Kai Podcast

Kai root note: knowledge/, harness/, and scripts/ paths in this skill live in the Kai install, not the user's project. Resolve them against the first ancestor directory of this SKILL.md that contains a knowledge/ folder (the Kai plugin root, ~/.claude/kai, or the kai-cmo-harness repo). MARKETING.md, memory/, and any output files live in the current project. If a referenced scripts/ command is not available in this install, say so, skip it, and continue with the file-based guidance — never fabricate its output.

Objective

A podcast operation the user can start next week — either their own show (Host mode) or a booked-guest pipeline (Guest mode). Host mode ends with a show concept, ten mapped episodes, a production and distribution workflow, and the templates that keep every episode consistent. Guest mode ends with a speaker one-sheet, a real target-show list, and pitches specific enough that a host replies.

Pick the mode before anything else. Host and Guest share almost no assets.

Done when

Work type strategy-plan — floor E3/C3/O1 (harness/eco-floors.yaml). The package is a plan, not a live channel, so E tops out at approval of the exact bytes.

• E3 — a named human approved the delivered package at workspace/podcast-[host|guest]-YYYY-MM-DD.md.
• C3 — banned_word_check clean, zero AI slop (every sentence earns its place), Four U's at 12/16 for show descriptions and episode outlines and 10/16 for pitch emails, and a non-author read the package end to end. Max 2 retry cycles, each naming the specific failing dimension.
• O1 — the plan names its metric with a baseline, a threshold, a window, and an owner: episodes published and downloads per episode (Host), or pitches sent, booking rate, and appearances aired (Guest).

Two floors this skill does not own: an episode actually published is blog-post-class published content, and a pitch email actually sent is cold-email (E5/C4/O3). Neither is SHIPPED by this skill.

Constraints

• Read MARKETING.md from the project root first. If it does not exist, build it from the codebase — CLAUDE.md, README.md, PROJECT.md, package.json, landing pages, email/ad/analytics config — using the template from /kai-email-system, and confirm the draft. Do not ask the user what the product is.
• Know these seven things before planning: mode (Host or Guest); goal (awareness, thought leadership, lead gen, networking, backlinks); target persona; topic territory and unique angle; existing assets that prove expertise; commitment level (cadence for Host, appearances per month for Guest); equipment and editing capability.
• Ingest before deriving. Given an RSS feed, episode URL, transcript, raw audio, or show notes, record it in workspace/podcast/_ingest-log.md first: source locator, permission status (owned / guest-approved / public citation / internal review / unknown), episode metadata (title, guest, publish date, runtime, canonical URL), transcript status (provided / generated / partial / missing / low confidence), and repurpose candidates (quotes, stories, objections, frameworks, clip timestamps).
• Source locations are preserved for every quote, claim, and clip candidate. Public RSS metadata is for planning only — it never implies a host or guest endorses anything.
• No fabricated authority. Ideas from a transcript are attributed to the speaker who said them or kept as internal notes. Never present transcript material as the user's own expertise.
• Approval before anything leaves the workspace — show notes, clips, outreach, and guest quotes all require human sign-off. This skill drafts.
• Pitch specificity is a hard rule. A pitch that does not reference the specific show — an episode, a recurring theme, the host's stated interest — fails regardless of its Four U's score. Generic pitches are the reason guest outreach dies.
• Guest pitches are cold outreach. Sender identity, opt-out, and consent basis follow harness/references/cold-email-rules.md before any send.
• Format targets: show description under 600 characters for directories; 20–45 min interview episodes, 10–20 min solo; 3–5 candidate show names with availability checked; 20–50 target shows for Guest mode.

Context

Host package: show concept (name, format, length, angle), first ten episode outlines, production workflow, distribution plan (Apple, Spotify, YouTube, RSS, website embed), promotion plan (social clips, email, cross-promotion, guest sharing), episode template, show notes template, interview question set.

Guest package: speaker one-sheet (bio, three signature topics, audience value, past appearances), target show list with rationale, three pitch variants sized to different shows, talking points per topic, post-appearance follow-up, and a tracking structure covering shows pitched, status, air dates, and results.

Output goes to workspace/ as podcast-[host|guest]-YYYY-MM-DD.md. Ingest notes go to workspace/podcast/_ingest-log.md. Same paths as v1.

Escalate when

• Permission status for a transcript, clip, or guest quote is unknown and the asset is needed.
• The user wants a guest quote or host endorsement published without written approval.
• The claimed expertise behind a signature topic is not supported by any existing asset.
• Cadence commitment does not match available production capacity — a show that dies at episode four is worse than no show.
• A pitch would require claiming an experience or result the user does not have.