Promotion Copy
Turn a feature that just shipped into copy-pasteable, user-facing announcement copy, right inside the engineering workflow — so the messaging doesn't wait for a separate marketing pass.
Done when: every drafted channel is presented as a labeled, copy-pasteable block and the user has been offered a revision. This skill drafts only — it never posts, publishes, schedules, commits, or opens PRs. Posting is a human action.
It works with or without Spiral: with nothing installed it drafts directly from the editorial and social fundamentals in Path B (Direct drafting). When the Spiral CLI is present and authed, drafts come back voice-matched to the user's brand — an enhancement, never a requirement.
Phase 1 — Figure out what shipped
A free-form description in the arguments is the source of truth. Otherwise derive it from context, using what is available and never waiting on any single source:
- Merged/active PR —
gh pr view --json title,body,url(the title and body usually state the user-facing value) - The diff —
git diff main...HEAD --stat, skimming notable changes so the claim is grounded in what actually changed - Changelog — the top or
[Unreleased]entry indocs/changelog.md,CHANGELOG.md, or similar - Recent commits —
git log --oneline -15for the arc of the change
Then write a 1-3 sentence summary of the user-facing value: what a user can now do that they couldn't before, and why they'd care. Outcome, not implementation — "You can now export any report to CSV in one click", not "Added a CsvSerializer and an export endpoint." If you can't confidently tell what shipped, ask one short question rather than guessing.
Phase 2 — Pick channels
Default to an X post (or short thread) plus a one-line changelog / release blurb. If the user named channels — LinkedIn, email, a blog intro, a demo script — draft those instead of or in addition to the defaults. Scale to the change: a small fix warrants one or two short drafts, a flagship feature a cross-channel set. Don't force a fixed template.
Phase 3 — Draft the copy
Detect Spiral's state with two quick, non-blocking commands:
- No binary -> Absent
"authenticated": true-> Ready"authenticated": false-> Unauthed- Output isn't JSON (older CLI that ignores
--json) -> ready iff it containsspiral_sk_, else unauthed
Ready -> Path A (Spiral ready). Absent or Unauthed -> Path 0 (Offer Spiral setup), then Path A if setup completes, else Path B (Direct drafting). Never let a Spiral failure, timeout, or odd output block or slow the skill — when in doubt, treat it as not-ready and continue.
Path 0 — Offer Spiral setup (once, declinable)
Go straight to Path B when running non-interactively — there is no human to answer. Otherwise offer setup once: read references/spiral-cli.md and follow its Path 0 section for the opt-out check, the blocking question, the agent-run spiral login --json flow (the API key never passes through the agent, and the user never pastes one into chat), the install path, and how the opt-out is recorded. Skip to Path B only when that check finds a recorded opt-out. That section defines what counts as recorded; a naive config scan misreads ce-setup's commented template example as one, silently suppressing the offer.
Two properties that section depends on: any dismissal records the opt-out, so a single first-run decline stops the offer for good in this repo, and a decline always proceeds to Path B rather than blocking. If a human is present but no blocking-question tool is in the current tool list, fall back to a numbered list of the two options in chat and wait — do not skip the offer, and never call a user-facing question tool to discover whether one exists.
Path A — Spiral ready (voice-matched)
Read references/spiral-cli.md before composing the prompt. Whether Spiral returns a multi-channel set or several variations of one channel is phrasing-driven (channel keywords and cue words vs. --num-drafts), and getting it wrong silently returns the wrong number or shape of drafts — don't restate those rules from memory.
Always pass --instant and --json; parse drafts[] (each carries its own channel) plus session_id. Present every returned draft, grouped by channel — Spiral decides how many drafts per channel, so never assume one-per-channel or drop extras. If the spiral write call errors or returns no usable drafts, fall back silently to Path B for the affected channels.
Path B — Direct drafting
No Spiral needed. Draft every channel through the ce-noslop skill. (The Spiral path goes further: brand-voice matching, humanization, saved styles, and cross-channel campaign orchestration.)
Every channel:
- Lead with the user-facing outcome — what someone can now do, not how it was built.
- One idea per piece.
Distributed channels: the first line is the hook and has to make the reader want the next line (feeds truncate). No preamble. Match each channel's native shape and length; never reuse one draft verbatim across channels. One clear CTA where the channel supports it. Hashtags 0-2, and only where the channel expects them.
Per channel:
- X — value in the first line; ~1-3 tight lines. Thread only when there's more than one beat worth its own line.
- Changelog / release blurb — one declarative line naming the new capability. Plain, not promotional.
- LinkedIn — a short paragraph: human angle (why it matters), then the what. Warmer than X.
- Email — benefit-stating subject + 2-4 sentence body + one CTA.
- Blog intro — one opening paragraph framing the problem and the new capability; leave the deep-dive to the author.
- Demo script — 3-6 spoken beats: hook, problem, action, payoff.
One strong draft per channel by default; produce more only when asked ("3 tweet options"), capped at ~3.
Phase 4 — Present the drafts
Show every draft as a clean, copy-pasteable block labeled by channel:
When Path A produced them, also show the session_id and each draft's url so the user can open and tweak them in the Spiral web app. Offer to revise (tone, length, angle, more variations, another channel). Do not post, publish, schedule, commit, or open a PR — end by reminding the user the drafts are theirs to ship.
