trend-to-thread

name	trend-to-thread
requires_mcps	["higgsfield","trendradar"]
description	End-to-end pipeline that chains trendradar → article-writer → X thread → Higgsfield hero image → Postiz draft in a single shot, turning a current trend topic into a posted-ready social thread with a generated hero image. Use when user says "/trend-to-thread", "post a trend thread", "build a thread from trends", "új X thread mai trendből", or "Postiz X poszt mai trendekből".
allowed-tools	["mcp__trendradar__get_trending_topics","mcp__trendradar__get_latest_news","mcp__trendradar__search_news","mcp__trendradar__find_related_news","mcp__trendradar__analyze_topic_trend","mcp__trendradar__analyze_sentiment","mcp__higgsfield__balance","mcp__higgsfield__generate_image","mcp__higgsfield__job_status","mcp__higgsfield__models_explore","WebSearch","Bash","Read","Write","Edit"]

trend-to-thread — end-to-end TrendRadar → X thread → Postiz draft pipeline

Single-command runbook for the workflow that turned "ezen a napon mit lehet posztolni" into a published-ready Postiz draft with a Higgsfield hero image. Optimized for the trendradar+postizz profile on this machine. Hungarian or English topic input both work.

Inputs

/trend-to-thread <seed>?      <-- optional. one of:
  auto                          → pull top trends, suggest 3-5 angles, ask user to pick
  "<topic seed>"                → use this topic literally (e.g. "China rare-earth export halt")
  --resume <draft-id>           → reopen a Postiz draft by ID and rebuild the image

If no seed is given, default to auto.

Pre-flight (skip the slow stuff when possible)

1. Higgsfield auth check — call mcp__higgsfield__balance first.
   • If it returns credits → already authed, skip the OAuth dance.
   • If 401 / disconnected → walk the user through mcp__higgsfield__authenticate → wait for callback URL.
2. Postiz reachability — curl -fsS http://localhost:4007 >/dev/null or postiz auth:status. Bail with a helpful message if Postiz is down ("start the stack with cd ~/Documents/postiz-app && docker compose up -d").
3. Integration ID — read postiz integrations:list -o json | jq '.[] | select(.identifier=="x") | .id'. Don't hardcode the ID; it varies per account/instance.

Pipeline (7 phases — each must finish before the next)

Phase 1 — ROI-ranked ideation

Produce 3–5 candidate angles ranked by predicted ROI, in the conclusion-first format the blog-writer profile mandates (summary table first, prose verdicts second, no field-name skeleton, one explicit "Pick this one" line at the bottom).

1.1 Signal pull (parallel)

• mcp__trendradar__get_trending_topics(mode="daily", extract_mode="auto_extract", top_n=25)
• mcp__trendradar__get_latest_news(limit=60)
• Cross-correlate: topics in BOTH trending keywords AND multiple platform top-3 are the cross-platform signals worth a thread. Filter out celebrity / regional sports / Mainland-China-domestic noise unless the user's audience is that.

1.2 Competitive scan (web search per candidate)

For each top topic (≤5), call WebSearch with two queries to size up coverage saturation and identify the undercovered angle:

• <topic> site:finance.yahoo.com OR site:bloomberg.com OR site:reuters.com → what mainstream finance covered already
• <topic> analysis OR "hot take" → what financial X / Substack already said

Note for each candidate:

• Coverage count — how many top-tier outlets ran it (saturation proxy)
• Dominant angle — what take is everybody already running
• Open angle — what nobody's said yet that we could own

The highest-ROI ideas have a strong catalyst with an undercovered angle. Don't write the 5th version of a Bloomberg take.

1.3 ROI score each candidate (0–25)

Axis	1	3	5
Catalyst clarity	vague trend	known event, no date	binary headline + dated window
Asymmetry	symmetric risk	tilted up	defined downside, big upside
Saturation (inverted)	covered everywhere	1–2 outlets	undercovered / fresh angle
Brand fit (volaria)	non-finance	tangential	core markets / tape / macro
Time-decay risk	intraday only	days	multi-week thesis

Total: 15+ = strong, 10–14 = solid, <10 = skip.

1.4 Emit the ideation block (conclusion-first, blog-writer rules)

Summary table first (scan layer):

Rank	Topic	Verdict (1-line, plain language)	ROI
1	…	"Binary catalyst, 30-day window, nobody's writing the supply-chain angle."	19/25
2	…	"Multi-quarter trend, low variance, fits volaria macro voice."	16/25

Per-item prose (depth layer): 2–3 sentences each, no "Setup / Vehicle / Risk / ROI" field-name skeleton. Lead each item with the bolded verdict in plain language, then catalyst + vehicle + asymmetry + what-mainstream-missed flow as natural prose. Include the cashtag(s) inline, suggest the volaria card template (tri-band-cinematic / billboard / ticker-tape / magazine), and note image direction.

End the block with one Pick this one → sentence naming the top angle to run with, in plain language ("This one — binary headline + 30-day window + nobody's posted the spread trade angle"). Don't leave the user weighing 5 options without a recommendation.

1.5 Confirm with user

Show the ranked block, surface your recommendation, wait for their pick (they may override). Proceed to Phase 2 with the chosen angle.

Seed mode ("<topic seed>")

Skip steps 1.1–1.4. Run a one-topic competitive scan (just step 1.2 against the supplied seed) for sanity, surface what's already been said + the open angle, then proceed to Phase 2.

Phase 2 — draft the long-form article

Delegate to the article-writer skill — do NOT free-write the article here. The skill owns the preset templates, voice library, and source-discipline conventions.

/article <preset> "<topic>" [--voices a,b,c] [--lang en|hu]

Default preset: qa-interview (the BeInCrypto/Arcanum format that lands on this account). Other presets: op-ed, sector-analysis, listicle, breaking-news. See ~/Documents/cue/resources/skills/skills/content/article-writer/SKILL.md for the full picker.

Voices come from ~/Documents/cue/resources/skills/skills/content/article-writer/voices.md. Pick 2-3 for qa-interview, 1-2 for sector-analysis. Default voice picks per topic class:

Topic class	Default voices
Institutional crypto / RWA	hk-allocator, us-vc-partner, eu-prime-broker
Geopolitics / supply chain	eu-policy-analyst, jp-trade-neg, cee-auto-ops
Macro / market positioning	macro-strategist, us-vc-partner, quant-hedge
AI compute / infra	ai-infra-founder, us-vc-partner, macro-strategist
Defense industrial	defense-procurement, eu-policy-analyst, ir-head
Shipping / logistics	sg-logistics, macro-strategist, eu-policy-analyst

Article output lands at ~/Documents/cue/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md with frontmatter that includes sources: and voices: lists.

Phase 2 cannot finish until both gates below pass. Source-discipline + slop-detector are mandatory:

# 2a — sources gate
python3 ~/Documents/cue/scripts/article-sources-lint.py ~/Documents/cue/drafts/<draft>.md
# must exit 0

# 2b — slop gate
# invoke the ai-slop-detector skill against the draft
# must score AI-Slop ≤ 30 and Comprehension ≥ 70

If either gate fails, surface findings, rewrite, re-run. No exceptions — both gates protect the brand voice.

Phase 3 — derive the X thread

Write to ~/Documents/cue/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>-thread.md with ## Tweet N (description) headers, body below each.

Hard rules (the x-thread-lint.py enforces these — see Phase 5):

• Each tweet ≤ 280 chars.
• Each tweet has at most ONE $TICKER cashtag. The rest of the tickers must drop their $ or move to a different tweet. Counted per-tweet, not per-thread. Violation = nonRetryable Postiz failure with "maximum of one cashtag". Full rationale: rules/postiz/x-cashtag-limit.md.

Target 8-10 tweets. Tweet 1 is a hook with 🧵, last tweet is a closer / aphorism. Distribute cashtags across tweets to maximize discoverability without breaking the rule.

Phase 4 — generate the hero image

Branch on brand first. Default to VOLARIA unless the user names another brand or explicitly asks for an unbranded editorial image.

Volaria-branded mode (default for this account)

Use the canonical template at ~/Documents/cue/resources/prompts/hero/volaria-news-card.md:

• Vertical 4:5 layout, three bands (header with logo / cinematic middle / massive condensed-sans headline).
• Pass medias: [{value: <logo_media_id from template frontmatter>, role: "image"}] so the Volaria logo is the literal reference image — NOT redrawn.
• Generate one card per tweet in the thread (so the thread is a sequence of branded news-cards, not one hero + plain replies).
• Fill the 4 slots per card: MIDDLE_IMAGE_DESCRIPTION, HEADLINE_LINE_1, HEADLINE_LINE_2, HEADLINE_LINE_3, SUB_LABEL. The headline is what the card says (e.g. LOCKHEED / MARTIN'S / F-35 EXPOSED.); the ticker stays in the tweet text (one cashtag per tweet, no exceptions).

Unbranded editorial mode (legacy / one-offs)

• Pick prompt template from ~/Documents/cue/resources/prompts/hero/ if one matches the topic class (finance-editorial, geopolitics-news, tech-product, crypto-rwa). Fill the topic slot.
• Default model: nano_banana_pro at resolution=2k, aspect_ratio=16:9. Always preflight cost with get_cost: true before spending credits.

Common to both modes

• Generate, poll job_status with sync=true until status=completed, download the rawUrl PNG to ~/Documents/cue/drafts/hero-YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>-T<n>.png.
• Postiz 10 MB upload cap: if any 2k PNG exceeds ~10 MB, re-encode to JPEG with ffmpeg -i in.png -q:v 4 out.jpg (typically lands at 600-800 KB) before postiz upload. JPEG path uploads fine and renders identically on X.

Phase 5 — lint the thread

python3 /home/deadpool/Documents/cue/scripts/x-thread-lint.py \
  ~/Documents/cue/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>-thread.md

Must exit 0 before proceeding. If exit 1: surface the per-tweet failures, fix in the .md, re-lint. No exceptions — this is the gate that prevents the nonRetryable X failure mode.

Phase 6 — assemble the Postiz JSON payload

Write to ~/Documents/cue/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>-postiz.json. Shape (validated against the Postiz CLI source on this machine):

{
  "type": "draft",
  "creationMethod": "CLI",
  "date": "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+02:00",
  "shortLink": true,
  "tags": [],
  "posts": [{
    "integration": {"id": "<from integrations:list>"},
    "value": [
      {
        "content": "tweet 1 body",
        "image": [{"id": "<from postiz upload>", "path": "http://localhost:4007/uploads/.../*.png"}],
        "delay": 0
      },
      {"content": "tweet 2 body", "image": [], "delay": 0}
    ],
    "settings": {"who_can_reply_post": "everyone"}
  }]
}

Gotchas (learned the hard way):

• tags MUST be [] or array-of-objects. Plain string tags → 400 "must be either object or array".
• The date field is required even for type: draft. Use a placeholder ~2 days out; drafts don't auto-publish.
• Hero image goes ONLY on tweet 1's image array. Don't replicate across the thread.
• Lint the JSON: python3 /home/deadpool/Documents/cue/scripts/x-thread-lint.py <payload>.json.

Phase 7 — upload media + create draft

postiz upload ~/Documents/cue/drafts/hero-YYYY-MM-DD.png
# capture {id, path} from response, paste into payload JSON tweet 1's image array

postiz posts:create --json ~/Documents/cue/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>-postiz.json
# capture postId from the response

Output to user: Postiz draft ID + http://localhost:4007 preview URL + reminder to flip draft → schedule in the UI when ready.

Phase 7b — back-write postId into source article frontmatter (MANDATORY).

The engagement-feedback skill needs to join Postiz analytics ↔ article-level choices. The only stable join key is the postId, written into the article that generated this post.

# add to article frontmatter immediately after Postiz draft creation
postiz:
  x: <postId from postiz posts:create response>

If the article already has a postiz: block (e.g. fan-out from /article-to-everywhere already wrote linkedin:), merge — don't overwrite. Each platform gets its own key (x, linkedin, substack, reddit, etc.).

Without this back-write, /engagement-report will have nothing to correlate. Treat it as a hard step, not a nice-to-have.

Failure modes — learned

Symptom	Root cause	Fix
400 tags.each value … must be either object or array	passed string tags	set "tags": []
nonRetryable: maximum of one cashtag	tweet had $X $Y	drop $ from one, or split tweets
Image not showing in preview	uploaded fine but image: [] in payload	re-edit JSON, redeploy
Postiz CLI lacks posts:update	by design	delete + recreate (or use the HTTP API PATCH — see follow-up wrapper)
Higgsfield generates wrong style	prompt too vague	reuse a prompts/hero/*.md template, don't free-write

Out of scope (do NOT extend this skill to cover)

• LinkedIn / Threads / Bluesky reformatting — different skill (/multi-platform-fanout, not built yet).
• Auto-publishing without user review — drafts only. The flip to schedule is a human decision.
• Article-to-blog publish (e.g. Ghost/Medium) — keep the .md in drafts/ for now; a /publish-article skill can come later.

Sister tooling

• ~/Documents/cue/scripts/x-thread-lint.py — the gate enforced in Phase 5.
• ~/Documents/cue/resources/prompts/hero/ — Higgsfield prompt templates (extend as new topic classes are encountered).
• rules/postiz/x-cashtag-limit.md — the upstream constraint this skill defends against.