pre-launch-update

name	pre-launch-update
description	Use when asked to update pre-launch stablecoin data, add milestones, refresh launch phases, or check for promotions. Runs weekly to keep the upcoming stablecoins module current.
user_invocable	true

Pre-Launch Module Update

Weekly full-lifecycle update of all pre-launch stablecoins tracked by Pharos. Updates milestones, launch phases, expected dates, featured content, and AI summaries.

Scope of Updates

Valid enum values for launchPhase, milestone type, and featuredContent.type live in shared/types/core.ts as LAUNCH_PHASE_VALUES, LAUNCH_MILESTONE_TYPE_VALUES, and FEATURED_CONTENT_TYPE_VALUES. Read that file for the authoritative list — this document may drift.

Extended reference (edge cases, history, examples): read ./reference.md when needed.

Data Locations

Pre-launch coins live in shared/data/stablecoins/coins/*.json with status: "pre-launch", and are sourced in generated runtime output via shared/data/stablecoins/coins.generated.json and canonical-order.json.

AI summaries: data/ai-summaries.json

Canonical types & enums: shared/types/core.ts.

Material Change Definition

Update the AI summary in data/ai-summaries.json only when any of these occur:

• launchPhase advances
• expectedLaunchDate shifts by ≥1 quarter (forward or backward)
• New named regulator, custodian, or major partner (bank, exchange, chain infra, payments network)
• Audit completed by a reputable firm
• Regulatory approval, charter, or license granted or denied (e.g., BitLicense, EMI, MiCA, state charter)
• Public announcement of a confirmed mainnet deployment date

Skip cosmetic updates: single promotional tweets, blog restyles, minor PR mentions, secondary partnerships. When in doubt, do not rewrite.

Process

Step 0 — Staleness radar

Rank coins by staleness before researching so attention lands on the most-outdated entries.

1. For each coin, find the most recent milestones[].date (or the coin's last edit via git log -1 --format="%cs" -- shared/data/stablecoins/coins/*.json if milestones are empty)
2. Present a sorted list (oldest first) with days-since-last-milestone
3. Do deep research (Twitter fetch, full web search, browser fallback) on the top 5 stalest coins; lighter-touch checks on the rest

Any coin with no milestones, or with a latest milestone older than 8 weeks, is an automatic deep-research candidate and also a stall-flag candidate (the issuer may have quietly delayed or abandoned the project).

Also read the deferred-items ledger at agents/pre-launch-deferred.md (create it on first run). It records prior runs' dead-ends — preview-only listings, lapsed dates with no sourced replacement, unresolved identity matches — each with a checked-on date and a re-check trigger. For ledger items, do a cheap re-verification against the trigger (usually one API call) instead of a full deep-research pass, unless the trigger fires or the entry is older than 4 weeks.

Step 1 — Read current state

1. Read all shared/data/stablecoins/coins/*.json entries where status is "pre-launch" and list every coin with its current launchPhase, expectedLaunchDate, launchPhaseDetail, milestone count, and featuredContent count
2. Read data/ai-summaries.json to see which pre-launch coins have summaries and when they were last updated
3. Present a summary table to the user: coin name, phase, expected date, milestones count, last summary update

Step 2 — Research each coin

For each pre-launch coin, run these searches in parallel where possible. Prioritize depth on coins flagged stalest in Step 0.

• Twitter/X: Check the coin's Twitter handle (from links[] entries labeled "Twitter"). Look for tweets about: launch dates, milestones, partnerships, regulatory approvals, testnet/mainnet activity, delays
  • Fallback order: WebFetch https://x.com/{handle} first. On 403, only escalate to the browser fallback (claude-in-chrome or Playwright in Claude Code; agent-browser in Codex) if the coin is a deep-research candidate from Step 0 or if another source already indicates fresh signal. Do not burn browser sessions on every coin.
  • Look for tweets from the last 7-14 days
• Official website: WebFetch the coin's website (from links[] entries labeled "Website") for press releases, blog posts, status updates
• Web search: WebSearch for "{coin name}" stablecoin to find: news articles, regulatory filings, partnership announcements
• Link liveness: HEAD-check (or GET-and-check-status) every entry in links[] plus the top 3 featuredContent[].url values. Flag any non-2xx responses in the findings report so dead references can be fixed or replaced in Step 4.
• DefiLlama/CoinGecko: Check if the coin has appeared on either platform (search by name/symbol). If found, evaluate against promotion criteria in Step 5 — do not flag based on listing existence alone
  • DefiLlama: WebFetch https://stablecoins.llama.fi/stablecoins and search response for the coin name/symbol
  • CoinGecko: WebFetch https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/search?query={symbol} — then fetch the detail endpoint to read market_data.market_cap.usd and circulating_supply

Step 3 — Present findings

For each coin with updates, present:

## {Name} ({Symbol}) — {current phase}

### Changes found
- **launchPhase**: {old} → {new} (source: {URL})
- **expectedLaunchDate**: {old} → {new} (source: {URL})
- **New milestones**:
  - {date} | {type} | {title} (source: {URL})
- **New featuredContent**:
  - {type} | {title} | {URL}

### Promotion candidate?
{Yes/No — explain why}

### No changes
{List coins where nothing new was found}

Important: Flag any conflicts between sources. If unsure about a value, say so explicitly.

Step 4 — Apply changes (after per-coin user approval)

Approval is per coin, not bulk. For each coin with proposed changes, wait for explicit user confirmation (e.g., "yes / approved / go") before editing that coin's entry.

1. Edit the coin's entry in the appropriate JSON file using the Edit tool
2. When updating expectedLaunchDate, you must follow the Date History Protocol (below) first — no exceptions, even for minor shifts inside the same year
3. Add new milestones to the milestones[] array, sorted oldest-first by date
4. Add new featured content to featuredContent[]
5. Update AI summaries in data/ai-summaries.json only for coins that meet the Material Change Definition (follow write-ai-summaries voice guidelines)
6. Verify:
   • npm run check:stablecoin-data — validates the zod schema for the tracked registry (including pre-launch entries). Required.
   • If the approved changes will be published, use pharos-release-runner after the focused checks. GitHub's required PR gate is authoritative; the heavy local merge gate is optional rehearsal work.
   • npm run build alone is not sufficient — it does not enforce the pre-launch schema.

Step 5 — Flag promotions (with explicit evidence)

A coin is ready-to-promote only if all three of the following hold.

Before recommending promotion, also run stablecoin-runtime-price-marketcap-gate and record the accepted active runtime path. A promoted asset must have both a fetchable current price and a fetchable market-cap / circulating-supply path.

1. Listed externally with real supply:
   • DefiLlama: entry on https://stablecoins.llama.fi/stablecoins with non-zero circulating, OR
   • CoinGecko: entry reachable via https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/search?query={symbol} whose detail endpoint returns non-zero market_data.market_cap.usd and non-zero circulating_supply
2. Identity match:
   • If geckoId is already set on the pre-launch entry, the discovered CoinGecko id must match.
   • If not set, cross-verify symbol plus issuer domain (match links[] Website host against the issuer link on the listing page). Symbol-only matches are unsafe (e.g., generic tickers collide).
3. Not a preview listing: market cap, circulating supply, and 24h volume are all zero → it's a preview, not a live listing. Flag for tracking, not promotion.

Report format:

• Ready: **{Name} ready for promotion** — {source}, circulating=${X}, geckoId={id}, identity match confirmed
• Preview only: **{Name} has a preview listing, not ready** — CoinGecko entry exists but circulating/market-cap are zero; keep tracking
• Ambiguous: **{Name} possible match, unverified** — {reason}; recommend manual confirmation before next run

Do NOT execute the promotion (removing status: "pre-launch", adding llamaId, normalizing across chains, moving the entry out of shared/data/stablecoins/coins/*.json by status change, etc.) — that's a manual, coordinated process that requires schema changes beyond the scope of this skill.

After reporting, update agents/pre-launch-deferred.md: one line per unresolved outcome ({coin} — {finding} — checked {YYYY-MM-DD} — re-check when {trigger}). Refresh the checked date on re-verified items and delete entries that resolved this run.

Date History Protocol

Mandatory. Every change to expectedLaunchDate — including minor shifts inside the same year (e.g., 2026-Q2 → 2026-Q3) — must append a dateHistory entry before the new value is written.

When expectedLaunchDate changes:

1. Read the current expectedLaunchDate value
2. Append { "date": "{current value}", "setOn": "{today YYYY-MM-DD}" } to the dateHistory[] array (create the array if it doesn't exist)
3. Then update expectedLaunchDate to the new value

Do not backfill dateHistory from guessed prior values. Only the first shift observed under this protocol gets recorded — if a coin has no dateHistory today, leave it empty until an actual live shift is observed.

Milestone Guidelines

Each milestone entry:

{
  "date": "2026-03-22",
  "type": "milestone",
  "title": "Private testnet goes live",
  "description": "Optional longer description",
  "sourceUrl": "https://example.com/announcement"
}

• date: Always YYYY-MM-DD format
• type: Must be one of the values in LAUNCH_MILESTONE_TYPE_VALUES. Read shared/types/core.ts for the authoritative list.
• title: Short factual description (not marketing language)
• sourceUrl: Always include when available — milestones without sources are less trustworthy
• description: Optional, only when the title alone is insufficient

Featured Content Guidelines

{
  "type": "tweet",
  "url": "https://x.com/handle/status/123456",
  "title": "Short description of the tweet",
  "source": "@handle"
}

• type: Must be one of the values in FEATURED_CONTENT_TYPE_VALUES (shared/types/core.ts). Current values are tweet, blog, video, article — read the type file for the authoritative list.
• For tweets: include the source as @handle
• For articles/blogs: include description and image (relative path /featured/*.{jpg,png}) when available
• Don't add routine promotional tweets — only significant announcements, milestones, or technical updates

Quality Standards

• Phase advances require evidence (a tweet saying "coming soon" is not enough for launching-soon)
• Do not speculate on launch dates — only update when officially communicated
• Milestones should be factual events, not predictions
• AI summary updates follow the write-ai-summaries voice: sardonic, data-driven, opinionated but fair

What NOT to Do

• Do NOT execute promotions from pre-launch to active
• Do NOT remove existing milestones (they're historical records)
• Do NOT backdate milestone entries — use the date the event actually occurred
• Do NOT change flags (backing, pegCurrency, governance) — these are set intentionally
• Do NOT change id, name, symbol — canonical identifiers
• Do NOT add coins to the pre-launch tracker without user approval