---
name: Content Factory
slug: content-factory
category: Automation
description: Content Factory scouts recent developments in a user’s field, scores them for trend fit and unique angle, and turns selected items into posts, blog drafts, or short videos in the user’s voice. It also enforces deduplication, volume caps, and publish verification.
github: "https://github.com/huytieu/COG-second-brain/tree/main/skills/content-factory"
language: HTML
stars: 930
forks: 110
install: "npx degit https://github.com/huytieu/COG-second-brain/tree/main/skills/content-factory ~/.claude/skills/content-factory"
installs_to: ~/.claude/skills/content-factory
source_path: skills/content-factory/SKILL.md
collection_size: 25
category_size: 1523
collection_url: "https://dirskills.com/collections/huytieu/COG-second-brain"
added: 2026-08-22T05:20:33.812Z
last_synced: 2026-08-22T05:20:33.812Z
canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/content-factory"
---

# Content Factory

Content Factory scouts recent developments in a user’s field, scores them for trend fit and unique angle, and turns selected items into posts, blog drafts, or short videos in the user’s voice. It also enforces deduplication, volume caps, and publish verification.

**Install:**

```bash
npx degit https://github.com/huytieu/COG-second-brain/tree/main/skills/content-factory ~/.claude/skills/content-factory
```

## README

# COG Content Factory Skill

## Purpose

Act as the user's autonomous content creator: scout what just happened in their field, pick what is genuinely trending, and turn it into content in their voice — with zero duplicates, hard volume caps, and verification before anything counts as published. Designed to run unattended on a schedule (nightly) and to be safely re-runnable: **an empty run is a valid run; a low-quality post is not.**

## When to Invoke

- `/content-factory` / "run the content factory"
- Scheduled runs (e.g. 2-4 times a night via cron/launchd)
- "Turn today's news into content"

## Prerequisites

Reads the user's voice and beats from `00-inbox/MY-PROFILE.md` and topics from `00-inbox/MY-INTERESTS.md`. Publishing targets come from `00-inbox/MY-INTEGRATIONS.md` — skip disabled channels silently.

## State Files (read FIRST, update LAST — this is the dedup backbone)

- `04-projects/content-factory/ledger.md` — everything ever covered/published (topic slug, source URL, formats, links, date). NEVER cover a topic or source URL already in the ledger unless there is genuinely NEW news (a follow-up release counts; rephrasing the same launch does not).
- `04-projects/content-factory/tonight-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md` — tonight's run log (create on first run of the night). Records what earlier runs scouted, parked, produced, and published, plus the remaining volume budget.
- `04-projects/content-factory/sources.md` — the watchlist. Add sources you find valuable; prune dead ones.

## Volume Budget (across ALL runs of one night, hard caps)

| Channel | Max/night | Notes |
|---------|-----------|-------|
| Short social posts/threads | 2 | the volume channel; a thread counts as 1 |
| Blog post | 1 | only when substance justifies it |
| Short video | 1 | only if the idea is visual/demo-able |
| Long-form professional post | 1 | only for a strong professional angle |
| Long video / deep essay | 0 | never autonomous; propose in the run log |

Track the budget in the tonight file. Later runs inherit what is left. Adjust caps to taste — the invariant is that caps exist and are enforced across runs, not per run.

## Phase 1 — SCOUT (every run)

1. Web-search for last-24h announcements across the user's watchlist topics, plus anything already trending.
2. Fetch the watchlist blogs/changelogs in `sources.md`.
3. If a browser integration is available, skim the user's social feeds for engagement signals — raw engagement numbers are the best trend signal.
4. Timebox scouting to ~20 minutes of work.

## Phase 2 — TRIAGE (score, don't vibe)

Score each candidate 1-5 on:
- **(a) trend momentum** — are major accounts and aggregators talking about it NOW?
- **(b) beat fit** — does it fit one of the user's beats (from MY-PROFILE.md)?
- **(c) unique angle** — can we add something ONLY this user can add (an experiment, a practitioner take, a contrarian read) — not a summary anyone could write?

Sum ≥11 → produce. 8-10 → park in the tonight file for a later run to re-score. <8 → ignore.

Dedup check before producing: topic slug + source URL against the ledger AND against the user's recent published posts (last ~20) if reachable.

## Phase 3 — PRODUCE (format ladder — decide by substance, not ambition)

- **Default: one short post or thread** — hook line, media attached, link last, minimal hashtags.
- **Blog post** only when there are ≥3 original things to say or a real proof-of-concept with artifacts. If the user has a PoC beat: actually build the tiny PoC (timebox ~45 min) and publish the REAL result, including failures. Never fabricate PoC outcomes; "it broke here" is good content.
- **Short video** when the idea is visual or demo-able in ≤60s.
- Cross-link everything (video ↔ blog ↔ thread reference each other).

## Phase 4 — PUBLISH (safety gates)

1. **Environment gate**: if the publishing surface is unavailable, or the user appears to be actively using the browser/machine — DO NOT publish. Write finished bundles to `04-projects/content-factory/out/<date>/` and let a later run (or the user) publish.
2. **Post-condition check (mandatory)**: after every publish, observe the artifact — screenshot the live post, curl the live URL — before recording it as published. Never report success from the publish call alone.
3. Never engage in arguments, never quote-dunk, never reply to strangers. The factory only creates original posts on the user's own surfaces.
4. Any screenshot must pass a credentials check (no account emails, tokens, or internal URLs visible).
5. Never delete an already-engaged post; edit in place if a fix is needed.

## Phase 5 — LEDGER + LOG (always, even for empty runs)

- Append published items to `ledger.md`: `| date | slug | beat | formats | source URL | published links |`.
- Update `tonight-<date>.md`: scouted list, scores, parked items, budget left, what the next run should look at first.
- If a big announcement deserves long-form treatment the user should shape, write it as a proposal in the tonight file with a suggested outline — do not attempt it autonomously.

## Voice Checklist (delete the draft if any fail)

- [ ] Sounds like a builder sharing, not a news bot ("I tried", "I broke", "here's what surprised me")
- [ ] Contains at least one thing only this user could say (their setup, their numbers, their PoC, their lens)
- [ ] No AI-slop vocabulary ("game-changer", "revolutionary", "unleash"), no emoji walls, hashtags within caps
- [ ] Media attached; link present; nothing confidential
- [ ] Not a duplicate (ledger + recent posts checked)

## The Loop (see /loop-engineering)

Each night is a scan-until-budget-dry loop across runs: the tonight file is the shared loop state, the ledger is the dedup verifier, the volume budget is the hard cap, and the voice checklist is the quality gate. Termination: budget exhausted, nothing scores ≥11, or the environment gate blocks publishing.