alfredxw/nova

Nova is an AI writing workbench aimed at people working on long-form novels. The README pitches it as something like an IDE, but built for novel creation instead of code. It brings a project tree, a chapter editor, and an AI assistant plus version history panel onto one screen. It covers the stages a long novel goes through, from initial ideas and worldbuilding through outline, volumes, chapters, detailed plotting, prose drafting, version management, and consistency checks. The editor handles Markdown and plain text, with auto-save, manual save, word count, in-document search, and the ability to quote a selection back to the AI. The AI assistant streams its replies in real time, shows which tools it called, lets you collapse its thinking trace, and can be interrupted mid-task or resumed. Each book lives in its own workspace folder, and each workspace keeps its own set of chat sessions. Every workspace doubles as a local Git repository. From inside Nova you can initialize the repo, create versions, view history, roll back to an earlier point, stash uncommitted writing, and restore it, with the actual Git work done by the Go backend. A style reference system also exists: drop .md or .txt files into setting/styles/ and quote them in a conversation by typing # plus the file name, which nudges the AI toward the voice of a chosen author. On the technical side, the backend is Go with the Hertz framework and the Eino agent library, using server-sent events for streaming. The frontend uses React and TypeScript on Vite, with Tailwind CSS v4, the TipTap editor, and shadcn/ui on top of Radix UI. Setup needs Go 1.24+, Node 20+, and pnpm, plus an OpenAI-compatible API key, base URL, and model set as environment variables. A workspace is one book, with a CREATOR.md instruction file, a chapters folder, and a hidden .nova folder. Slash commands like /plan, /continue, /rewrite, and /outline are bound to common writing actions.