promote-post

name	promote-post
description	Generate ready-to-paste social media content for any blog post across multiple platforms (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Hacker News, dev.to, Reddit, Facebook). Use proactively when promoting blog posts.
disable-model-invocation	false
allowed-tools	Read, Glob, Grep
model	sonnet
argument-hint	<slug> [--platforms x,linkedin,hn,devto,reddit,facebook] [--lang en|es]
tier	2
intent	create
max-files	0
max-loc	0

Skill: Promote Post

Objective

Generate ready-to-paste social media content for a specific blog post, tailored to each platform's tone, format, and audience. The output is text that the user can copy and paste directly into each platform — no files are created or modified.

Non-Goals

• Does NOT publish or post to any platform (user handles publishing manually)
• Does NOT create or modify any files in the repository
• Does NOT generate images or visual assets
• Does NOT schedule posts or manage posting timing
• Does NOT translate — generates content in the requested language only

Tier Classification

Tier: 2 - Standard

Reasoning: Requires reading and understanding blog post content, then generating high-quality creative text adapted to multiple platform formats. No code changes, no risk, but needs good reasoning for platform-specific adaptation.

Inputs

Required Parameters

• $SLUG: Blog post slug or URL. Accepts any of these formats:
  • Slug: how-we-got-into-y-combinator
  • Local URL: http://localhost:4444/blog/how-we-got-into-y-combinator/ or http://localhost:4444/es/blog/how-we-got-into-y-combinator/
  • Production URL: https://xergioalex.com/blog/how-we-got-into-y-combinator/ or https://xergioalex.com/es/blog/how-we-got-into-y-combinator/

Optional Parameters

• $PLATFORMS: Comma-separated list of platforms (default: x,linkedin — Tier 1 platforms)
  • Valid values: x, linkedin, hn, devto, reddit, facebook, all
  • all = all 6 platforms
  • Tiers for reference: Tier 1 (x,linkedin), Tier 2 (hn,devto,reddit), Tier 3 (facebook)
• $LANG: Language for the generated content (default: en). Use en or es.

Prerequisites

Before running this skill, ensure:

• The blog post exists in src/content/blog/{lang}/ (matching the slug)
• The post is a published post (not in _demo/ folder)

Steps

Step 1: Find and Read the Blog Post

1. Parse input — detect if $SLUG is a URL or a plain slug:

   • If it matches http(s)://.*/blog/{slug}/ → extract the slug from the URL path
   • If the URL contains /es/blog/ → auto-set $LANG to es (unless explicitly overridden)
   • If the URL contains /blog/ without /es/ → auto-set $LANG to en
   • Otherwise, treat the input as a plain slug

2. Search for the post file using the extracted slug:

   Glob: src/content/blog/{lang}/*_{slug}.{md,mdx}
   

   • If $LANG is en, search in en/. If es, search in es/.
   • If not found, try the other language directory as fallback.
   • If still not found, report error.

3. Read the full post content — frontmatter (title, description, tags, pubDate, heroImage) and body.

4. Identify post characteristics:

   • Type: technical, startup/business, personal, tutorial
   • Primary tags: from frontmatter tags array (cross-reference with src/content/tags/ for tier)
   • Key topics: extract 3-5 main talking points from the content
   • Hook: identify the most compelling angle for social media

Step 2: Determine Target Platforms

• If $PLATFORMS not specified, default to Tier 1: x,linkedin
• If all, generate for all 6 platforms
• Otherwise, parse the comma-separated list

Platform selection guidance based on post tags:

• Posts tagged tech, web-development, javascript, ai, devops, python → suggest devto, reddit
• Posts tagged portfolio, dailybot, talks → suggest linkedin
• Posts with strong narrative/story → suggest hn
• All posts → always recommend x, linkedin

Step 3: Generate Platform-Specific Content

Generate content for each requested platform following these formats:

---

Twitter/X Thread

Format: 3-5 tweet thread (each tweet ≤ 280 characters)

Structure:

• Tweet 1 (Hook): Attention-grabbing opener. Start with a bold statement, surprising fact, or compelling question from the post. No hashtags here.
• Tweets 2-4 (Key points): One insight/takeaway per tweet. Use short sentences. Can include numbers, quotes from the post.
• Final Tweet (CTA): Link to the full post + 2-3 relevant hashtags.

Tone: Conversational, first-person, direct. Like talking to a friend who's also a developer.

Rules:

• Each tweet must work standalone (someone might only see one via retweet)
• Use "🧵" emoji in first tweet to signal thread
• Include the post URL only in the last tweet
• Use line breaks within tweets for readability
• Hashtags only in the last tweet (max 3)

---

LinkedIn Post

Format: Single post, 150-300 words

Structure:

• Hook line (first line visible before "see more" — make it count, max 150 chars)
• Blank line
• Context/Story (2-3 short paragraphs, personal angle)
• Key takeaway or lesson
• CTA (link to post + engagement question)
• 3-5 hashtags at the end

Tone: Professional but personal. Storytelling format. "Here's what I learned..." or "We did X and here's what happened..."

Rules:

• First line is CRITICAL — LinkedIn truncates after ~150 chars
• Use short paragraphs (1-2 sentences each)
• Include personal experience/opinion, not just a summary
• End with a question to drive comments

---

Hacker News

Format: Title only (+ optional first comment)

Structure:

• Title: Max 80 characters. Factual, no clickbait. Follow HN norms:
  • Use "Show HN:" prefix if the post showcases something built
  • No emojis, no ALL CAPS, no exclamation marks
  • Prefer specific over vague: "How we got 100/100 Lighthouse scores with Astro" > "Making a fast website"
• First Comment (optional): 2-3 sentences of context if the title needs explanation. Written as the author providing background.

Tone: Understated, technical, matter-of-fact. HN audience is skeptical of hype.

Rules:

• Title should spark curiosity without being clickbait
• If the post is about a personal project, use "Show HN:"
• If the post tells a story, lead with the most interesting outcome
• Never use marketing language

---

dev.to Cross-Post

Format: Frontmatter + adapted intro (first 3-4 paragraphs)

Structure:

---
title: "{post title}"
published: true
description: "{post description}"
tags: {up to 4 dev.to tags, comma-separated}
canonical_url: https://xergioalex.com/blog/{slug}/
cover_image: https://xergioalex.com{heroImage path}
---

{Adapted intro — first 3-4 paragraphs of the post, slightly rewritten to work standalone on dev.to}

---

*This post was originally published on [my blog](https://xergioalex.com/blog/{slug}/). Read the full version there for the complete experience.*

Tone: Same as the blog post — first person, technical, conversational.

Rules:

• canonical_url is MANDATORY — prevents SEO competition with the original
• dev.to tags: max 4, lowercase, no spaces (use existing dev.to tags like javascript, webdev, ai, productivity, startup)
• Only include the intro + redirect, not the full post
• Cover image uses the post's heroImage URL

---

Reddit

Format: Title + body text for a relevant subreddit

Structure:

• Suggested subreddit(s): Based on post content:
  • Technical/web: r/webdev, r/programming, r/javascript, r/reactjs
  • AI: r/artificial, r/MachineLearning
  • Startup: r/startups, r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur
  • YC: r/ycombinator
  • General tech: r/technology
• Title: Descriptive, no clickbait. Can be a question or statement.
• Body: 3-5 sentences of context/summary + link at the end. Reddit users expect you to participate, not just drop links.

Tone: Casual, community-oriented. "Hey, I wrote about X and wanted to share..." Not promotional.

Rules:

• Always suggest 1-2 specific subreddits
• Body should add value beyond just linking — share a key insight
• Mention it's your own content (Reddit appreciates transparency)
• Don't be salesy — provide value first

---

Facebook (Group Post)

Format: Short post for tech/developer groups

Structure:

• Opening: 1-2 sentences, conversational hook
• Context: 2-3 sentences about what the post covers and why it matters
• Link to the full post
• Question to drive engagement

Tone: Casual, friendly, community-oriented. Like sharing with colleagues.

Rules:

• Keep it short (under 100 words before the link)
• No hashtags (Facebook groups don't use them effectively)
• Frame as sharing knowledge, not self-promotion
• Include a question to encourage comments

---

Step 4: Present Output

Present all generated content in a clear, structured format:

1. Show a summary header with post info
2. For each platform, use a clear separator and label
3. Each section should be easily copy-pasteable (no extra formatting that would break on paste)

Output Format

Success Output

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📣 Social Media Content: {Post Title}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Post: {title}
URL: https://xergioalex.com/blog/{slug}/
Tags: {tags}
Language: {lang}
Platforms: {list}

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🐦 TWITTER/X THREAD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Tweet 1]
{content}

[Tweet 2]
{content}

...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

💼 LINKEDIN
━━━━━━━━━━

{full post content}

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

{... more platforms ...}

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ Content generated for {N} platforms
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Failure Output

❌ Post not found: {slug}

Available posts matching "{partial}":
- {suggestion 1}
- {suggestion 2}

Usage: /promote-post <slug> [--platforms x,linkedin,hn,devto,reddit,facebook]

Guardrails

Scope Limits

• Maximum files: 0 (read-only, no files created or modified)
• Maximum LOC: 0 (no code changes)
• Allowed directories: src/content/blog/, src/content/tags/ (read-only)
• Forbidden directories: All others (this skill only reads blog content)

Safety Checks

Before generating content:

• Post exists and is not a demo post
• Post has a title, description, and body content
• Generated tweet lengths are each ≤ 280 characters
• HN title is ≤ 80 characters
• canonical_url is included in dev.to output
• No confidential or private information is included in social content

Stop Conditions

Stop immediately and report if:

• Blog post slug not found in either language directory
• Post is a demo post (in _demo/ folder)
• User requests publishing to platforms (out of scope)

Definition of Done

This skill is complete when ALL of the following are true:

• Blog post was read and analyzed successfully
• Content generated for all requested platforms
• Each platform's content follows its specific format rules
• Tweet character limits respected (≤ 280 each)
• HN title character limit respected (≤ 80)
• dev.to includes canonical_url
• All content presented in copy-pasteable format
• Post URL (https://xergioalex.com/blog/{slug}/) included in all platform outputs

Escalation Conditions

Escalate to user if:

• Post content is too short or lacks substance for meaningful social content
• Post is in a language not supported (neither EN nor ES)
• User requests platforms not in the supported list

Escalation Path:

1. First: Try to generate with available content
2. Then: Ask user for additional context or talking points
3. Finally: Generate partial output for platforms that work

Examples

Example 1: Default (Tier 1 platforms only)

Context: User wants to promote their YC story post.

Input:

/promote-post how-we-got-into-y-combinator

Execution: Reads the post, generates content for Twitter/X and LinkedIn (default Tier 1 platforms).

Output:

📣 Social Media Content: How We Got Into Y Combinator
Platforms: x, linkedin

🐦 TWITTER/X THREAD

[Tweet 1]
🧵 Getting into Y Combinator changed everything for DailyBot.

But the application process? Way more intense than I expected.

Here's what actually happened:

[Tweet 2]
We applied 3 times before getting in.

The first two rejections taught us more than the acceptance did — we learned to focus on metrics that matter, not features that impress.

[Tweet 3]
The YC interview is 10 minutes.

10 minutes to convince some of the smartest people in tech that your startup is worth betting on.

Here's what they actually asked us...

[Tweet 4]
Full story on my blog — every detail from application to Demo Day:

https://xergioalex.com/blog/how-we-got-into-y-combinator/

#YCombinator #startups #SaaS

💼 LINKEDIN

Getting into Y Combinator changed the trajectory of DailyBot.

But here's what nobody tells you...
{...}

Example 2: All platforms + Spanish

Context: User wants full coverage in Spanish.

Input:

/promote-post how-we-got-into-y-combinator --platforms all --lang es

Execution: Reads the ES version of the post, generates content for all 6 platforms in Spanish.

Example 3: Technical post with platform suggestions

Context: User promotes a technical web development post.

Input:

/promote-post lighthouse-perfect-scores --platforms x,hn,devto,reddit

Execution: Reads the post, notes it's deeply technical (Astro, Lighthouse, performance). Generates:

• Twitter thread with specific performance numbers
• HN title: "Show HN: Achieving 100/100 Lighthouse scores with Astro and Svelte"
• dev.to with frontmatter and canonical URL
• Reddit post for r/webdev with technical context

Example 4: Post not found

Context: User provides a wrong slug.

Input:

/promote-post my-awesome-post

Result:

❌ Post not found: my-awesome-post

Available posts with similar names:
- my-awesome-project (2024-05-15)
- awesome-tools-roundup (2024-03-10)

Usage: /promote-post <slug> [--platforms x,linkedin,hn,devto,reddit,facebook]

Related Skills/Agents

• add-blog-post - Creates the blog posts that this skill promotes
• content-writer - Can help refine or expand generated social content

Changelog

Version	Date	Changes
1.0.0	2026-03-03	Initial version