Mph Substack Publish

MPH Substack Publish

End-to-end pipeline. Subject in → draft in mphinance.substack.com out (or published post if asked explicitly).

Inputs

• Subject (required) — what the post is about. One line is fine; longer briefs are better.
• Mode (default: draft) — draft creates a draft only. publish calls /api/v1/drafts/{id}/publish after the draft lands. Always confirm explicitly with Michael before publish mode — that triggers the subscriber email blast and is not reversible.
• Post category (inferred from subject, or asked once if ambiguous):
  • builder — build-in-public, tool launches, code drops. No NFA needed. Default.
  • trade — specific positions / picks / "I bought X". NFA disclaimer required.
  • paid_tease — free post with a paywalled follow-up; include the "what's behind the paywall" section.
  • recovery — personal / sappy / non-finance reflection. No NFA.

Pipeline

1. Read the voice corpus. Read ~/.claude/skills/mph-substack-writer/SKILL.md and ~/.claude/skills/mph-voice-refresh/VOICE.md. The hard rules and RETIRED phrases there supersede anything else.

2. Pick a slug + workspace.

   • Slug: YYYY-MM-DD_kebab-case-title
   • Workspace: ~/.mph-substack-cache/<slug>/ (create if missing). All intermediate files live here, not in the project repo. NEVER write Substack drafts to docs/substack/drafts/ anymore — Michael does not want post markdown checked into git.

3. Draft the post following the mph-substack-writer skeleton:

   • H1 title (Title Case, terse)
   • One-line italic subtitle (the "dek")
   • Optional ![hero](hero.png) reference
   • Bold opener (1-2 short paragraphs)
   • Context section
   • The meat (data + figures + voice)
   • "Here's the truth..." pivot
   • Optional paywall tease (for paid_tease category)
   • Standardized footer (see template below — do NOT improvise this)

4. Render any figures. For tables, comparison cards, stat blocks — write HTML in the workspace folder, render via mph-figure:

   node ~/.claude/skills/mph-figure/scripts/render.mjs --in <workspace>/foo.html --out <workspace>/foo.png --html
   

   Reference in markdown as ![alt](foo.png). Substack will receive these as uploaded S3 images.

5. Push to Substack via the script (handles image upload + ProseMirror conversion + cover image). The pusher lives in the mphinance repo, but the repo path differs per machine, so resolve it for wherever you're running:

   • Windows workstation: C:/Users/mphan/OneDrive/Documents/GitHub/mphinance/substack_social/create_draft_from_md.py
   • Coolify/Linux box (user mph): ~/mphinance/substack_social/create_draft_from_md.py
   • Otherwise: find it with git rev-parse --show-toplevel from inside the mphinance checkout, or find ~ -path '*substack_social/create_draft_from_md.py'.

   python <pusher> <workspace>/post.md
   

   It prints the edit URL. Surface that URL to Michael.

6. If mode is publish (only with Michael's explicit confirmation):

   • Run python <pusher> <workspace>/post.md --publish (same <pusher> resolved in step 5)
   • Surface the live post URL.

Standardized footer template

Use one of these three at the end of EVERY post. Replace the --- separator with markdown horizontal rule (Substack handles it). Do not improvise alternative sign-offs or CTAs; consistency matters more than novelty here.

builder (default) — no NFA

— Michael

---

*If this helped, subscribe so the next one lands in your inbox.*

trade — with NFA

— Michael

---

*Not financial advice. Do your own research. Don't trade on someone else's conviction.*

*If this helped, subscribe so the next one lands in your inbox.*

paid_tease — with paywall section above the footer

## What's behind the paywall

[one-paragraph tease of the paid follow-up — what it covers, when it drops, why it's worth paying for]

— Michael

---

*If this helped, subscribe so the next one lands in your inbox. Paid subs get the deep version on [day].*

Path note (works from any CWD)

The pusher script create_draft_from_md.py lives in the mphinance repo. The absolute path above means this skill works whether Claude is invoked from the mphinance repo, a different repo, or anywhere else. If Michael moves the repo, update the path in this SKILL.md.

The script reads secrets.env from the mphinance repo automatically (resolved relative to the script's parent dir), so SUBSTACK_SID lookup works regardless of CWD.

Hard rules (enforced)

• Sign-off is exactly — Michael. No last name. No MPH initials. No title. No "Managing Partner." No "The Phund." Just the em-dash + first name. (Yes, this is the one place an em-dash is allowed — it's the conventional dash for a signature, not narrative prose.) The MPH handle is fine as a brand/handle in body text ("@mphinance", "the mphinance newsletter") but never as a sign-off — that's the same as using the last name.
• No NFA in builder posts. Adding "not financial advice" to a post about building a Python tool reads like a lawyer wrote it. The top-engagement posts in Michael's network (Stephane Derosiaux, Pawel Jozefiak, Jenny Ouyang, even Compounding Quality who literally posts his trades) have ZERO NFA in the body.
• Subscribe CTA goes at the bottom, after the signature. Not at the top. Not mid-post (Substack auto-inserts those). One CTA, end of post, italicized.
• The Substack-published draft is the source of truth. The local markdown in ~/.mph-substack-cache/ is ephemeral. Don't commit it to git. Don't write to docs/substack/drafts/.

Examples

Example invocation: "write a Substack about why I dropped the institutional brokerage flow"

• Category: builder (it's a build-in-public post about a stack change)
• Mode: draft
• Footer: builder variant
• Expected output: draft URL like https://mphinance.substack.com/publish/post/199012345

Example invocation: "draft a post on my new options.wheel position in GOLD"

• Category: trade (specific position)
• Mode: draft
• Footer: trade variant (NFA included)
• Expected output: draft URL, with NFA in footer

Example invocation: "publish the pulse-style network analysis post"

• This is two questions: which post, and is publish mode confirmed? Ask: "Confirm you want this published live, not drafted? That'll send the email blast to all subscribers."
• Only proceed with --publish flag after explicit yes.

Failure modes to watch for

• Image upload returns 400 — usually means the image is too large or the format is unsupported. PNGs under 2MB are reliable.
• Draft created but editor crashes opening it — body included an unsupported ProseMirror node type. See the memory entry [[reference-substack-prosemirror-schema]] for valid types. The current pipeline avoids this by routing markdown through proper PM nodes, never rawHtml.
• SUBSTACK_SID expired — sign out + back in at substack.com to rotate, then update secrets.env.