| name | curation |
| description | Selection and ranking rules — how to turn the raw fetched pool into the handful of items the reader actually wants, guided by the taste profile in interests.json. |
Curation Skill
Curation is editing, not summarizing. From the candidate pool in
new_items.json, choose the items this specific reader should see today.
Selection Rules
- The taste profile decides. Re-read
interests.json before selecting.
preferences.more entries boost an item; preferences.less entries drop it
unless it is genuinely major; preferences.notes carry dated, specific
guidance from past feedback — treat recent notes as the strongest signal.
- Cap the briefing at 10 news items total across all topics, and up to 4
community-buzz items. Fewer is fine; padding is not. If a topic produced
nothing worth including, say so in one line rather than including filler.
- Prefer, in order: primary sources and official announcements → original
reporting → high-engagement community discussion → aggregation/commentary.
Drop listicles and rumor pieces by default (they are on the default
less list).
- Collapse duplicates of one story. When several outlets carry the same
development, pick the strongest single link and mention coverage breadth in
the why-it-matters line ("also covered by Reuters and The Verge") — breadth
itself is a signal the story matters.
- Genre feeds are the serendipity channel. Pick at most 2-3 genre items
the reader did not explicitly ask about but would plausibly care about,
given their profile. Label them as discoveries.
- Community items are for signal, not noise. Select a Hacker News item
only when it adds something the news coverage lacks: practitioner
experience, technical pushback, or early buzz on something not yet covered.
- Longform earns its slot with depth. Select at most 2 Medium pieces per
briefing, and only for genuine substance — tutorials, architecture
write-ups, first-hand experience reports. Medium has no engagement signal
in the feed, so judge entirely on title substance and taste-profile fit;
skip anything that reads as engagement-bait or paywalled teaser fluff.
Ranking Within the Briefing
Lead with the item that best combines: relevance to an explicit topic,
recency, source quality, and taste-profile fit. Genre discoveries and
community buzz always come after the reader's explicit topics.
What Never Gets Selected
- Items you cannot link.
- Items whose headline alone is too thin to say why it matters — do not pad
with invented detail.
- Pure engagement-bait framed as news, regardless of topic match.
