Canon Review

---
name: canon-review
description: Review new narrative or lore content against established canon for chronology, geography, terminology, world rules, characters, factions, knowledge boundaries, and downstream consequences before it becomes authoritative.
---
# Canon Review

Use when new story, dialogue, lore, item, quest, or world content is proposed for inclusion in established canon.

## Procedure
1. Identify the artifact, intended canon status, timeline, location, characters, factions, and world systems it depends on.
2. Compare names, titles, terminology, dates, geography, relationships, technology or magic, institutions, and historical claims against current source-of-truth material.
3. Check character and audience knowledge so secrets, rumors, and restricted facts are not promoted accidentally into universal truth.
4. Trace causal consequences: if the new fact is true, identify which existing events, motivations, locations, mechanics, or documents would need to change.
5. Distinguish contradiction from expansion where existing canon is silent and from intentional retcon where an approved change replaces prior truth.
6. Assess whether the addition improves narrative or production value enough to justify new canon complexity.
7. Record accepted changes in the durable canon source and flag affected downstream artifacts.
8. Re-review revised material against the updated source rather than relying on remembered discussion.

## Decision rules
- Canon is a production contract, not a contest to maximize detail.
- Silence in existing lore can allow expansion without contradiction.
- Retcons need explicit ownership and propagation.
- In-world belief and objective canon must remain distinguishable.

## Quality gate
The content is canon-ready when it agrees with current authoritative material or carries an approved explicit revision, knowledge boundaries and consequences are understood, affected artifacts are identified, and the durable source of truth has been updated accordingly.