Agents
Quill's files are plain Markdown and YAML, and its every feature is a CLI command. Point Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build — or any agentic harness — at your book and tell it what you want. Quill doesn't dictate how you use AI; it just makes all of itself available.
Working with an agent is the most powerful way to put AI to work. You don't copy and paste into a chat window, and you don't learn scripting menus. You just tell your agent what you need, and it does it.
Why it works
Agents read and write your book directly — no export step. No conversions, and no odd formatting artifacts creeping into your manuscript.
Everything the app does, an agent can do. A bundled skill and documentation give your agent instant knowledge of how to drive Quill.
The agent works outside the app; your editor stays exactly as it was. Any change it makes, and any note it leaves you, surfaces immediately in your interface.
What authors do with it
Organize research documents.
Arrange elements in a planning canvas.
Import and export manuscripts.
Run and triage checks, or find the places that need updating after a change you just made.
Leave revision comments on any document — a research note, a chapter plan, or the chapter itself.
Write a first draft from your outline and plans, if that's what you want.
A worked example
An author asked their agent to tidy their research notes into the story
bible and leave a note on the chapter plan — the shipped
quill CLI, on a public-domain sample.
quill search "Saville" {"docs":[{"ref":"bible/researches/polar-expeditions-reading.md","type":"research","title":"Polar expeditions reading","titleMatched":false,"hits":[{"address":"~lead","line":"…Name idea: Robert Walton. His sister: Margaret Saville, in England.…","lineNo":1,"snippet":"…ea: Robert Walton. His sister: Margaret Saville, in England. The ice should feel like a…"}]},{"ref":"…/manuscript/letter-the-first.md","type":"chapter","title":"Letter the First","titleMatched":false,"hits":[{"address":"~lead","line":"_To Mrs. Saville, England._","lineNo":1,"snippet":"_To Mrs. Saville, England._"}]}, …],"truncated":false} quill doc create character --title 'Margaret Saville' --prop life_status=alive --body 'Robert Walton'\''s sister and the silent audience of the frame story…' {"ref":"bible/characters/margaret-saville.md","warnings":[]} quill doc link bible/characters/margaret-saville.md bible/characters/robert-walton.md --rel confidant --both {"ref":"bible/characters/margaret-saville.md","target":"bible/characters/robert-walton.md","rel":"confidant","both":true} quill annotation add book-01-frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus/outline/outline.md --author scribe --quote 'Letter the First' --text 'Tidied the polar-expedition research into the bible: Margaret Saville now has her own entry, linked to Robert Walton as his confidant…' --mention author {"id":"book-01-frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus/outline/outline.md#a1"}
We're building something that makes working with agents even easier. If you want to hear about it first:
Quill is $75 during Early Access — one purchase, yours forever. Try it free for 30 days of actual use before you decide.