

What happens when the trial ends

Your account stays fully alive. Your writing, canon, chapters, rule packs, voice, and publishing links are all preserved. Only the AI tools are gated. To keep using them, add your own Anthropic API key in Settings (you pay Anthropic directly), or subscribe to any OpusDraft plan — all plans are BYOK, so the key step is the same either way.

FAQ

Will my writing be deleted when the trial ends? No. Nothing is deleted. Only AI generation is paused until you add a key or subscribe.

Can I restart the trial with a new email? One trial per account. Creating duplicate accounts to extend the trial violates the Terms of Service and can result in termination.

Why does OpusDraft require BYOK on paid plans? BYOK keeps your costs transparent and under your control, and keeps OpusDraft cheap to run. You pay Anthropic for the tokens you use; OpusDraft charges only for the platform itself (canon enforcement, editor, export, teams).

What if I hit the daily cap during my trial? Wait for the rolling window to free up (the Settings page tells you exactly when), or add your own API key in Settings to remove the cap entirely. Your 3-day trial clock keeps running either way.

How do I know if I’m on BYOK or the trial?Check the Settings page. If you’ve saved an API key, every call runs on it and the trial is irrelevant. If you haven’t, the Settings page and the nav bar both show your live trial state.

Projects & Chapters

Organize your manuscript into projects. Each project contains chapters, a canon database, and its own rule packs.

Project dashboard

The Projects page shows all your projects sorted by most recent. Each card shows the title, chapter count, total word count, and last-edited date. Hover any card to reveal a pencil icon for inline rename. Click anywhere else on the card to open the project.

Chapter list

Inside a project, the Chapters tab lists every chapter in order, each with its own word count and preview. Click a chapter title to open the editor. Use the “New chapter” card at the top to add one. Drag any chapter row to reorder — works on mouse and touch. Hover the chapter title to rename it inline without leaving the dashboard.

Importing a finished manuscript

If you already have a manuscript or presentation written, click Import at the top of the project. Upload a .docx, .txt, or .mdfile and OpusDraft splits it into chapters (or sections, in presentation mode) for you. For presentation imports, the AI classifies each section’s type (hook, thesis, illustration, etc.) so you can review the structure before committing.

Find and replace

Inside the chapter editor, press Cmd / Ctrl + F to open the find bar. Type a search term to highlight all matches and scroll between them with the navigation arrows. Toggle to Replacemode to substitute text — single occurrence or replace all.

Word counts

Every chapter shows its word count in the dashboard list and inside the editor footer. Project cards roll up the total across all chapters. The same goes for presentations: per-section counts on the section list, total on the presentation card.

DOCX export

Below the chapter editor, the Export section gives you two options: download the entire project as a single .docx file (the Download your manuscriptbutton — compiles all chapters in order with your project title as the document heading), or download any individual chapter on its own as a separate .docx(the per-chapter row beneath, one link per chapter). Presentation-mode projects additionally unlock seven more export formats — see the Presentations section below.

Italics & in-editor markdown

The editor stores chapter content as plain text, but two short markdown conventions round-trip cleanly between Word and OpusDraft for italic emphasis. Wrap a word or phrase in single asterisks (*like this*) or single underscores (_like this_), and the asterisks / underscores stay visible in the editor while DOCX exports render the wrapped text as proper italic. The same convention runs in reverse on import: when you upload a manuscript through Got a finished manuscript?, italic runs from the source Word document arrive in the editor wrapped in *…* so they survive the round-trip out.

The markers stay attached to the word with no spaces inside (*word*, not * word *), and emphasis can’t span a paragraph break. Double-asterisk (**bold**) and other inline styles aren’t supported yet — if your source manuscript has bold or underlined runs, the words come through but the formatting doesn’t.

Your data

OpusDraft gives you two ways to take your writing with you. On any project dashboard, the Export section lets you download that project as a Word document (.docx), ready to open in any word processor. For a complete backup of everything in your account — all projects, chapters, Story Facts, Rule Packs, voice, and writing setup — go to Settings → Account and click Download my data. This produces a ZIP file with each project in its own folder and every chapter as a plain text file you can open anywhere.

Publishing

Individual chapters can be published to a public read-only link. Toggle the publish switch in the chapter editor — OpusDraft generates a clean URL you can share with readers or beta readers. Toggle off to revoke the link.

Presentations

Sermons, keynotes, pitch decks, workshops, and teaching outlines. Presentation mode gives you section-based structure, format templates, scripture verification, and seven presentation-specific export formats on top of the same canon engine that powers books.

Creating a presentation

Open Presentations from the top nav, then click the + New presentationtile. Give it a title and OpusDraft drops you into the template picker where you can choose a starting outline — sermon 3-point, keynote talk, pitch deck, workshop outline, or start blank.

Format templates

Templates seed a presentation with a proven structure so you write against a shape rather than a blank page. Browse the template library from the Presentations page. Any template (built-in, your own, or shared by another writer) can be saved as a copy into your private library and customized. Once applied, you can still add, remove, or reorder sections.

Section types

Every section in a presentation has a type — hook, thesis, illustration, scripture, point, transition, call to action, Q&A, and so on. Section types tell the AI what each part is supposed to do, so Improve and Generate respect the role of each section instead of treating them all the same.

Scripture & anti-fabrication

Every presentation project has a built-in set of anti-fabrication hard rules. The AI will not invent scripture references, fabricate statistics, or attribute made-up quotes to real people — it’s wired into every AI call on every presentation project and it doesn’t appear in the rule pack list, so you can’t accidentally turn it off. When you paste a verse, the translation is tracked and exports include an attribution footer.

Export formats

Presentation mode unlocks seven export formats in addition to DOCX:

• PDF — printable, formatted document with attribution footer.
• Markdown — clean .md file for Notion, Obsidian, or GitHub.
• Plain text — stripped-down .txt for any editor.
• Speaker notes — timed notes at 130 wpm with spoken-duration estimates per section.
• Teleprompter — self-contained HTML file with auto-scroll, speed control, and spacebar pause/resume.
• Outline cards — printable cards on US Letter, 4 per page in a 2×2 grid, for the lectern.
• Slide bullets — condensed bullet-per-section format ready to drop into Google Slides, Keynote, or PowerPoint.

Books vs. presentations

Projects default to book mode. Book projects live under Projects in the nav; presentation projects live under Presentations. Canon, rule packs, and AI tools work the same way in both. The difference is structure: books use chapters, presentations use typed sections and format templates.

Writing a short story in OpusDraft

Short stories live alongside novels and presentations on the Projects page. When you create a new project, pick Short Storyin the popup — the editor renames itself accordingly: chapters become scenes, the export button reads “Export entire story,” and you land on a writing surface with a “Draft” scene already created.

Pick your length

At the top of the project page, below the title, you’ll see a target-length picker:

• Flash— 1,000 words or less. Tight, single-image stories. Common markets: SmokeLong, Wigleaf, Flash Fiction Online.
• Short— 1,000 to 7,500 words. The standard short-story length. The majority of literary magazines and pro-paying genre markets accept stories in this range.
• Novelette— 7,500 to 17,500 words. Some markets accept these (Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons); many don’t.
• Custom— any specific target you want.

The picker drops a progress pill below itself showing how close your current word count is to the target. The bar shifts from green to amber as you approach the limit, then red if you go over.

Pick a starting template (optional)

When you create a short story, you can pick a starting template — Literary, Cozy Mystery, Hard SF, Horror, or Blank. Picking a template seeds your Story Facts with placeholder entries the AI tools will respect from your first generation. For example, the Cozy Mystery template seeds entries for The Sleuth, The Victim, three Suspects, The Town, and the Weapon or Method — each with a one-sentence prompt to help you fill them in. Edit, rename, or delete any of them as your story takes shape.

Picking Blank skips the seeding and lands you on an empty project. Your call — some writers like the scaffolding, others find it a constraint.

Scene breaks

Short stories don’t have chapters in the novel sense — most are one continuous piece, sometimes broken into two or three scenes by a visual break. By default, OpusDraft starts you in a single “Draft” scene. If your story has more than one scene, click “+ Add a scene break” below the editor to add another.

In the exported manuscript, scene transitions are marked with a centered “#” between sections, which is the standard literary-magazine convention.

Story facts and rule packs

Even short stories benefit from the canon database. Your characters, settings, named places, and any specific facts the AI shouldn’t get wrong all belong in Story Facts. The AI tools check every generation against the facts you’ve recorded.

When you create your first short story, OpusDraft seeds a preset rule pack called Short Story Conventions into your rule pack library and assigns it to the project automatically. The preset enforces:

• POV lock (single point of view throughout)
• Tense lock (past or present, not both)
• No section labels in the prose (scene breaks are visual only)
• No invented epigraphs (you write them, not the AI)
• Conventional dialogue tags (the AI sticks with “said” unless you’ve used something else)
• No new world-building elements (anti-fabrication scoped to the story)

You can edit, disable, or delete any of these rules in the rule pack library (/projects/[id]/rule-packs) — they’re yours after seeding.

Improve, Generate, and Ask AI

All the AI tools work the same way they do on novels. Highlight a sentence and click Improve. Select-in-place edits show the rewrite next to the original with Accept / Reject. The trust layer — canon enforcement, rule packs, anti-fabrication, voice consistency — applies to every AI call.

Exporting for submission

Click “Export entire story” on the project page. The output is a single Word document in standard manuscript format: Courier New 12pt, double-spaced, one-inch margins, header block with your name and word count on page one, title centered halfway down the page, scene breaks as centered hashes, and an “END” marker at the close. Most literary magazines accept this format directly through their submission portals (Submittable, Moksha, etc.).

For per-scene export — useful if you’re submitting a flash piece — use the per-scene export buttons in the scene list.

Where to send your story

OpusDraft doesn’t track submissions yet — that’s a future feature. For now, two free tools handle this well:

• The Submission Grinder(free) — database of ~6,000 short-fiction markets with response time stats and acceptance rate data.
• Duotrope($5/month) — similar service with a more curated market list.

Either pairs naturally with OpusDraft: write here, track submissions there.

Writing fantasy fiction in OpusDraft

Fantasy projects live alongside novels, short stories, academic papers, and presentations on the Projects page. When you create a new project and pick Novel / Book, OpusDraft asks what kind of story it is. Choosing Fantasyreveals a subgenre picker with six options — pick the one that matches your story, or choose Blank to start from scratch.

Picking your subgenre

The subgenre you pick determines what gets seeded into your project’s Research Notes when it’s created. Each comes with five placeholder entries calibrated for the subgenre’s structure:

• Epic Fantasy— your magic system, antagonist, protagonist’s homeland, inciting prophecy, and key mentor.
• Urban Fantasy— the rules of the hidden supernatural world, the city, the faction, the inciting event, and the masquerade.
• Dark Fantasy— the world’s brutal logic, the moral compromise, the antagonist’s justification, the price of power, and the setting’s defining darkness.
• Romantasy— the love interest, the central obstacle, the magic system, the fated bond, and the external antagonist.
• Cozy Fantasy— the setting, the found family, the central low-stakes problem, the gentle magic rules, and the protagonist’s special gift.
• Portal Fantasy— the protagonist’s real-world context, the other world’s rules, the portal mechanism, the reason they were summoned, and a local guide.

All of these are editable placeholders. Replace them with your actual world-building details — the AI then has the context it needs to stay consistent across every chapter.

Research Notes as world-building canon

The Research Notes tab is where your world lives. Every entry is a fact the AI checks before generating anything for your story. If you’ve defined how your magic system works in a Research Note, the AI will not invent new magic abilities your character doesn’t have. If you’ve described a species or faction, the AI will not contradict those traits. Add entries any time you establish something new — a new city, a new character’s core trait, a rule about how the world works.

The Fantasy Writing Conventions rule pack

Every fantasy project is assigned a rule pack called Fantasy Writing Conventions automatically. It contains six rules:

• Magic system consistency— the AI flags new abilities with [MAGIC SYSTEM CHECK] rather than inventing them.
• Species and race consistency— established traits cannot drift between chapters.
• World geography consistency— locations and travel distances stay anchored.
• Tone register— dark stays dark, cozy stays cozy.
• Character naming— names and titles do not drift to pronouns or shortcuts mid-document.
• No anachronisms in secondary world settings— Epic, Dark, and Portal Fantasy settings should not contain modern idioms; Urban and Romantasy in contemporary settings are exempt.

You can disable any rule in the rule pack library at /projects/[id]/rule-packs if your story breaks the convention deliberately.

Word count targets

Below your project title, the word count picker shows three presets calibrated for novels: Short Novel(60,000 words — debut fiction, YA, tighter genre novels), Standard Novel (100,000 words — most adult fantasy fiction), and Long Novel(150,000 words — epic fantasy, multi-POV sagas, series openers). The progress bar shifts from green to amber as you approach the target, then red if you go over.

Starter chapters

When you pick a subgenre (not Blank), OpusDraft creates two or three named starter chapters to give your manuscript a structural scaffold. These are empty — just titles. Epic Fantasy starts with Prologue, Chapter 1 — The World Before, and Chapter 2 — The Call. You can rename, delete, or ignore them. They exist to give you something to push against.

Exporting your manuscript

Click “Export full manuscript” to download a Word document in standard manuscript format — Courier New or Times New Roman 12pt, double-spaced, chapter headings centered and bold. For per-chapter exports, use the individual export buttons in the chapter list.

Writing an academic paper in OpusDraft

Academic papers live alongside novels, short stories, and presentations on the Projects page. When you create a new project, pick Academic Paper— the editor relabels itself accordingly: chapters become sections, the export button reads “Export full paper,” and you land with an Introduction section already created.

Pick your length target

Below the title, a target-length picker shows:

• Essay— up to 2,000 words. In-class essays, short assignments, opinion pieces.
• Research Paper— up to 6,000 words. Seminar papers, undergraduate research, short journal articles.
• Dissertation Chapter— up to 12,000 words. Thesis chapters, dissertation sections, longer academic work.
• Custom— any specific word count target.

The progress pill shows how close your current word count is to the target. The bar shifts from green to amber as you approach the limit, then red if you go over.

Sections and structure

Academic papers are written section by section. OpusDraft starts you with an Introduction section. Add sections by clicking “+ Add a section” below the editor — name them whatever your paper’s structure requires: Literature Review, Methodology, Discussion, Conclusion, or anything else. Unlike novels, section labels matter in academic writing — they appear as bold centered headings in the exported document.

Research Notes

The Research Notes tab stores information the AI should not get wrong or invent: key terms and definitions, the names of scholars or theorists you are citing, your thesis statement, your research question, or any other fact the paper depends on. Anything entered in Research Notes is checked against every AI generation. If you have defined “bounded rationality” in your notes, the AI will not paraphrase it differently in a new section.

Pick a document type (optional)

When you create a new academic paper, OpusDraft asks what kind of paper it is. Picking a document type seeds your Research Notes with placeholder entries matched to that paper’s structure. A Research Paper gets entries for your research question, hypothesis, methodology, key scholar, and key variable. A Literature Review gets entries for three key sources and the gap in the literature. A Personal Statement gets entries for the program you’re applying to, your central experience, and your goal. Edit the placeholders with your actual details — the AI then has the context it needs to stay consistent across every section.

AI tools and academic integrity

The “No invented sources” rule in your Academic Writing Conventions rule pack means the AI will never generate a citation, study, or scholar you have not mentioned. If a passage would normally require a source, the AI inserts [CITATION NEEDED]instead — so placeholders, not hallucinations, arrive in your draft.

All AI tools — Improve, Generate, Full Polish — apply the trust layer before generating. Academic conventions (hedged language, formal register, consistent voice, no unauthorized section changes) are enforced through the preset rule pack assigned to your paper automatically. You can disable or edit any rule in the rule pack library at /projects/[id]/rule-packs.

Exporting for submission

Click “Export full paper” on the project page. The output is a single Word document in standard academic format: Times New Roman 12pt, double-spaced, one-inch margins, title and author name centered on page one, section headings bold and centered between sections. Most submission portals — journal manuscript systems, university portals, Turnitin — accept this format directly.

For per-section export, use the per-section export buttons in the section list — useful when submitting a single chapter to an advisor for review. After export, the document opens in Word or uploads to Google Drive for track-changes review.

Series-level canon — writing multi-book arcs

Series sits above projects as a multi-book parent. Canon, rule packs, and voice can travel across every book in the arc — so Book 3 of a fantasy series can’t contradict the magic system in Book 1, Book 2 of a sermon series shares the recurring metaphors and theology of Book 1, and the AI in any inheriting book sees the merged view at every call.

Tier: Series is part of OpusDraft and OpusDraft Pro. OpusSmith and trial accounts see the dashboard with a locked-state hero and an upgrade CTA.

When to use a series

• You’re writing a multi-book arc — a fantasy trilogy, a mystery series, a literary cycle. Characters, locations, world rules recur. You don’t want to re-enter them per book.
• You preach a sermon series — A Year in Acts, The Beatitudes. Theology, recurring metaphors, and voice should stay consistent across every sermon in the arc.
• You give a keynote series — an investor roadshow across five cities, a workshop tour, a quarterly all-hands sequence. The narrative through-line and stable claims travel with you.

How to create a series

Open the Series tab in the top nav (between Projects and Presentations). Click the + New series tile. Title it, add an optional description, click Create. You land on the series detail page where you can:

• Add books to the series — pick from your existing standalone Novels, or create new ones inside the series.
• Add series-level canon (Canon tab) — characters, locations, timeline events, world rules that apply across every inheriting book.
• Add series-level rule packs (Rule Packs tab) — voice / tone rules that stack on every inheriting book’s own packs.
• Set series-level voice (Voice tab) — the recurring narrative voice that books inherit when their own voice is empty.
• Export the series bible — a single DOCX with cover page, canon, rule packs, voice, and book index. Great as a beta-reader handoff.

Series vs. book canon

Every book in a series has three independent inheritance toggles on its row of the series detail page: Inherits series canon, Inherits series rule packs, and Inherits series voice. All default ON. Toggle one off and that book skips that axis — useful for a POV-shift book, a side-story with its own rules, or a finale that breaks the established voice intentionally.

When a book-level canon entry has the same name and type as a series-level entry, the book-level version wins for that book’s AI runs and a small Overrides series canonpill appears on the entry. Click it to compare both versions side by side. The override is informational, not blocking — series drift is a signal, not a violation.

Converting an existing project to a series

Already started writing Book 1 as a standalone Novel? Open the project, click Convert to series in the sidebar. The confirmation modal lists what will move:

• Every canon fact promotes to series-level so it applies to every book.
• Every rule pack promotes to series-level so it applies to every inheriting book.
• Optionally promote project voice to series voice (checkbox in the modal). Defaults off — keep voice on the book unless you want every future book to share it.
• The project becomes Book 1 of the new series.

You can undo the conversion for 24 hours — an “Undo” banner appears at the top of the series detail page during the window. After 24 hours the conversion is permanent (canon and rules stay where they were promoted to).

Combining two existing standalone projects into a series

Not directly supported in V1. If you wrote Books 1 and 2 separately and want them in one series, the workaround is:

1. Convert Book 1 to a series via the project page action.
2. Inside the new series, click Add book → Create new book, titled the same as your old Book 2.
3. Open the old Book 2 project, copy chapter contents into the new in-series book.
4. When all content is moved, archive (or delete) the old Book 2 project.

Two-way merge (combining two standalone projects into one series automatically) is on the V2 roadmap. Build pressure from beta writers will move it up the queue — tell us if you hit this case often.

Adding books to an existing series

On the series detail page, click Add book. Two paths:

• Add existing book— pick one of your standalone Novels from a dropdown. The book attaches to the series and inherits canon / rules / voice by default. Books already in another series don’t show up in the dropdown.
• Create new book— a fresh Novel project that starts inside the series. Title it, describe it, click Create. You land in the new book’s editor.

Reorder books by dragging their rows. The series_order column persists the new positions — same drag pattern as chapters within a book.

Series bible DOCX export

The Export series bible (.docx) button in the series sidebar generates a single Word document with:

• Cover page (series title, your name, generated date).
• Table of contents.
• Series canon grouped by type (characters, locations, timeline events, world rules).
• Series rule packs with their enabled rules, split by hard / soft priority.
• Series voice / style guide.
• Book index in series order.

Same Times New Roman manuscript format used by academic exports. Useful as a beta-reader handoff or as your own reference doc when you sit down to draft Book 4.

See also: Canon database, Voice cascade

Version history — never lose work to an AI edit

Every meaningful change to a chapter is captured as a version you can browse, diff, and restore. The fear “I accepted an AI rewrite and lost something I can’t get back” stops being a fear. Available on every paid tier; named saves and unlimited retention on OpusDraft and OpusDraft Pro.

What gets snapshotted automatically

When you click Applyon any AI result — Improve, Generate, Full Polish, or Agent Mode — OpusDraft auto-captures a snapshot of the chapter’s prior state beforethe AI’s new content lands. The snapshot includes any unsaved typing you had in the editor at the moment of click. No setting to enable; this just happens.

Ask AI does notcreate snapshots — it’s research-only, it never writes to your chapter content.

Manual “Save version” saves

In the chapter editor toolbar, next to the autosave indicator, there’s a Save versionbutton. Click it to capture a version on demand — useful before a big rewrite, at the end of a writing session, or when you want a named restore point.

• Unlabeled checkpoints— available on every paid tier. Kept for 90 days, then automatically cleaned up.
• Named saves(OpusDraft + Pro) — add a label like “Before scene cut” or “End of chapter 5 draft.” Labeled saves are kept forever, never cleaned up by the retention sweep.
• Unlimited retention(Pro) — every snapshot is kept forever, labeled or not.

How to browse history

The Historybutton in the editor toolbar (clock icon, next to Focus) opens a slide-out drawer with every version for the current chapter in reverse chronological order. Each entry shows what triggered the snapshot (“Improved · more detailed”, “Saved: ‘Before scene cut’”, “Pre-restore snapshot”), how long ago it was captured, and the chapter word count at that moment.

Click any entry to expand a 200-character preview, a Show diff toggle, and a Restore this version button.

What the diff view shows

Side-by-side word-level diff between the selected historical version (right column) and the current chapter content (left column):

• Green-tinted words on the left — added since this version.
• Red-tinted strikethrough words on the right — removed since this version.
• Plain words — unchanged between the two.
• Word-count delta above the diff (“+47 words since this version” or “−92 words since this version”).

How Restore works

Click Restore this version on any history entry. A confirmation modal explains the contract: your current chapter is saved as a version first, then replaced with the selected version’s content. The operation is fully reversible — that pre-restore snapshot appears at the top of your history so you can restore it back if you change your mind.

The drawer refreshes immediately on success, and the editor textarea syncs to the restored content without a page reload.

Retention rules per tier

• Free trial / OpusSmith— 90-day retention. Unlabeled checkpoints expire; auto-captured AI snapshots expire. Labeled saves are not available on this tier.
• OpusDraft— 90-day retention for unlabeled snapshots. Labeled named saves are kept forever.
• OpusDraft Pro— unlimited retention for all snapshots, labeled or not.

Pre-restore snapshots are kept indefinitely on every tier regardless of label or retention — so undo-the-undo is always available, even after the regular retention window would have expired the row.

See also: AI tools, Beta reader workflow

Finding your work — search across everything you’ve written

Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows / Linux) from anywhere in the app to open the search modal. Type a phrase and results appear in <200ms, grouped by chapters, canon, and labeled version history. Available on every tier; no upgrade required.

What gets searched

• Chapter content— full prose body of every chapter you’ve written, with the matched phrase highlighted in an 80-character snippet so you can scan before clicking.
• Chapter titles— weighted higher than body matches (a title hit is more likely the target than a body hit).
• Canon entries— names + descriptions, both project-level and series-level (research notes flow through here since they’re seeded as canon entries by the worldbuilding templates).
• Version labels— labeled named saves you’ve created. Auto-captured snapshots (AI applies, pre-restore) have no labels and don’t participate in search; you’ll find them in the version history drawer for the relevant chapter.

Rule pack content is intentionally not searched. Rules are invisible enforcement — you’re unlikely to be looking for a rule by phrase. Open the rule pack editor directly if you need to find a specific rule.

The three scopes

The scope toggle at the top of the modal lets you narrow or widen the search:

• This project— the most common case: find a scene or canon entry inside the book you’re currently editing. Default when you opened search from a project page.
• This series— widens to all books in the current series plus series-level canon. Available when you opened search from a series detail page.
• All work— everything in your account: every project, every series, every canon entry, every labeled version. The default when search is opened from non-project routes like Settings or Help.

Scopes you can’t use right now (e.g. “This series” from outside a series page) appear dimmed with a tooltip explaining why.

Snippet matching and typo tolerance

Two passes run for every search:

• Full-text matchfirst — Postgres tsvector with English stemming, so “running” matches “run” and “ran.”
• Fuzzy trigram fallback— if the full-text match returns nothing, a trigram-based substring pass catches typos and partial-word fragments. Search for “Maeren” when your character is named “Maren” and the result still surfaces.

The 80-character snippet shows context around the match with the matched phrase in bold. The header line under each result shows where the hit lives (“Book 2 · The Drowned City”, “Series: The Whitewater Cycle”) so you can disambiguate between same-named entries across projects.

Click-to-jump

Click any result to land directly on it:

• Chapter— opens the chapter editor.
• Canon entry— opens the canon entry detail page (project-level entries open inside the project; series-level entries open from the series canon dashboard).
• Version label— opens the chapter editor with the version history drawer already open and the matching version expanded + scrolled into view. One-click access to browse, diff, or restore that exact version.

Keyboard navigation

• Cmd+K / Ctrl+K — toggle the modal open/closed.
• Arrow Up / Arrow Down — move the cursor across results.
• Enter — jump to the highlighted result.
• Escape — close the modal.
• Tab — move between the search input and the scope toggle.

The cursor resets to the top of the result list whenever you change query, change scope, or reopen the modal — so a quick keyboard-only flow is type, arrow down a couple of positions, Enter, you’re there.

Privacy

Your search queries are neverlogged or sent to PostHog. Analytics tracks only the count of search opens, scope changes, and result-jumps — not what you typed or what came back. Manuscript text stays where it belongs.

See also: Version history (search includes version labels), Canon database (search includes canon entries)

Working with beta readers and editors

Most serious writers send manuscripts to beta readers and editors before publishing. OpusDraft is built for the writing — not for managing the review back-and-forth — so the workflow leans on tools you and your editors already know: Microsoft Word with Track Changes, or Google Docs with Suggesting mode.

Here’s how the round-trip works in practice, plus the OpusDraft features that make it cleaner than just emailing a DOCX into the void.

The workflow at a glance

1. Export your chapter or full project as a DOCX from OpusDraft.
2. Send the file to your editor via email, Dropbox, or however you usually share files.
3. Editor reviews the manuscript in Word (Track Changes) or Google Docs (Suggesting mode), leaving comments and proposed edits.
4. They send the marked-up file back to you.
5. You readthe changes and decide which to accept. For now, this means manually transferring edits back into your OpusDraft chapter — copy-paste and re-type as you accept each suggestion.
6. Export againwhen you’re ready for a second round, if needed.

Steps 1, 2, 5, and 6 happen in OpusDraft. Steps 3 and 4 happen in your editor’s chosen tool. That separation is intentional — your editor already has the workflow they prefer, and OpusDraft doesn’t replicate what Word already does well.

Two editor paths

Microsoft Word with Track Changes.Most professional editors use Word. They open your DOCX, turn on Track Changes (Review tab → Track Changes), and make their suggestions inline. When they return the file, you see every change highlighted with their initials, and you can accept or reject each one. Comments appear in the margin for higher-level feedback.

Google Docs with Suggesting mode.If your editor prefers cloud-based collaboration, they can upload your DOCX to Google Drive, open it in Google Docs, and switch the editing mode from Editing to Suggesting (top-right dropdown). All their changes become suggestions you can review one at a time. Comments thread on the side. When they’re done, they share the doc back with you or export it as a DOCX with the suggestions baked in.

Both paths preserve your manuscript’s formatting and produce a marked-up DOCX you can read back. Pick whichever path your editor is most comfortable with — there’s no “right” answer here.

Using the “Export for review” button

When you’re ready to send a chapter or project to your editor, use the Export for review option in the export menu (instead of the regular Export DOCX). Two things happen:

1. The exported file gets [For Review]prefixed to its filename — [For Review] The Drowned City - Chapter 7.docx. This makes it visually distinct from later versions in your file system, so you can tell at a glance which copy you sent versus which copy the editor returned.
2. OpusDraft automatically saves a named version of your chapter in the version history, labeled Sent for review — [today’s date]. This is your reference point for “what did I send” once edits come back.

That second behavior is the quiet win. When your editor returns the marked-up DOCX a week later and you start applying their edits to your chapter, the “Sent for review” version is still there in your history drawer. You can:

• Compare current state vs sent statevia the side-by-side diff — useful if you’ve also made changes since the export and want to merge edits cleanly.
• Restore the sent versionif you decide the editor’s direction isn’t right and you want to start over from what you originally sent.
• Keep both timelines visiblein your history list — “Sent for review” stays labeled (labels are exempt from the automatic cleanup), so you can always trace which manuscript snapshot went to which editor.

Applying edits back into OpusDraft

After your editor returns the marked-up DOCX, you’ll work through it suggestion by suggestion and apply the changes you want to keep into your OpusDraft chapter directly. Open the editor’s file in Word or Google Docs, read through their Track Changes / Suggesting markup, then make the corresponding edits in your OpusDraft chapter editor as you go.

This is the manual step. We don’t yet have a feature that imports the marked-up DOCX back into OpusDraft and applies the editor’s changes automatically. If you find yourself wishing for that — especially after a long developmental edit with hundreds of small changes — please tell us. That feedback is the gate on whether we build that feature next.

A note on what OpusDraft isn’t trying to be

OpusDraft is intentionally not adding native track-changes, native commenting, or a built-in collaboration mode. Word and Google Docs already do those things well, and your editor probably already lives in one of them. Building our own version would replicate weeks of engineering on features that aren’t OpusDraft’s reason to exist.

Where OpusDraft adds value to the editor cycle is on the writer’s side: canon enforcement during your initial draft, series-level rules that travel across books, a verifiable version history so you can always recover what you sent. The review round-trip itself is best handled by the tool your editor already uses.

If you’d like specific guidance for a workflow we haven’t covered — paid copy editor, sensitivity reader, beta reader exchange, MFA workshop, etc. — drop us a note via the contact form and we’ll add a guide.

See also: Version history (the “Sent for review” snapshot lives in the history drawer)

AI Tools

Five surfaces that enforce your canon, rules, and style guide on every call. This is what makes OpusDraft different — AI that respects your story.

Select-in-place editing

Highlight any text in the chapter editor, then click Improve, Generate, or a tool inside Agent Mode. OpusDraft generates a result and shows it side-by-side with your original. Accept to replace, reject to keep what you had. No surprises — you always see both versions before committing.

The guardrails line

Above every result, OpusDraft shows a one-line summary of exactly what was enforced on that call: how many canon entries were active, how many hard rules were applied, and whether your voice was loaded. You always know what the AI was working with.

How canon and rules are injected

Every generation automatically packages your canon entries, active rule packs, and style guide into the prompt context. Hard-enforcement canon entries are flagged as rules that must not be violated. Soft entries are provided as guidelines. You never need to re-explain your world to OpusDraft — it already knows.

See also: Version history (every Apply auto-snapshots)

Canon Database

Your story’s source of truth. Define characters, locations, timeline events, and world rules — all enforced on every generation.

Entry types

• Character — name, traits, backstory, relationships. Never renamed or mischaracterized.
• Location — settings, geography, atmosphere. Prevents invented locations or inconsistent descriptions.
• Timeline — events, dates, sequences. Keeps your story chronologically consistent.
• World rule — laws of your world, magic systems, technology constraints, objects, abstract truths. Hard boundaries that cannot be crossed.

Hard vs. soft enforcement

Hardentries are absolute — they are never contradicted. If a generation would violate a hard canon entry, the system flags it and revises before showing you the result. Soft entries are strong guidelines that are followed unless you explicitly instruct otherwise.

Locking entries

Lock a canon entry to protect it from generated edits. Locked entries are read-only — they inform output but cannot be modified by any tool.

Canon Scan

Already wrote a few chapters before setting up canon? Open Canon Scanfrom the project’s Canon tab. The scanner reads your existing chapters and proposes canon entries for review — characters mentioned, locations described, events that happened. Approve the ones you want; ignore the rest. Subsequent scans only re-read changed material, so it’s cheap to keep current as you write.

Facts vs. canon

In presentation projects, the same database is called Facts instead of Canon— same engine, terminology that matches the format. Scripture references, doctrinal positions, statistics, and product claims all live as Facts.

See also: Series-level canon (parent-level canon inheritance)

Rule Packs

Bundles of style and tone rules that belong to one project. Every enabled rule in every enabled pack feeds into every generation in that project.

Canon vs. rule packs

Canon (or Facts, on presentations) defines whatexists in your work — characters, places, events, people, statistics. Rule packs define howOpusDraft should write — voice, pacing, structure, tone. They work together: canon is the world, rules are the craft.

Creating a pack

Open a project and go to its Canon tab (Facts tab on presentation projects). In the Rule Packs section you can create a new pack by name and description, then click into it to add individual rules. Each rule has a priority (hard or soft) and can be toggled on or off without deleting it.

Scope: one project, one set of packs

Rule packs belong to the project they were created in. A pack built for a novel does not appear in a sermon project, and vice versa. If you want the same voice rules for two different works, create the pack twice — one in each project — so each project can evolve its own rules independently.

Anti-fabrication on presentations

Presentation projects automatically get a built-in set of hard rules that block invented scripture references, fabricated statistics, and quotes attributed to real people that the AI cannot verify. This protection is wired into every AI call on every presentation project — you don’t have to enable it, and it does not show up as a pack in the list. Your own packs stack on top of it.

Settings & Style Guide

Manage your API key, define your writing voice, and configure your account.

Claude API Key

Your Anthropic API key powers all writing tools. Add it in Settings → AI Setup → Claude API Key. You can test the connection, replace the key, or remove it. The key is encrypted and masked in the UI after saving.

Don’t have one yet? Sign up at console.anthropic.com, add $5+ in credits, and create a key under Settings → API Keys. Full walkthrough in the Getting Started section.

Default voice

Your account default voice. Applies to every new project you create — and to any existing project that doesn’t have its own voice. Set it once on the AI Setuptab and it follows you across the app. Same field as the “Save as my default for new projects” link inside any project’s Voice editor, so the two surfaces stay in sync.

Good voice descriptions are specific: “Short sentences. No adverbs on dialogue tags. Present tense only. Sensory details over emotional labels.” The more precise you are, the less editing you do after.

Voice cascade

When the AI runs, it resolves voice in this order: project voice → account default voice → empty. The first non-empty wins; voices never merge. So a per-project voice always overrides your account default — useful when you write in two different registers (literary fiction vs. expository nonfiction, say) and want each project to behave correctly without re-typing your default every time.

Profile

Your display name, full name, and role title. Display name is what shows up across the app. Full name and role appear next to your display name on the Team page so your row reads like a person instead of an email address.

Account

View your email, member-since date, and current plan. Change your email, password, or sign out from the Account tab.

Redeem a code

If you have a beta invite, gift code, trial extension, upgrade code, or a forever-free key, paste it into the Redeem a codefield on the Account tab. Some code types apply during signup (Beta1, BetaK, Gift); others apply to an existing account (Trial Extension, Upgrade, Forever-Free). All six types redeem at the same field — OpusDraft figures out which kind it is and applies the right effect.

Download my data

A complete export of everything in your account — all projects, chapters, Story Facts, Rule Packs, voice, and writing setup — packaged as a ZIP file. Find it under Settings → Account → Your data. Use it as a backup or to take your writing with you.

Danger Zone

A separate tab in Settings for permanent actions that cannot be undone. Currently houses account deletion. Read the confirmation copy carefully before proceeding — there is no automated recovery.

Keyboard shortcuts

These shortcuts work inside the chapter editor. The same list is available from the editor itself: open the … menu in the chapter header and pick “Keyboard shortcuts”, or press Cmd / Ctrl + /.

• Cmd / Ctrl + SSave this chapter
• Cmd / Ctrl + [Go to the previous chapter
• Cmd / Ctrl + ]Go to the next chapter
• Cmd / Ctrl + FOpen the find-and-replace bar
• Cmd / Ctrl + /Open the keyboard-shortcuts modal
• ?Open the modal when focus is outside a text field
• EscClose the modal or exit focus mode

Billing & Plans

Three tiers. All BYOK. Pick the level of control you need.

Every paid tier includes the full trust layer — canon enforcement, rule packs, voice cascade, the guardrails-visible line, anti-fabrication on presentations, and verify-on-fail on Generate. Tiers differ on workflow depth (Full Polish, Agent Mode, presentation mode, teams) and capacity caps, not on whether the AI respects your work.

The tiers

• OpusSmith — $29/mo or $290/year. Up to 10 projects. Canon enforcement, rule packs, voice cascade — the full trust layer. Improve, Generate, and Ask AI on every chapter. DOCX export. BYOK. For writers with one or two serious projects in flight.
• OpusDraft — $69/mo or $690/year. Up to 50 projects. Everything in OpusSmith plus Full Polish (the agentic 5-step pipeline that verifies your prose against canon, rules, and voice before committing) and Agent Mode (Preview). Presentation mode included with all eight export formats. BYOK. For writers building real books with consistency.
• OpusDraft Pro — $399/mo or $3,990/year. Up to 200 projects. Everything in OpusDraft plus team features: up to 10 writers, shared projects, role-based access, locked canon, admin dashboard. BYOK. For publishers and editorial teams.

Monthly or annual

Both billing periods are available at every tier; the toggle on the pricing cards switches between them. Annual saves about 17% vs. paying monthly — same tier, same features, billed once a year. Switch between monthly and annual anytime through the Stripe portal.

Founding cohort pricing

The prices above are Founding Cohort rates, available to new subscribers through September 30, 2026. If you subscribe before that date, your rate stays locked at the Founding Cohort price as long as your subscription remains active — even if standard pricing rises later. Upgrade or downgrade at any time and your locked rate carries over to the new tier’s current Founding price. Cancel and resubscribe later and the lock does not transfer — you pay current pricing on the new subscription.

BYOK (Bring Your Own Key)

All tiers use your own Anthropic API key. You pay Anthropic directly for usage — OpusDraft charges only for the platform, tools, and enforcement layer. This keeps costs transparent and your data under your control.

Upgrading & downgrading

Change plans anytime from the Billing page. Upgrades take effect immediately. Downgrades apply at the end of your current billing period. Manage payment methods and invoices through the Stripe customer portal.

Sales tax

Louisiana customers see Louisiana state and local sales tax automatically calculated and added at checkout. The tax is collected by Stripe and remitted by OpusDraft to the state. Customers outside Louisiana are not currently charged sales tax.

Got an OpusDraft code?

Beta invite, trial extension, plan upgrade, or forever-free promo — head to /redeem and paste the code to apply it to your account. Same surface is also linked from “Redeem a code” in the top navigation bar.

Teams

OpusDraft Pro includes team collaboration for up to 10 writers.

Creating a team

Pro subscribers can create a team from the Team page. Name your team, then invite writers by email. They receive an invitation link when they next log in.

Shared projects

When a writer joins your team, their projects become visible to the team owner. Writers can collaborate on shared canon and chapter assignments while the owner maintains control over locked entries and rule packs.

Roles

The team owner has full control — managing members, invitations, and all team projects. Writers can create and edit chapters within their assigned projects but cannot modify locked canon or team settings.