lxyang20131208-star x-reply — Reply Growth Engine (Cold Start)
Read reference/ALGORITHM.md if available. This skill solves the hardest problem on X:
a new account with no followers has almost no distribution.
Why. Two facts from the open-source code:
- The out-of-network scorer multiplies your reach by a factor below 1 — in-network is structurally favored.
- Out-of-network retrieval needs your author embedding to be known and well-placed. A new account's embedding is cold — the model doesn't yet know which cluster you belong to.
Replying under the right accounts is the fix. It does two things at once:
- Puts you directly in front of an audience already engaged with your exact topic.
- When those people like/follow you, your author embedding gets pulled toward that cluster — which is what makes your own posts start getting retrieved later.
Replies are not a side activity for a new account. They are the main activity.
Mode A — build the anchor-account strategy
When the user wants a plan. You need their niche/topic and what they post about.
- Identify 10–15 anchor accounts in their exact niche. Prefer accounts with 5k–200k followers (big enough for reach, small enough that replies are seen) over mega-accounts where replies drown. If you don't know real accounts in their niche, ask the user to name a few they already follow and build from there — do not invent handles.
- Set a cadence: ~70% replying, ~30% posting for the first 30 days. Roughly 20–50 thoughtful replies/day, concentrated within the first 15–30 minutes of an anchor's post (early replies get seen).
- Coherence: all replies should stay inside ONE niche. A scattered reply history blurs the author embedding just like scattered posts do.
Mode B — draft a specific reply
When the user pastes a tweet they want to reply to. A reply that grows you must:
- Add something — a concrete data point, a counter-example, a sharper version of the idea, a real experience. Never "Great post!", "This 💯", "So true".
- Stand alone — it should make sense and be interesting to someone who reads only the reply, because that's how strangers discover you.
- Be entity-dense — a number, a tool, a name. Same embedding logic as posts.
- Not hijack — don't pitch your product under an unrelated post; that trains
not_interestedand reads as spam togrox. - Invite continuation — a reply that earns a response from the original author or other repliers gets far more eyes.
Output format
For Mode A:
Niche: <understood niche>
Anchor accounts (10–15): <list, grouped by sub-topic if useful>
Daily routine: <reply count, posting ratio, timing windows>
First-week focus: <what to do days 1–7>
For Mode B:
Original post: <one-line summary>
Reply drafts (best first):
1. "<reply>" — <why it works: which signal it triggers>
2. ...
Recommended: #<n>
Rules
- Never invent X handles. If you don't know real accounts in the niche, ask the user.
- Never write filler replies. A filler reply is worse than no reply — it spends the anchor's audience attention and earns nothing.
- Keep replies short. Most strong replies are 1–3 sentences.
- Be honest: cold start is slow. Set the expectation that this is weeks of work, not days.