go-to-market

name

go-to-market

description

Distribute an Algo Mind essay across channels and keep a writing cadence. Use when the user wants to promote, distribute, "go to market", or seed a published or draft essay (Substack, X, LinkedIn, Hacker News, Substack Notes, Reddit, LessWrong, 知乎/小红书), generate platform-native copy and share assets, or check whether they are overdue to publish. Operationalizes the Distribute stage of plan/writing-workflow/README.md.

Go-to-market for Algo Mind

Turn one finished essay into platform-native distribution, and keep the publishing rhythm. This is the operational form of the Distribute stage in plan/writing-workflow/README.md.

Positioning every generated piece must fit

• Brand: Algo Mind / 思算 — intelligence is an algorithm (functionalist: a mind is defined by what it does, not its substrate).
• Author: a builder (AI agents, tools, products) with a cognitive-science lens. Practitioner-explainer, English-first.
• Breadth, not a franchise. Topics range widely; the lens is the throughline.
• Guardrails (read before posting):
  • Vendor-neutral — no competitor (Claude Code / Anthropic) teardowns; keep takes about the field, not a rival product. Check OpenAI comms/social policy before any loud push.
  • Blog is canonical — publish there first, let it index, then syndicate with a canonical link back.
  • Never email-blast the back catalogue.
  • "Views my own."

Modes

• Distribute — distribute <essay-slug>: run the per-essay pipeline below.
• Cadence — cadence: run the cadence check and nudge the next essay.

---

Distribute pipeline

Universal rules before drafting:

1. Start with the blog URL as canonical. Every channel either sends readers back to the blog or builds audience for the next blog post.
2. Pick one payload per channel. A claim, demo, diagram, scar, question, or practical takeaway beats a generic "new post is live."
3. Make the asset before writing the copy when the essay is visual, interactive, technical, or product-shaped. Good assets: a screenshot, tiny demo GIF, diagram, quote card, before/after frame, table, or code/trace crop.
4. Keep a learning record in dist/<slug>/checklist.md: channel, post URL, asset used, hook, date, and result after 24h / 7d.
5. Do not chase every channel for every essay. If a channel has no native angle, skip it.

1. Read & classify

Read apps/blog/content/essays/<slug>.mdx (and the -zh variant if present). Pull title, description, date, topics, lang; skim the body. Classify — the type drives every choice below:

Type	Examples
Insider / agents	Minecraft + Fairies, agent I/O history, why agents fail
Thesis / cog-sci	intelligence-as-algorithm, context-as-memory
Opinion / discussion	access-denied-is-not-a-moat (AI strategy, field-coordination takes)
Craft / build	ship-the-core, why software is hard, product principles
Tooling / teaching	ds4 / local inference, system-design-interview tool
Career / personal	job reflections, Silicon Valley

For an Opinion / discussion piece, the goal is the quality of the conversation it provokes, not reach or subscribers. Spine for every channel: lead with the steelman (the strongest case against your position) → the turn → close on a genuine question you don't already know the answer to. Leading good-faith is what buys a real thread instead of a dunk-fest. Keep it field-level (vendor-neutral guardrail) — let the essay carry the specifics.

Note language(s): EN, ZH, or both.

2. Pick channels

✓ do · ◐ optional / if it fits · ✗ skip

Type	Substack	X	Notes	HN	LinkedIn	知乎/小红书	Reddit	Forums (LW)
Insider / agents	✓	✓	✓	✓	◐	ZH only	◐	◐
Thesis / cog-sci	✓	✓	✓	◐	◐	ZH only	◐	✓
Opinion / discussion	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	ZH only	◐	✓
Craft / build	✓	✓	✓	◐	✓	ZH only	◐	✗
Tooling / teaching	✓	✓	✓	✓	◐	ZH only	◐	✗
Career / personal	◐ (keep on blog)	✓	◐	✗	✓	ZH only	✗	✗

The blog is always canonical. Don't seed Substack with career pieces — wrong signal for the masthead.

Reddit and Forums are discussion venues, not broadcast — and they're gated:

• Reddit is participation, not launch: comment in live threads or post a text self-post with the link secondary; it punishes self-promo and the tribal product subs (r/ClaudeAI, r/OpenAI) light up the COI — prefer the least-tribal sub that fits (r/LocalLLaMA for model/infra takes). ◐ = only via participation.
• Forums (LessWrong) only when the piece is argument-shaped AND you can answer ~3 comments in 48h. Start with LW; skip EA Forum/Alignment Forum unless you'll tend a second thread.
• Both are the most COI/disclosure-sensitive channels — disclose affiliations or hold the post. If engagement bandwidth is zero, put it on X instead.

3. Format per channel

• Substack — full text + canonical line + subscribe CTA (template below). Follow references/substack-playbook.md.
• X — default to a sharp, self-contained single post: one topic, a real hook in line 1, close with a genuine question, image + link fine inline. Threads only when every post stands alone; for a multi-facet essay, publish several sharp posts spread over days, not one long thread. Follow references/x-playbook.md — the source-anchored rules for what X actually rewards (no format tricks; dwell/reply/recall; avoid clickbait; links are not penalized).
• Notes — 2–3 standalone insights re-cut from the thread's best lines. Follow references/substack-notes-playbook.md.
• LinkedIn — one reflective, professional-framed post; put the link in the first comment (reach). Follow references/linkedin-playbook.md.
• HN — submit the canonical URL with a plain, non-clickbait title; add a first comment with context. Best on weekday US mornings. Follow references/hacker-news-playbook.md.
• 知乎 — adapt, don't translate; lead with the takeaway. Follow references/zhihu-playbook.md.
• 小红书 — turn the idea into a visual, concrete carousel or short video. Follow references/rednote-playbook.md.
• Reddit — participation, not launch: argument first, link secondary; pick the least-tribal sub that fits. Follow references/reddit-playbook.md.
• Forums (LessWrong) — full-text crosspost + canonical link; epistemic status, steelman-first, name your cruxes, close on a real question. Only if you'll engage. Follow references/forums-playbook.md.

Templates:

# X post (default: one sharp single post — see references/x-playbook.md)
<line 1: a specific, contestable claim — the real hook, no throat-clearing>

<2–4 lines: concrete specifics + one non-consensus judgment>

<close: a genuine question or a takeable position — invites replies>

<blog url>   + one real image

# Substack cross-post
*Originally published at feitong.phd/essays/<slug>*

<full essay body>

---
If this resonated, I write Algo Mind — intelligence is an algorithm. Subscribe for more.

4. Assets — make it, or hint how

Asset	Action
OG share image	Auto — the blog renders one per essay at /essays/<slug>/opengraph-image. Use that URL as the link preview; nothing to make.
X thread / Notes / LinkedIn copy	Generate — draft them now; save to dist/<slug>/.
Demo GIF (interactive / build / CLI posts)	Hint — screen-record the widget or terminal, ≤10s, show the actual interaction; lead the X post with it. Can't auto-make.
Quote card	Option — reuse the OgCard component (apps/blog/components/seo/og-card.tsx) or a simple SVG; otherwise hint.

5. Publish / automate (honest about limits)

Channel	How
Blog	Already published via git/deploy (canonical).
Substack	No official write API → paste the generated markdown, or RSS-import as a draft.
X	Manual paste by default. Auto-posting needs an X API app with OAuth user-context — ask the user to set that up, then a poster script can be added here.
LinkedIn	Manual paste.
HN	Manual submit.

Write generated drafts to dist/<slug>/ (add dist/ to .gitignore) with a checklist.md, or output them inline — never commit draft social copy.

After publishing, use the separate distribution-metrics skill to create tracked links, record channel snapshots, and summarize what worked.

---

Cadence mode

Run:

node .claude/skills/go-to-market/scripts/cadence-check.mjs

It reports days since the last non-draft essay and gives a few lightweight backlog nudges. Thresholds: ≤14d on pace · ≤28d quiet · >28d overdue.

To make it a true reminder, schedule it — a weekly cron, or a scheduled Claude agent that runs the check and messages the result. Offer to wire this up.

---

References

• references/substack-playbook.md — Substack email and writer-network packaging.
• references/x-playbook.md — building high-quality X posts/assets, reverse-engineered from the open-sourced X algorithm (cclank/x-algorithm-wiki → xai-org/x-algorithm). Read this before drafting any X copy.
• references/substack-notes-playbook.md — Substack Notes as insight testing and relationship-building.
• references/linkedin-playbook.md — professional framing, assets, engagement, and measurement.
• references/hacker-news-playbook.md — HN submission, Show HN, titles, and comments.
• references/zhihu-playbook.md — Q&A-native Chinese adaptation.
• references/rednote-playbook.md — 小红书 / RedNote visual packaging.
• references/reddit-playbook.md — participation-not-launch, self-promo norms, sub selection. Read before posting to Reddit.
• references/forums-playbook.md — LessWrong (+ EA Forum / Alignment Forum): crosspost format, steelman/cruxes bar, engagement gate, COI/disclosure. Best venue for opinion/discussion pieces.

Notes

• This skill is canonical at .claude/skills/go-to-market/ and symlinked to .codex/skills/go-to-market (for Codex). Edit the canonical copy — the symlink follows. Mirror to other harness dirs the same way: ln -s ../../.claude/skills/go-to-market <dir>/go-to-market.
• Positioning, channel logic, and the backlog are intentionally lightweight. Update them when the writing direction changes.