blog-cycle

name

blog-cycle

description

Run the full TechHive Labs blog post cycle: source brief → voice-matched draft → data charts → hero image → SEO-audited publish to production → distribution variants (LinkedIn, dev.to, X) with a branded stats card. Use whenever Tony wants to write and publish a new blog post, turn a brief/brain-dump into a post, "do the full cycle", "post like last time", cross-post an existing article, or produce any distribution deliverable (LinkedIn post, dev.to variant, tweet, stats image). Also consult it when doing just ONE phase — it maps each phase to the specialist skill and records the conventions and gotchas learned from real cycles.

Blog Post Cycle

The end-to-end pipeline for a TechHive Labs blog post, from brief to published post to social distribution. Proven on local-ai-true-cost (2026-07); the per-post working files from past cycles live in distribution/<slug>/ — read them as worked examples.

This is an orchestration skill: each phase delegates to a specialist skill and a reference file. Create a todo per phase so nothing gets dropped. Phases are sequential, but a cycle can enter anywhere (e.g. "just give me a tweet for post X" → Phase 7 only).

The cycle at a glance

#	Phase	Delegate to	Details
0	Setup	—	below
1	Write the draft	blog-writer skill	references/writing.md
2	Charts & data viz	dataviz skill (REQUIRED before chart code)	references/charts.md
3	Inline images	::content-image component	references/images.md
4	Hero image	blog-image-generator skill → Tony generates → process	references/images.md
5	Verify in the app	browser-testing skill	references/publish.md
6	Publish	blog-post-publication skill	references/publish.md
7	Distribution	marketing-skills:social-content	references/distribution.md
8	Wrap-up	MyMind tasks + memory	below

Phase 0 — Setup

• Create distribution/<slug>/ (slug matches content/blog/<slug>.md). Put the source brief/brain-dump there as brief.md. This directory is gitignored on purpose — the repo is public and briefs are personal. Never commit it.
• Search MyMind for related tasks/memories (search_tasks, search_memories), then create a cycle task tracking the phases. Update it as phases complete — it's how a future session picks up a half-finished cycle.
• Read 1–2 recent posts in content/blog/ and the previous cycle's distribution/ folder before producing anything. Calibration beats rules.

Phases 1–7

Each has a reference file — read it when you reach that phase, not before. The reference files carry the conventions that were learned by getting them wrong once; treat deviations as needing a reason.

Phase 8 — Wrap-up

• Mark the MyMind cycle task completed with a summary of what shipped (URLs, commits) and remaining follow-ups as separate tasks with due dates.
• If a convention changed this cycle (a format flopped, a new platform, a new trap), update the relevant reference file HERE and note it in distribution/README.md. The skill only stays useful if each cycle feeds back into it.

Gotchas (read before you repeat them)

• LinkedIn carousels underperform badly for Tony. Text post + stats card image, blog link in the FIRST COMMENT. Confirmed by real reach data.
• dev.to's image proxy mangles SVG. Cross-posts reference PNG chart copies (rsvg-convert -w 1600) committed to public/images/blog/<slug>/.
• X throttles links in the tweet body. Link goes in an immediate self-reply. URLs count as 23 chars — verify ≤280 with a script, not by eye.
• Gemini hero images carry a sparkle watermark. Crop it out (left-anchored 16:9 crop usually works — composition rarely reaches the right edge). Do NOT attempt pixel-patching first; it cost an hour and failed. Always ask Tony for the full-size original, not the chat preview.
• pnpm generate warnings that are pre-existing noise: _payload.json 500s and uppercase tag-link warnings. The bar is 0 errors, not 0 warnings.
• Push can fail with "could not read Username" (keychain locked). Use git -c credential.helper='!gh auth git-credential' push origin main.
• Stage only the post's files. The working tree usually has unrelated WIP.
• Charts in posts are static <img>s — no tooltips exist, so every value must be direct-labeled, and each SVG carries its own dark card background so it renders on both site themes.
• Draft posts are viewable at their direct URL in dev — only the /blog listing filters drafts. Review before flipping draft: false.