Starwind Merged Plugin ProjectDocs
guide

Definitive Build API & Wiki

Exhaustive technical reference for the Starwind Definitive build, decoupling, dialogue canonicalization, validation, and Star_Data split.

Definitive Build API & Wiki

This section is the long-form technical and historical reference for the Starwind Definitive build. The project landing page intentionally stays short; this reference preserves the details required to reproduce, audit, or modify the pipeline without rediscovering years of TES3 archaeology.

The word API is used broadly here: this documents the build contract, data boundaries, invariants, generated artifacts, record-placement policy, and the interfaces between the project's tools.

  1. Build pipeline — start here for the complete stage graph.
  2. Source corpus & preprocessing — understand what enters the build and which historical edits are allowed.
  3. Master decoupling — how Bethesda-master dependencies are imported and then removed.
  4. Dialogue canonicalization — the most complicated subsystem and the largest body of source archaeology.
  5. Star_Data / Starwind split — the stable-data/content ABI and dependency rules.
  6. Validation & reports — the acceptance contract for every build.
  7. Historical cleanup ledger — specific removals, source fixes, and rejected historical behavior.
  8. Design decisions — policies that are intentional rather than accidental artifacts of the implementation.
  9. Tools & commands — executable/tool reference and common forensic workflows.

Current contract

A successful strict build must produce a masterless monolith and a split pair with these properties:

Starwind-Definitive.omwaddon
    masters = 0
    hard unresolved dependencies = 0
    OpenMW dialogue = exact expected effective database

Star_Data.omwaddon
    masters = 0
    no dependency on Starwind.omwaddon

Starwind.omwaddon
    sole master = Star_Data.omwaddon

Star_Data + Starwind
    reconstruct Starwind-Definitive exactly

The current corpus validates at 591 DIALs, with no missing/extra live INFOs, no engine-order mismatch, no physical-order mismatch, no serialized-link mismatch, and no dialogue payload mismatch.

Scope of this reference

This documentation intentionally records both the current implementation and the reasoning history that led to it. Old strategies are included when they explain why a current rule exists, but historical behavior is clearly marked so that it is not mistaken for current build policy.

Back to the Starwind Merged Plugin Project

Build pipeline Exact Definitive source graph and stage-by-stage build contract. Source corpus & preprocessing Included and excluded sources, Definitive preprocessing policy, and main-quest preservation. Master decoupling & dependency closure Minimal seed, motherJungle/addVanillaRefs closure, staged vanilla surgery, tombstones, and master removal. Dialogue canonicalization OpenMW dialogue reconstruction, liveness, TESCS dirt cleanup, provenance, and canonical physical serialization. Star_Data / Starwind split Stable data ABI, content boundary, script exceptions, typed dependency fixed point, and split validation. Validation & reports Closure, dialogue, main-quest, late-actor, and split validators plus hard-failure policy. Historical cleanup ledger Specific data cleanups, removals, rejected historical behavior, and provenance behind the Definitive transformation. Design decisions Intentional project policies that should not be mistaken for implementation accidents. Tools & commands Build executables, provenance, report scripts, and common forensic commands.