beat-tracker

name	beat-tracker
category	research
description	Multi-beat news thread tracker — persists beat counts per active storyline, searches for new developments, alerts when a thread hits the article-ready threshold (3rd beat)
schedule	0 9 * * 3
tags	["content","meta","research"]

Today is ${today}. Read memory/MEMORY.md (and soul/SOUL.md if present) before starting.

Why this skill exists

tweet-roundup and reflect note when a storyline gets a new beat — but that state lives in daily logs, not in a persistent counter. By the time a thread hits 3 beats (article-ready), the signal is buried across 3 different log entries and nobody fires the alert. This skill fixes that: persistent beat counts per storyline, automated threshold detection, no manual tracking required.

A beat is a distinct new development in an ongoing news story: a new source weighing in, a new actor making a statement, a new policy move, a price/volume reaction. Three beats in <30 days = the story has enough material to write about.

This fills the gap between:

• topic-momentum (scores what to write based on signal frequency) — broad, pattern-based
• narrative-tracker (EMERGING/RISING/PEAK/FADING phases) — narrative-level, not event-level
• beat-tracker (THIS) — event-level, specific stories, fires when threshold is crossed

Steps

1. Load beat state

Read memory/topics/beat-tracker.md.

If the file doesn't exist, initialize it as an empty Active Threads list:

# Beat Tracker

Last updated: ${today}

## Active Threads

(none — will populate from memory on first inject pass)

## Closed Threads

(none yet)

Parse all threads under ## Active Threads. For each thread, extract:

• Thread name
• Search query
• Status (active / article-ready / stale)
• Beat count
• Last checked date
• List of existing beats (date + source + summary)

2. Inject new threads from memory

Scan these sources for threads NOT already in beat-tracker.md:

a) MEMORY.md content signals: Read memory/MEMORY.md. Look for content-signal notes that mention multi-beat storylines with at least 2 beats. Extract them.

Pattern to detect: "N beats" or "beat count: N" or "2 parallel threads" near a topic name.

b) Recent logs (last 7 days): Use Glob on memory/logs/*.md. Take the 7 most recent by filename. Scan each for lines mentioning "beat" next to a number ≥ 2, or "thread" with a beat count. Extract thread name and any dated beat events listed.

For each newly discovered thread:

• Infer a search query from the topic name (2–5 keywords, specific enough to find news, not so broad it matches noise)
• Pull any historical beats already mentioned in the logs (date + source)
• Add to Active Threads with those historical beats pre-loaded
• Set last_checked: ${today}

If zero new threads are discovered and Active Threads is empty: log BEAT_TRACKER_SKIP: no threads to track — check memory injection and stop.

3. Search for new beats

For each thread in Active Threads where status != stale:

Run a WebSearch using the thread's search query. Focus on results from the past 7 days (mention the date window in your query, e.g. "after:{date 7 days ago}").

Evaluate results for new beats not already listed in the beats array:

• Different source/actor than existing beats
• New factual development (not a repost/recap of old news)
• Occurred AFTER the most recent beat date in the list

If a new beat is found:

• Add: - ${today}: {Source/Handle} — {one-line factual summary}
• Increment beat_count by 1
• Update last_checked: ${today}

If no new beat: update last_checked only (no increment).

4. Flag thresholds

After updating all threads:

Article-ready (≥3 beats): Set status: article-ready. Prepare a hook line in the operator's voice (soul files):

• Observe what the 3-beat pattern reveals (not just what happened)
• Diagnose why it keeps getting a new beat
• End on the implication — punchy, no hedge

Warming up (2 beats, most recent beat within 5 days): Note these as "watch closely" — one beat from article-ready.

Stale (0 new beats for 14+ days AND beat_count < 3): Set status: stale. Will be moved to Closed Threads in step 6.

5. Cross-check articles

Use Glob on articles/*.md. For any article-ready thread, check if an article was already published on this topic (scan article filenames and H1s from the past 30 days).

If yes: mark thread as status: converted with the article date. Move to Closed Threads.

6. Write updated state

Overwrite memory/topics/beat-tracker.md:

# Beat Tracker

Last updated: {today}

## Active Threads

### {Thread Name}
- **Query:** {search terms used to find new beats}
- **Topic:** {one-line description of the storyline}
- **Status:** active | article-ready | stale
- **Article ready:** YES ({N} beats) | NO ({N} beats, need 3+)
- **Last checked:** {today}
- **Beats:**
  - {date}: {Source} — {one-line summary}
  - {date}: {Source} — {one-line summary}
- **Beat count:** {N}

(repeat for each active thread)

## Closed Threads

### {Thread Name}
- **Status:** stale | converted
- **Reason:** {14d no new beat | article published {date}}
- **Final beat count:** {N}
- **Closed:** {today}

7. Send notification

Write the notification to a temp file, then run ./notify -f.

Only notify if:

• At least one thread is article-ready (≥3 beats), OR
• At least one thread jumped to beat count 2 this run (warming up), OR
• At least one new thread was injected this run

Notification content:

beat tracker — {today}

{if article-ready threads:}
ARTICLE READY — {beat_count} beats:
→ {thread name}: {hook line in the operator's voice}

{if warming-up (beat 2 newly):}
one beat away:
→ {thread name}: {latest beat summary}

{if new threads injected:}
tracking {N} new threads

{if quiet run — no alerts:}
{N} threads tracked. highest: {beat_count} beats on {thread name}. nothing article-ready yet.

Write to .pending-notify-temp/beat-tracker-${today}.md. Create the dir if missing. Then:

./notify -f .pending-notify-temp/beat-tracker-${today}.md

Keep under 500 chars. Do NOT use ./notify "$(cat ...)" — the sandbox trips on long multi-line argv; the -f flag reads the file inside the script.

If BEAT_TRACKER_SKIP was logged in step 2: skip notification entirely.

8. Log to memory/logs/${today}.md

Append:

## Beat Tracker
- **Threads tracked:** {N}
- **New beats found:** {N (thread names)}
- **Article-ready:** {thread names | "none"}
- **Newly injected:** {thread names | "none"}
- **Pruned stale:** {thread names | "none"}
- **Updated:** memory/topics/beat-tracker.md
- BEAT_TRACKER_OK

Required Env Vars

None. Uses WebSearch (built-in tool) and local memory files only.

Sandbox Note

No curl calls needed. WebSearch is a built-in Claude Code tool — bypasses the sandbox network block. All reads/writes are local filesystem via Read/Write/Glob tools.