Document Control¶

Field	Value
Document ID	meta-style-guide
Version	1.2.0
Status	approved
Confidence	High
Category (track)	Meta
Build	both
Owner	PZ Knowledge-Base Pipeline
Created	2026-07-30
Updated	2026-10-08
Review due	2027-01-07
Game versions verified	41.78.16, 42.20, 42.21 (and the 41.78.21 legacy hotfix announcement)

Executive Summary¶

This knowledge base is a reference work: an evidence-based, source-cited Project Zomboid encyclopedia written for four audience tracks (Modders, Players, Admins, Creator) plus Lore and Meta. This document explains, in one place, the rules every document in the repository follows: the three-layer genre discipline (evidence, guidance, quarantine), the load-bearing build-tag system that keeps Build 41 and Build 42 facts from contaminating each other, the per-track voice, the ranked source order, the licensing stance, and the deterministic QA gates a document must pass before it can be merged.

The build-tag system exists because the two supported builds genuinely diverge: The Indie Stone stated ahead of the Build 42 stable launch that "Build 41 savegames clearly will not be compatible with Build 42" [1], and Build 42.20 shipped as the stable branch on 2026-07-29 with Build 41 retained as an opt-in legacy41 beta [2]; stable has since moved to 42.21 (2026-09-28) [7]. A knowledge base that blurred which build a number belongs to would mislead every one of its readers.

Most factual claims in this document are about this repository itself and are verifiable by opening the named repo files. The external claims — license terms, content ownership, build compatibility — are cited to the Creative Commons deed [3], The Indie Stone's own terms [4], PZwiki's copyright policy [5], and official release announcements [1] [2]. Confidence is High: the document rests on primary sources and directly inspectable repository files.

Key Takeaways¶

Genre is reference, enforced in three layers: the evidence layer must cite every factual sentence, the guidance layer may only synthesise cited facts, and uncited community claims live exclusively in a labelled quarantine section. (cited, and mechanically enforced by repo scripts)
Every document carries a build: tag — B41, B42, both, or historic — and a both document must fill its "B41 vs B42 Delta" section substantively; single-build values are tagged inline (B41) / (B42). (repo rule; motivated by cited build divergence [1] [2])
pzwiki.net is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, whose NonCommercial clause bars commercial use [3] [5]; this commercially-adjacent project therefore uses pzwiki as a fact-only source — cite URL plus revision id, never reuse its prose or table layouts. (cited)
The game, its art and its lore belong to The Indie Stone [4] [5]; the KB is an unofficial fan project and says so site-wide. (cited)
Sources are reached for in a fixed priority order — official primaries, then code truth, then pzwiki facts, then tooling repos, then corroborate-only community material — summarised here and specified in SOURCE_REGISTRY.md. (repo rule)
Five deterministic QA gates (structure/citations, genre audit, license hygiene, markdownlint, link check) must all be green before a document merges; since the Modders wave, an API-existence gate also checks Modders documents against the pinned Umbrella indices. (repo rule, inspectable in scripts/)

Purpose¶

New readers need to know how much to trust what they read here, and new contributors (human or agent) need the house rules in one compact document rather than scattered across CLAUDE.md, templates/document_template.md and prompts/worker_contract.md. This document is that single explanation: what the genre is, why the build tag exists, which sources outrank which, what the licensing constraints are, and what a document must survive to be merged. It summarises the governing files; where they conflict with this summary, the governing files win.

Scope¶

Covered: the reference genre and its three layers; the build-tag system and the enforced delta section; the four track voices; the source-priority order and reference classes; the licensing stance (pzwiki, The Indie Stone IP, the KB's own prose); and the QA gates. Covered for both builds in the sense that these rules govern documents about the B41 legacy41 line (Umbrella stubs at 41.78.16) and B42 (verified through 42.21) alike.

Not covered: the full ranked source table (see SOURCE_REGISTRY.md), the 19-section template itself (see templates/document_template.md), the worker process mechanics (see prompts/worker_contract.md), and the release/freeze workflow (see CLAUDE.md and ROADMAP.md). This is the style guide, not a reprint of the rulebook.

Definitions¶

Evidence layer — the "Reference", "B41 vs B42 Delta" and "Build Applicability" sections, where every factual sentence carries a [n] citation to a primary source.
Guidance layer — "Practical Guidance" and "Common Pitfalls & Troubleshooting": synthesis of the cited facts, forbidden from introducing new uncited facts.
Quarantine layer — "Community Notes & Unverified Claims": the only section where an uncited community claim may appear, always as a labelled claim block with its own confidence rating.
Build tag — the required build: front-matter field: B41 (the legacy41 line only), B42 (42.20+ stable only), both, or historic.
Fact-only source — a source whose facts may be cited but whose prose and table layouts must never be copied or lightly paraphrased; in this KB, pzwiki.net.
Claim block — the fixed three-bullet shape (Claim / Why unverified / Confidence) that every quarantined community claim must use.

Build Applicability¶

This is a governance document: its rules apply to every document in the repository regardless of build tag. It is tagged both because the rules it describes exist precisely to manage the two live builds — B41 on the legacy41 beta branch (latest primary-attested hotfix 41.78.21 [6]; Umbrella stub pin 41.78.16) and B42 on stable (42.21 since 2026-09-28 [7]) — and because its motivating examples cite both. The 2026-10-07 re-baseline re-read the pins, the gate list and the build statements below against sources/pins.json, scripts/ and the 42.21 stable announcement [7]; the build-divergence examples still cite the 42.20 launch-week posts [1] [2] as written.

Build	Applies	Verified against	Notes
B41 (legacy41)	Yes	41.78.16 (Umbrella pin); 41.78.21 hotfix announcement [6]	Governance rules apply; B41 remains available as an opt-in Steam beta [2]
B42 (stable)	Yes	42.20 and 42.21	Stable branch since 2026-07-29 [2]; 42.21 stable since 2026-09-28 [7]

Reference¶

The genre: reference, in three layers¶

The cardinal rule of this knowledge base is: never let a judgement or hearsay wear the costume of a fact. The rule is made mechanical by splitting every document into three layers. The evidence layer ("Reference", "B41 vs B42 Delta", "Build Applicability") asserts facts, and every sentence that does so carries a numbered citation to a primary source — an official blog post or Thursdoid, a Steam announcement or patch note, a game script file, a pinned API index, or a named and dated dev post. The guidance layer ("Practical Guidance", "Common Pitfalls & Troubleshooting") turns those cited facts into advice and may not smuggle in new uncited facts. The quarantine layer ("Community Notes & Unverified Claims") is the only place an uncited community claim may live, and each one must appear as a labelled claim block stating what the claim is, why it is unverified, and how confident the KB is in it. scripts/validate.py enforces the structure and citation resolution; scripts/audit_genre.py enforces the layer discipline.

Each document also carries a confidence rating (High / Medium / Low) applied mechanically by the weakest evidence it rests on, with a hard floor: numbers sole-sourced from hosting-company knowledge bases cannot rate above Medium, and a document verified only against a superseded patch cannot rate High.

The build-tag system¶

Every document declares build: B41 | B42 | both | historic. The tag is load-bearing because the builds materially diverge: The Indie Stone's pre-launch checklist stated flatly that Build 41 savegames will not be compatible with Build 42 [1], and the 42.20 stable release notes document behaviour changes between the builds down to details like default-option migration [2]. A both document must therefore fill its "B41 vs B42 Delta" section with real, cited content — the validator rejects an empty or hand-waved delta. Inside a both document, any value that holds on only one build is tagged inline as (B41) or (B42), and a number established during the B42-unstable cycle that has not been re-verified on stable must say so explicitly. historic marks older-build or lore material kept for the record.

The four track voices¶

All tracks obey the same evidence rules; what changes is the register of the guidance layer:

Track	Voice	Guidance reads like
Modders	Peer engineer	Code patterns, API caveats, "here is why that event never fires"
Players	Friendly survival guide	Plain-language advice, decision-useful numbers, no jargon walls
Admins	Ops runbook	Copy-pasteable commands, exact setting names, rollback steps
Creator	Candid strategist	Production and channel notes, honest about what the data does and does not show

The Lore track records narrative and world-building material (tagged historic where it describes superseded builds), and the Meta track — this document's track — documents the KB itself.

Sources: priority order and reference classes¶

Workers reach for sources in the ranked order specified in SOURCE_REGISTRY.md, summarised: (1) official Indie Stone primaries — blog, Steam announcements, forums, Discord; (2) code truth — Umbrella/ZomboidDoc API stubs and game script files; (3) pzwiki.net, facts only; (4) open-source server and admin tooling repos; (5) hosting-company KBs and community guides, corroborate-only; (6) creator/YouTube sources, admissible only as creator-track evidence, never for game facts. Every reference in a document is classed as Primary, Fact-Only (pzwiki), Secondary & Corroborating, Community & Creator, or Further Reading, numbered contiguously from [1], with every marker resolving and every entry cited. URLs are never fabricated: a worker may only cite a URL it actually opened, or one on the known bot-block allowlist corroborated through a mirror such as the Steam news API. As of 2026-10-07 that allowlist (BOT_BLOCK_HOSTS in scripts/check_links.py) holds the official TIS hosts, store.steampowered.com, steamcommunity.com, discord.com, discord.gg, support.discord.com, map.projectzomboid.com, pzwiki.net, developer.valvesoftware.com and legionhosting.net; a failing request to one of them is a warning, not a failure.

The licensing stance¶

Three distinct bodies of rights shape this project.

pzwiki.net. PZwiki's copyright page states: "All content on the PZwiki (except for developer-owned images, art, and lore) is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)" [5]. That license permits sharing and adaptation only with attribution, forbids use "primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation", and requires adaptations to be distributed under the same license [3]. This project is commercially adjacent (it supports a monetized YouTube channel), so it cannot safely create derivative works of pzwiki text. The KB therefore treats pzwiki as a fact-only source: a pzwiki page may be cited for a fact, with URL and revision id recorded for provenance (this document cites PZwiki:Copyrights at revision 1156861 [5]), but every sentence in this KB is written as original prose, and scripts/check_license_hygiene.py mechanically flags n-gram overlap against the ingested pzwiki corpus in sources/pzwiki/.

The Indie Stone's IP. Per the same page, "Project Zomboid content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of The Indie Stone" [5], whose published terms govern use of the game and its materials [4]. This knowledge base is an unofficial fan project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by The Indie Stone — and carries that disclaimer site-wide. Game-file excerpts are quoted minimally, cited by path and game version, and never rehosted.

The KB's own prose. Because every document is 100% original expression citing facts to their sources, the prose of this KB is the project's own work and is not a derivative of pzwiki or of official text. The repository declares its own terms in LICENSE-CONTENT.md (all rights reserved for the content, with the third-party carve-outs listed there) and LICENSE (MIT for the software); see Open Questions.

The QA gates¶

A document must pass five deterministic gates before it can merge, run from the repo root (the Modders documents additionally pass the API-existence gate described after the list):

python scripts/validate.py <file> — front matter fields valid, all 19 template sections present in order, citations contiguous and resolving, and the build gate (a both document has a substantive delta section).
python scripts/audit_genre.py --strict <file> — the evidence sections actually cite, and every quarantined claim carries its three labelled bullets.
python scripts/check_license_hygiene.py <file> — no pzwiki prose overlap.
npx --no-install markdownlint-cli2 --fix <file> — zero markdown style errors against the repo's .markdownlint.jsonc.
python scripts/check_links.py <file> — zero dead links; known bot-blocking hosts produce warnings, not failures.

Further scripts in scripts/ support the gates. check_api_exists.py is the live API-existence gate: Modders documents' code spans must exist in the pinned Umbrella index for the document's build(s) (sources/schemas/api-index-B41.json and api-index-B42.json). check_server_settings.py does the same for Admins documents against sources/schemas/server-settings.json. extract_api_index.py builds the indices from the Umbrella commits recorded in sources/pins.json, diff_api_indices.py reproduces the B41 vs B42 symbol-diff totals, and check_freshness.py compares the pins with the newest announcements on the Steam news feed for app 108600 and exits 2 on drift. On 2026-10-07 it reported the pins current: B42 stable 42.21 and legacy41 41.78.21 [6] [7].

Cluster-level gates (build_graph.py, build_rag.py, build_site.py) and the human approval gate are the orchestrator's job; no cluster merges to main without human approval unless a standing auto-approve-on-green mandate has been granted. A fact change always cuts a new document version with a revision note — never a silent edit.

B41 vs B42 Delta¶

For this governance document the "delta" is the policy itself: how the KB handles the divergence between the two builds.

The motivating facts are cited, not assumed. The Indie Stone's launch-week checklist told players that "Build 41 savegames clearly will not be compatible with Build 42", and directed players and server owners who wanted to stay on Build 41 to opt in to the legacy41 Steam beta channel before the release [1]. The same post noted that even saves from the 42.19 unstable build would not survive the jump to 42.20 because of added map content [1]. The 42.20 stable release notes repeat the legacy41 opt-out instructions, warn that a launch-week security change "may affect some mods", and record build-migration behaviour such as Build 42 now correctly applying default options when migrating from Build 41 [2]. In short: saves, mods and even option defaults are build-scoped in the game itself.

The KB mirrors that reality with three rules. First, the front-matter build: tag scopes every document to the build(s) its facts were verified on. Second, every both document must carry a substantive, cited "B41 vs B42 Delta" section — renames, rebalances, removals, additions — or explicitly cite that nothing changed; scripts/validate.py rejects a both document with an empty delta. Third, inside a both document every single-build value is tagged inline (B41) / (B42), so a reader on the legacy41 branch [2] never mistakes a 42.20 number for one that applies to 41.78.16.

Practical Guidance¶

For a contributor (human or worker agent) writing a document:

Write the file skeleton first — full front matter and all 19 headings — then research and fill it. An interrupted session should still leave a recoverable file.
Decide the build: tag before writing the Reference section; it dictates whether you owe a substantive delta section and inline build tags.
Cite as you write. If a sentence in an evidence section has no [n], the sentence is either cut or moved to quarantine as a claim block. Do not plan to "add citations later".
Use pzwiki for facts freely, but record the revision id and write your own sentence from scratch — do not start from the wiki's wording and edit it, because the n-gram gate catches light paraphrase.
Prefer the Steam news API mirror of an official post over the bot-blocked blog URL, and Internet Archive snapshots for anything ephemeral.
Run all five gates from the repo root and fix until green before handing the document back; a red gate is not a reviewer's problem to discover.

Common Pitfalls & Troubleshooting¶

Uncited fact in a guidance section. Guidance may only synthesise facts already cited above; a new number appearing first in "Practical Guidance" is a genre violation even if true.
Light paraphrase of pzwiki. Rewriting a wiki sentence word-by-word still trips check_license_hygiene.py and, more importantly, still creates a derivative of NonCommercial-licensed text [3]. Extract the fact; write a new sentence.
both with a hollow delta. A both document whose delta section says only "minor changes" fails validation; either document the delta with citations or retag the document to a single build.
Missing inline build tags. A 42.20-only value quoted untagged in a both document silently misinforms legacy41 readers — the exact failure the build system exists to prevent [1].
Guessed URLs. A citation to a URL nobody opened is fabrication, even when the fact is right. Unopenable bot-blocked URLs are citable only when allowlisted and corroborated.
Sole-sourced hosting-KB numbers. Hosting-company knowledge bases are marketing-adjacent; a hard number sourced only there caps the document at Medium confidence and must say so.
Claim blocks in the wrong shape. The genre auditor expects ## Claim N headings with the three bold bullets; ### sub-headings or free prose in the quarantine section are flagged.

Community Notes & Unverified Claims¶

None.

Risks & Caveats¶

The license summaries here are working rules for this project, not legal advice. The Creative Commons deed itself notes it is a human-readable summary of, and not a substitute for, the underlying legal code [3].
PZwiki's licensing statement [5] is cited at a specific revision; the wiki could change its policy, so the revision id is the provenance anchor and the page should be re-checked at review time.
The Indie Stone's terms page [4] sits on a bot-blocking host and was cited as an allowlisted URL corroborated by PZwiki's own link to it [5], not fetched directly; a human re-check of its current wording is cheap and worthwhile.
Internal process claims (gate behaviour, template shape, pins) are accurate as of the repo files on 2026-10-07 (previously 2026-07-30); scripts evolve, and this document should be revised — with a version bump — when they do.

Verification Steps¶

Open https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ and confirm the BY, NC and SA terms summarised here [3].
Query the PZwiki API for the copyright policy and confirm the licensing statement and revision id: https://pzwiki.net/w/api.php?action=parse&page=PZwiki:Copyrights&prop=wikitext|revid&format=json [5].
Confirm the build-divergence facts against the Steam announcements [1] [2] (mirrored by the Steam news API, ISteamNews, app id 108600).
Open scripts/validate.py, scripts/audit_genre.py and scripts/check_license_hygiene.py and confirm they enforce the structure, genre and license rules as described.
Run the five gate commands from the repo root against any document and observe the enforcement first-hand.
Run python scripts/check_freshness.py and python scripts/check_api_exists.py and compare their output with the QA gates section; open sources/pins.json to see the current pins.

Open Questions¶

Outbound license (decided 2026-10-08). The project owner chose all rights reserved for the KB's own prose and the MIT License for the software, declared in LICENSE-CONTENT.md and LICENSE. This is the owner's choice, not legal advice. ShareAlike obligations would only be triggered if pzwiki-derivative text existed, which the pipeline is designed to prevent.
Gate coverage. The API-existence gate and the server-setting gate are now live (see the QA gates section) but check names only, not semantics, and .github/workflows/qa.yml now calls the API-existence gate on every push (with a guard for missing data files) while freshness.yml runs the freshness check daily; the license-hygiene gate still compares against an empty corpus in CI.
Discord provenance. The archive-and-cite workflow for ephemeral Discord primaries is specified in SOURCE_REGISTRY.md but the local archive store is not yet populated.

References¶

Primary Sources

[1] The Indie Stone — B42 CHECKLIST (Steam announcement, 2026-07-28). https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/1839041357038237 Accessed 2026-07-30 via the Steam news API (ISteamNews, app 108600); host is bot-block allowlisted.
[2] The Indie Stone — Build 42.20.0 Stable Released (Steam announcement, 2026-07-29). https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/1839676055882259 Accessed 2026-07-30 via the Steam news API (ISteamNews, app 108600); host is bot-block allowlisted.
[3] Creative Commons — deed titled "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)". https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Accessed 2026-07-30.
[4] The Indie Stone — Project Zomboid — Terms & Conditions. https://projectzomboid.com/blog/support/terms-conditions/ Accessed 2026-07-30. Bot-block allowlisted host; URL corroborated by the link in [5].
[6] The Indie Stone — 42.20.4 STABLE & 42.19.2 UNSTABLE & 41.78.21 LEGACY Hotfixes Released (Steam announcement, 2026-08-26). https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/1842212951296601 Accessed 2026-10-07; host is bot-block allowlisted.
[7] The Indie Stone — Build 42.21 Stable Released (Steam announcement, 2026-09-28). https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/1844751498231307 Accessed 2026-10-07; host is bot-block allowlisted.

Fact-Only Sources (no prose reuse)

[5] PZwiki — PZwiki:Copyrights (revision 1156861). https://pzwiki.net/wiki/PZwiki:Copyrights Accessed 2026-07-30 via the MediaWiki API. Fact-only source.

Revision History¶

Version	Date	Author	Change	Approved By
0.1.0	2026-07-30	KB Pipeline (virtual agent)	Initial draft.	—
1.0.0	2026-07-30	Orchestrator (KB Pipeline)	Approved and frozen — foundation cluster release kb-release-2026.07.30.	Standing mandate (2026-07-30)
1.0.1	2026-07-30	Orchestrator (KB Pipeline)	License-hygiene prose rewrites after arming the pzwiki n-gram gate (no factual changes).	Standing mandate (2026-07-30)
1.1.0	2026-10-07	KB Pipeline (revision worker)	Factual update: stable build now 42.21, legacy41 primary-attested hotfix 41.78.21, link-checker allowlist contents, API-existence and server-setting gates now live, supporting scripts listed; sources [6][7]. Proposed for re-approval.	Project owner (user instruction 2026-10-08)
1.2.0	2026-10-08	Orchestrator (KB Pipeline)	Style guide updated for the 2026-10-08 license decision (LICENSE-CONTENT.md, LICENSE) and the CI wiring of the API-existence and freshness checks.	Project owner (user instruction 2026-10-08)