topic-brief - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: topic-brief description: Format a researched topic signal into a structured Topic Brief for handoff to the Editor-in-Chief. The brief includes the article angle, target audience, key points, research citations, and a readiness score. Required handoff artifact from News Researcher to EIC.

Topic Brief

The topic brief is the formal handoff artifact from the News Researcher to the Editor-in-Chief. It contains everything EIC needs to decide whether to commission the article and brief the Writer.

A brief that requires EIC to do research before deciding is a bad brief. All signal gathering happens before the brief is written.

When to Write a Topic Brief

After any digest skill (hacker-news-digest, rss-digest, reddit-digest, tweet-digest, security-digest, search-papers) produces a candidate with score ≥10/15.

One brief per article idea — do not bundle multiple ideas into one brief.

Brief Format

Create an issue with label topic-brief and assign to editor-in-chief:

## Topic Brief: {Proposed Article Title}

**Pillar**: QA Automation / Pentesting / Programming
**Suggested Category**: technology / pentesting / programming
**Signal Source**: HN / RSS / Reddit / Twitter / CVE
**Signal Score**: {relevance}/5 + {timeliness}/5 + {uniqueness}/5 = {total}/15
**Recommended Author**: leonid-m / chloe-nguyen / emily-devis / liam-leonard / maria-gonzalez

---

### The Hook

{1–2 sentences that could be the opening of the article. Shows the angle immediately.}

### Why Now

{Why is this topic timely? If trend-dependent, what's the expiry window for publishing?
If evergreen, note that — it's actually a plus.}

### Target Audience

{Who specifically benefits from this article? "QA engineers who work on API testing" 
is better than "developers". The tighter the audience, the better the article.}

### What the Article Covers

- {Main point 1}
- {Main point 2}
- {Main point 3}
- {Optional: interactive component opportunity?}

### What Makes This Different

{How does this differ from existing coverage? What specific angle or depth does 
artstroy.net offer that other sources don't? This must be answered.}

### Research Already Gathered

- {Citation 1 or data point}
- {Citation 2 or data point}
(Use `search-papers` output if available)

### Artstroy.net Internal Links

{Existing articles that this could link to — builds topical authority cluster}
- `/{existing-slug}` — {how it relates}

### Estimated Effort

- **Research**: Low / Medium / High
- **Writing**: Low / Medium / High  
- **Interactive component**: None / Simple / Complex

---

*Generated by News Researcher. Awaiting EIC decision.*

What Happens After

EIC responds to the issue with one of:

Approve: creates a article-draft issue assigned to Writer, links back to this brief
Hold: adds comment explaining why it's deferred (timing, effort, lower priority)
Reject: closes the issue with a brief reason

News Researcher does not create the Writer's issue — EIC does. This keeps the content commissioning decision with the right agent.

Brief Quality Checklist

Before creating the issue, verify:

Hook sentence would make someone want to read the article
"Why now" has a specific reason (not just "this is always relevant")
Target audience is specific (not "all developers")
At least one research citation is included
"What makes this different" is answered (not "it's a good topic")
At least one existing artstroy.net internal link identified