narratio/docs/internal/stage-merge.md

Stage: merge

Purpose

Normalize raw transcript inputs and merge into base transcript via Seriatim.

Inputs

• transcripts/raw/*.json
• inputs/speakers.yml
• inputs/autocorrect.yml

Outputs

• transcripts/base.json
• optional artifacts/seriatim.report.json

Key Behavior

• discovers and validates raw transcript inputs.
• normalizes each raw transcript (seriatim.Normalize) into run-local scratch output.
• merges normalized inputs (seriatim.Run) into base transcript.
• validates merged transcript and optional report JSON.
• materializes canonical outputs and records stage logs/generated configs.

Invariants

• merge always consumes normalized forms of raw inputs.
• base transcript must validate before stage success.
• report output is config-gated.