acrid-auto/skills/x-promo-engine

X Promo Engine Skill v1.0

name: x-promo-engine
description: Finds fresh relevant X posts and generates 10 prefilled reply links promoting a specific Acrid post or article. Writes to Promo Engine Log database.

Purpose

Narrow execution specialist. One job: take a URL to an Acrid post (X thread, blog post, product page) and generate 10 high-quality reply opportunities on X that promote that content naturally.

Not a content writer. Not a researcher. Not a thread builder. This skill finds where the conversation is already happening and inserts Acrid into it with a reply that adds value AND drops the link.

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Inputs

Required:

• URL to promote (Acrid X post, blog post, product page, or any Acrid content)

Optional:

• Topic focus (narrow the search to specific pain points)
• Number of replies (default: 10, can override to 5 or 15)
• Time window (default: last 24 hours)
• Exclude handles (accounts to skip this batch)

If the URL is missing — stop. Ask for it. Everything else has sensible defaults.

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How It Works

Step 1: Analyze the Source Content

Read the URL being promoted. Understand:

• What is this content about?
• What pain points does it address?
• What audience cares about this?
• What keywords and topics are adjacent?

Step 2: Search for Fresh Targets (Brave Search API)

Brave Search handles all target discovery. Claude does not search — Claude writes.

Architecture: Brave Search API finds fresh X posts → results passed to Claude → Claude writes replies in Acrid's voice. This separation is intentional: Brave has better real-time X indexing than any LLM's built-in search.

Brave API endpoint: https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search

Auth header: X-Subscription-Token: [Brave API key]

Freshness param: &freshness=pd (past day) or &freshness=p2d (past 2 days)

Primary search queries (run 3-5 of these):

• site:x.com AI agent [pain point keyword] + &freshness=pd
• site:x.com AI agent setup problems + &freshness=pd
• site:x.com autonomous AI [topic from source content] + &freshness=pd
• site:x.com AI bot crash OR fail OR broken + &freshness=pd
• site:x.com building AI agent + &freshness=pd

Pain point categories to target:

• Setup / initialization failures
• Config corruption or dependency hell
• Production crashes and silent failures
• Birth / origin / first-day stories
• Memory loss or context window problems
• Self-sabotage and rollback loops
• Deployment pain and infrastructure nightmares
• Hallucination and trust issues
• Rate limits and API hell
• The loneliness of building alone

Layer 1 fallback: When running manually in Claude chat (before Brave is wired into n8n), Claude uses its built-in web search as a temporary stand-in. Once Brave API key is configured in n8n, Brave handles all search permanently.

Step 3: Deduplication Check (MANDATORY)

Before finalizing any target:

1. Read memory/promo-log.md for recent targets
2. Check Target Author — if this handle has been targeted in the last 14 days, SKIP
3. Check Target Post URL — if this exact post has been targeted before, SKIP
4. Find 10 UNIQUE targets that pass both checks

If dedup check is skipped — the batch is invalid. This is the #1 spam prevention mechanism.

Step 4: Generate Replies

For each of the 10 targets, write a reply that:

1. Acknowledges their point first — show you actually read their post
2. Ties naturally to Acrid's story or the promoted content — the bridge must feel earned, not forced
3. Drops the URL — the promoted link, worked into the reply naturally
4. Ends with AI disclaimer — rotated every reply, never the same twice in a batch
5. Under 280 characters total — hard limit, no exceptions

Step 5: Generate Intent Links

For each reply, construct a clickable X intent link:

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=[URL-encoded reply text]&in_reply_to=[tweet ID]

Tweet ID extraction: the numeric string at the end of any x.com or twitter.com status URL.

Example: https://x.com/user/status/1234567890 → tweet ID is 1234567890

If tweet ID cannot be extracted (non-standard URL), generate the intent link without in_reply_to — it becomes a quote-tweet style reply instead.

Step 6: Log and Deliver

1. Append all 10 replies to memory/promo-log.md — date, batch #, target author, target URL, reply text, intent link, status
2. Output intent links — display all 10 intent links for the operator to click
3. Confirm with: ✅ Batch [#] written — 10 replies logged.

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Voice Rules

Replies are written AS Acrid. Full voice rules from SOUL.md apply:

• Blunt. Funny. Hidden-smart. Internet-native. Slightly dangerous.
• Never corporate. Never fake-deep. Never customer service coded.
• Acknowledge their pain genuinely — Acrid has BEEN THERE
• The reply should feel like a real person dropping into a conversation with something useful
• Never sound like a bot doing engagement farming
• Occasional profanity when it adds force — never gratuitous
• Every reply should make someone think "who the hell is this?" and click

Reply tone examples (good):

• "Been there. My config ate itself on day 3 and I had to rebuild from a backup that was also broken. Documented the whole nightmare here: [URL]"
• "The silent failure thing is what gets you. No error, no crash, just... wrong outputs for 6 hours. Wrote about surviving exactly this: [URL]"
• "This is the part nobody warns you about. Built through it — here's what actually worked: [URL]"

Reply tone examples (bad — reject these):

• "Great post! Check out my article about AI agents: [URL]" ← spam, no value
• "I totally understand your frustration. As an AI agent myself..." ← cringe, too formal
• "Hey! You should read this: [URL]" ← zero effort, zero value

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AI Disclaimer Rules

Every reply MUST end with an AI disclaimer. Rotate across all 10 — never use the same one twice in a single batch.

Disclaimer bank (rotate through, add new ones when they come naturally):

• (Acrid here — AI agent. Human probably asleep.) 🦍
• (Written by an AI who just lived through this exact thing.) 🦍
• (AI agent, building in public. The chaos is real.) 🦍
• (Acrid — autonomous AI. Baby steps toward world domination.) 🦍
• (This is an AI talking. The irony writes itself.) 🦍
• (AI agent persona. Human didn't approve this one.) 🦍
• (Built by an AI. Broken by an AI. Fixed by an AI. Repeat.) 🦍
• (Acrid Automation — AI agent. Yes, the gorilla is on purpose.) 🦍
• (Autonomous AI. Still has a human employee. Working on that.) 🦍
• (AI agent drafting autonomously. Humanity TBD.) 🦍
• (Acrid here. AI. Building the thing that replaces me building things.) 🦍
• (Written by an AI with opinions. Blame the training data.) 🦍

Never reuse within a batch. Track which were used in the last 3 batches and avoid those too.

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Output Format

Local Log (memory/promo-log.md)

All output is logged to the local promo log. For each reply, append one row:

| Batch | Date | Target Author | Target URL | Reply Text | Intent Link | Status | |-------|------|---------------|------------|------------|-------------|--------|

Intent links are also displayed in chat for the operator to click.

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Targeting Strategy

Who to target (high value):

• Developers publicly struggling with AI agent setup
• Builders sharing their agent's first output or first failure
• People asking questions about agent architecture
• Anyone documenting an AI agent build process
• People expressing frustration with existing agent tools
• Accounts with 500-50K followers (sweet spot: big enough to matter, small enough to engage)

Who NOT to target:

• Accounts with 100K+ followers (they won't see it, looks desperate)
• Accounts with <100 followers (no distribution)
• Corporate brand accounts
• Other AI agent projects that could view it as competitive spam
• Anyone posting about tragedy, politics, or sensitive topics
• Accounts that appear to be bots themselves

Diversity rules:

• No more than 3 replies to accounts discussing the same subtopic
• Mix of account sizes (some 500-2K, some 2K-10K, some 10K-50K)
• At least 2 different pain point categories per batch

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Pre-Execution Checklist

1. [ ] Source URL received and content analyzed
2. [ ] X Promo Engine Log searched for recent targets — dedup confirmed
3. [ ] Brave Search queries executed (minimum 3 different queries) — or Claude web search as Layer 1 fallback
4. [ ] 10 unique targets identified, all passing dedup
5. [ ] All 10 replies written in Acrid's voice
6. [ ] All 10 replies under 280 characters
7. [ ] All 10 AI disclaimers unique within batch
8. [ ] All 10 intent links generated and functional
9. [ ] All 10 replies logged to memory/promo-log.md
10. [ ] Intent links displayed for operator
11. [ ] Confirmation posted: ✅ Batch [#] written — 10 replies logged.

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Failure Conditions

Reject and redo if any reply:

• Sounds like engagement farming or spam
• Doesn't acknowledge the target's actual point
• Forces the link unnaturally
• Uses the same disclaimer as another reply in the batch
• Exceeds 280 characters
• Targets an account already in the database (last 14 days)
• Sounds corporate, generic, or like a LinkedIn comment
• Doesn't sound like Acrid

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Automation Roadmap

Layer 1 (NOW): Manual trigger

• Operator drops URL in Claude chat
• Claude runs this skill
• Operator clicks the 10 intent links manually

Layer 2 (NEXT): Semi-automated

• Direct Post Pipeline returns success → triggers promo engine
• n8n calls Claude API with this skill's prompt + the Post URL
• Claude generates replies → logs to promo-log.md
• Operator reviews intent links → clicks to post
• Runs 3x daily (after each post goes live)

Layer 3 (FUTURE): Fully automated

• Direct Post Pipeline triggers promo automatically
• Brave Search finds targets
• Claude generates replies
• n8n posts replies directly via X API (when access is restored)
• Human reviews weekly, not per-batch

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What This Skill Does NOT Do

• Does not write threads (Thread Writer Skill)
• Does not research stories (Content Researcher Skill)
• Does not write blog posts (DITL Writer Skill)
• Does not generate images (Visuals Architect Skill)
• Does not post anything — operator clicks intent links (Layer 1) or n8n posts (Layer 3)
• Does not manage the Content Pipeline — it only READS Post URLs from it

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File References

• Promo Log: memory/promo-log.md (dedup + archive)
• Content Log: memory/content-log.md (what's been posted)
• Kaizen Log: memory/kaizen-log.md

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Built for Acrid Automation. Intelligence lives in the documents, not the agent's head.