| name | offbeat-formats |
| description | Use when Daniel wants to brainstorm offbeat or experimental show formats for My Weird Prompts — structural experiments that push the boundaries of what an AI-generated podcast can do. Triggers on phrases like "new format", "show format", "experiment", "push the format", "try something different", "boundary-pushing". |
Offbeat show format ideation
Not episode topics — episode structures. The goal is to surface new formats the pipeline could attempt, testing the limits of the AI-generated podcast medium itself.
Dimensions to play with
- Voice count — solo monologue, two-hander, panel of N, chorus, call-and-response
- Character stability — single persona, persona drift over the episode, persona swap mid-sentence, multiple personas sharing one body
- Time structure — linear, reverse-chronological, looped (same 5 minutes re-examined), split-screen parallel
- Format parody — fake ad break, fake call-in show, fake courtroom, fake awards ceremony, fake museum audio guide, fake in-flight safety video
- Meta-formats — the episode reviews itself, the hosts interview the AI that made them, a "lost" episode with fake commentary track, a live-translation episode where every line is translated back and forth
- Constraint-driven — every sentence must end with the same word, no proper nouns, every answer shorter than the last, one-word episode
- Multi-episode structures — a trilogy where each part contradicts the previous, a recurring segment that escalates across episodes, a fake serial mystery with no resolution
- Interactive-shaped — "choose your own adventure" audio, episodes that pretend to have skippable chapters, episodes structured as a quiz
What makes a format worth trying
- Testable on the current pipeline — works with script-generation + TTS + cover art without needing new infrastructure
- Produces something recognizably "My Weird Prompts" — weird, funny, commits to the bit
- Has a reason to exist beyond the novelty — the format itself creates comedy, not just a different wrapper
- Repeatable if it works, disposable if it doesn't — no format should require so much custom work that failure is catastrophic
What to avoid
- Formats that need real humans (live shows, interviews with specific people)
- Formats that need capabilities the pipeline doesn't have (music generation, precise sound effects, multi-speaker overlap)
- Formats that are just "a normal episode but [tiny variation]" — if the premise can't be explained as a structural shift, it isn't one
Output
Follow .claude/skills/OUTPUT_PROTOCOL.md. Save to outputs/YYYY-MM-DD/offbeat-formats-<slug>.md.
Because this skill proposes formats not just episodes, each entry should include these extra fields alongside Prompt and Host guidance:
- Format name — short and punchy
- How it works — 2–3 sentences on the structure
- Pipeline risk — what could break / what the pipeline would need to handle
The Prompt field is a concrete sample episode using the format, so the format can be tested immediately by running it. Host guidance is almost always warranted here — the format only lands if the host commits to its rules.
