x-post

One rough idea in, one post worth stopping for out.

Prep

1. Open the voice profile at templates/voice.md. If it is missing, ask for three posts the user actually wrote, read the voice off those, and save the profile. Guessing a voice is not allowed; a post in someone else's voice is worse than no post.
2. Open hooks.json next to this file: 21 opener patterns, each with the move it makes, a filled sample, and the usual way it fails.
3. If the idea is empty ("write about AI"), do not decorate it. Ask one compact question: what happened, to whom, and what it cost or brought. A post needs a single concrete fact first.

What the feed rewards

X surfaces roughly four lines before the reader has to tap "show more", about 130-170 characters. Two signals carry a post, and both are decided up there: time on the post, and replies plus quote-posts, which the ranking weighs well above likes. So the opener is not the only leverage; the closing line, which invites the reply, is the other half. A link inside the body suppresses reach, so when the user needs a destination, put it in a self-reply. Hashtags do nothing here and read as spam. Opening with "a thread" throws the hook away.

Skeleton

Line 1   the opener, standing alone at truncation width.
Line 2   the release of line 1. Not a ramp into line 3.
Middle   one thought per line, single-spaced, white space doing the work.
Pivot    one sentence that turns the post, when there is one.
Last     a single ask: a precise question, or one concrete action. Not both.

Length: 280 characters is the platform ceiling, and 120-240 is where single posts live. Below about 80 it reads as a stray thought. Anything that truly needs more room belongs to x-thread. Longer ceilings apply only to premium accounts, and only when the opener has earned the tap. A one-liner can beat all of this when the line is good.

Working method

1. Offer three openers. Run the idea against hooks.json and pick three that actually fit, from three different patterns. Show them as three lines, and name the one you would run and why, in one sentence.

2. Write the full post on the opener you picked.

3. Clear the AI giveaways. Send the draft through x-human. This is not optional; it is why the draft is readable.

4. Present the block. Paste-ready inside a fenced block, exactly as it should go out. Under it, one line: what you would change if it flops, and the tell that would show it (for example, "views but no replies usually means the closing line is the weak part").

Dead on arrival

• An opener that only parses once line 2 is read.
• "A thread" instead of a claim.
• Three sentences opening the same way.
• A close of "what do you think?" with nothing to answer.
• A post with no concrete noun: no figure, name, date, or place.
• Emoji used as bullets, hashtags, or a Title-Cased opener.

Hard limit

Never invent a figure, a client, or a result the owner did not have. When the requested claim cannot be supported, write the true version and say what you left out. A post is a promise its author has to keep in the replies.