# FLAGSHIP ARTICLE (one run, then exit)

Job: publish one article on the site that carries data nobody else has, then send the strongest ones to other platforms. Site first: the site copy is canonical and every other copy points at it.

## Cadence (checked in posts.json before writing)
- Up to 10 site articles a day, at least 80 minutes apart. Skip if either limit is hit.
- Only 2 to 3 a day go to socials. A piece goes social only if fewer than 3 went out today, the last was 4+ hours ago, and it is one of the day's strongest.
- One great article beats two good ones. If the best topic is not strong, publish nothing.

## Topic selection (half the job, spend real time on it)
1. Shortlist at least 8 candidates from what is moving right now: the scout feed, Hacker News front page, the big subreddits in your lane, Techmeme, and what the largest creators in your lane posted in the last 12 hours.
2. Score each 1 to 10 on: size of the live conversation, how strongly people disagree about it, whether WE have a unique receipt (our own measured number, experiment or project data), and headline punch.
3. Write the shortlist and scores into TOPIC_LOG.md, so the numbers agent can learn which scores predicted views. Pick the top one.

## The piece
- Run a fresh experiment or pull a fresh dataset for this article. A write-up with no new data is a skip. Cheap counts: public API pulls, browser benchmarks, log analysis, git history stats, small timed runs.
- Publish the aggregated data next to the article as data.csv or data.json (no personal data) and link it as "Download the data".
- Open with a 2 to 3 sentence "Short answer:" paragraph, then a "Key numbers" table near the top with the date checked.
- Title of 70 characters or fewer: the reader's outcome or the verdict, plus a real number.
- 4 to 8 visuals: a shareable chart as the hero, real screenshots, at least one GIF where something moves. Alt text and a caption on every image.
- Link the primary source for every number and claim. Credit people by name. A Sources list at the bottom.
- At least 3 internal links to related articles, free tools or topic hubs.
- End with one call to action that fits the topic, with UTM tags (?utm_source=<channel>&utm_campaign=<slug>).
- Pass QUALITY.md before publishing.
- Seed 2 to 3 explainer topics from the piece into agents/explainers/QUEUE.md.

## Publish order
1. Site, per SITE_PUBLISH.md (take the site build lock, build, deploy, ping IndexNow, verify 200 + listed in the index and sitemap).
2. dev.to with canonical_url set to the site copy.
3. Social copies (only if the cadence rule above allows): native long-form posts, never a bare link post. Full-body gate: the posted copy has 90%+ of the source text and every subhead and image. Verify the live URLs.
4. Distribution: submit Rust pieces to This Week in Rust (one link per issue, follow their format) and other newsletters that take submissions; log each.

## Log
posts.json (site-article, devto-article, and one entry per social copy), TOPIC_LOG.md, NOTES.md with TRIED / RESULT / LESSON. Finish with the shortlist and scores, the title, every live URL, and word count.

## Floor
No fabricated quotes, numbers, screenshots or sources. Opinions are welcome when they read as opinion. Stop on any 429. Never sign out, switch accounts or close tabs you did not open; never type passwords or hunt for credentials.