Throughline and AI

Throughline is a story development and screenwriting app for macOS and Windows. It keeps your story as structured data, not as one long block of text, and it explains that data to any AI that reads it. So when you bring AI into your work, a model can see the whole story the way you do, and help with it precisely.

You never have to use AI. Every AI feature is off until you turn it on.

Three ways to work with AI

Way	What it is	Where it runs
The .thrl file	Your project file explains its own structure to any AI model you give it to.	Wherever you send the file
MCP: Connect AI Apps	Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and other MCP apps read and edit the project open in Throughline, live.	The AI app on your computer and its provider
AI Assistant	Built-in helpers that summarize, draft and propose arc charges and relationships.	Your own provider, or Ollama fully on your computer

Your story as data an AI can understand

A Throughline project is more than a script. It holds the parts of a story that a model needs to reason about it:

Beats in story order, each with a title, a summary, its cast, its setting and its scene text.
Structure cards that say what each part of the story must do, with the Beats that fulfill them.
Characters with a summary, what they want, what they need and the flaw in their way.
Relationships as feelings in both directions, such as “distrusts” or “is indebted to”, and how those feelings change from Beat to Beat.
Arcs: each plotline between two poles you name, with an emotional charge from -1 to 1 at every Beat.
Settings, grouped into piles, and Sparks, your inbox of loose ideas.

An AI model that reads this can answer questions such as “where does the second act sag?”, “when does Nina stop trusting her father?” or “which Beats never move the B-story?” from the story itself.

A file that explains itself

Every .thrl file carries a guide written for AI readers. It holds the rules of the story model, the story order already worked out, the number the writer sees beside each Beat, and the names behind every id. Give the file to any model you like, and it reads your project correctly without Throughline’s source code or a plugin. See The .thrl File Format.

Scripts also travel as Fountain, the plain-text screenplay format that language models read and write well.

An AI connection for precise editing

MCP: Connect AI Apps gives an AI app three tools: read the project, edit it, and open another project. Each tool carries the full rules of the story model, so the AI app knows them from its first call.

Names in, names out. The AI app refers to “Beat 12”, “Nina” or “Inciting Incident”, as you do. When a name fits more than one card, Throughline names the candidates instead of guessing.
Whole story, any point in time. The AI app reads relationships and the cast map at any Beat, and sees when each relationship starts and changes.
Precise scene edits. The AI app can fix one word or one line inside a scene. Your screenplay formatting stays exactly as it is.
One batch, one undo step. The AI app sends its edits in batches. If one edit can’t be made, none of them are. Press Cmd+Z to take a batch back, or ask the AI app to take back its last batch itself.
Clean layouts. Throughline lays out the Constellation and the Arcs by its own rules and reports anything that crowds. Layout never blocks a story edit.
You watch it happen. Every change shows live in the app and saves to your file like your own edits.

The writer stays in control

Off by default. The AI Assistant and the AI connection each have their own switch in Settings → AI.
Your provider, your choice. There is no Throughline AI service. Use Claude, ChatGPT, Mistral or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint with your own key, or run Ollama and the AI Assistant keeps every word on your computer.
Proposals, not takeovers. The AI Assistant proposes, and you decide. Every change from a connected AI app can be undone.
Your files. Projects are ordinary files that you save wherever you like. Throughline works offline and needs no account.

Quick facts

Platforms: macOS and Windows.
Project file: .thrl, one file per project, with a built-in guide for AI readers.
AI connection: Model Context Protocol (MCP), three tools, local to your computer, off by default.
AI Assistant: optional, bring your own provider or run Ollama locally.
Screenplay import: Fountain, Final Draft (.fdx), PDF and plain text.
Screenplay export: PDF and Fountain. Document export: Markdown, Word and PDF.
The full manual as plain text for AI tools: llms-full.txt, or the shorter llms-small.txt.