News Front Page

Generate Newspaper Front Page

Produce a complete edition of The Gradient News & Observer for a requested time window: digest → markdown stories → image.

Parameters

/news-front-page [duration]

• duration (optional, default 24h): time window. Accepts 90m, 1h, 6h, 24h, 7d — anything news-digest --duration understands.
• env (optional, default cloud): cloud → .env.cloud, local → .env.supabase. Production data lives in cloud; local is mostly empty unless the user is testing.
• skip-image (optional flag): only run steps 1–3, skip image rendering. Useful for iterating on copy.

If duration is missing, default to 24h and proceed — do not ask.

Output files

All under artifacts/. Use the digest's end timestamp formatted as YYYYMMDD-HHMMSSZ UTC for the stem, and past-<duration> as the suffix:

• Digest JSON: artifacts/news-digest-<stem>-past-<duration>.json
• Front-page Markdown: artifacts/gradient-news-observer-front-page-<stem>-past-<duration>.md
• Image PNG: the image script computes the path from the Markdown filename. The default renderer writes a regional composite under artifacts/gradient-news-observer-regions/.

Steps

1. Generate the digest JSON

Run news-digest to pull events for the requested window into a structured JSON file. Use the entry-point script (registered in pyproject.toml):

uv run news-digest \
  --env-file .env.cloud \
  --duration <duration> \
  --format json \
  --output artifacts/news-digest-<stem>-past-<duration>.json

• The script connects read-only to Postgres, pulls all events in the window, dedupes recipient fan-out, and writes a JSON object with global_stats, players, leaderboard_ranks, period_ranks, and warnings.
• For a 24-hour window the JSON is large (multi-MB). Don't cat it. Use python3 -c or targeted Read calls.

2. Mine the digest for storylines

Read the JSON with small Python scripts (via Bash) to surface the angles. Useful queries:

• Top by activity / wealth / trade volume / sectors visited / combat wins / messages / sessions. Print rank tables with name + key counters for the top 15–25.
• Notable garrison events. For each player with garrison_events, show the lines containing placed, collected, mode_changed, or disbanded (these are the real deployments — the rest are passers-through).
• Combat events. For each player with combat_wins > 0 or destroyed_ships > 0, dump the combat log; look for back-to-back attacks on garrisons, defeated targets, multi-round skirmishes, and named opponents.
• All public chat. Dedupe broadcasts and direct messages by sender+text and sort by timestamp. Broadcasts are the strongest signal for story angles — pilots announcing intent (toll lanes, recruitment, accusations, public notices of kills).
• Ship purchases / sales / trade-ins. Five-or-fewer transactions per day, easy to enumerate.
• Corporation events. corporation.created and corporation.disbanded counts; cross-reference with chat broadcasts that mention a corp name.
• Leaderboard top 10 for wealth, trading, territory, exploration. Sort by rank ascending; show name + score.

You don't need TaskCreate for the mining — it's all read-only Python. Spawn a single Explore agent only if the JSON exceeds ~10MB and you want a focused report.

Pick 9 storylines from what you find. Mix should match the structure below: 7 grounded news beats + 2 dishy gossip angles. Lean toward conflict, status changes, public statements, and surprising aggregates.

3. Write the front-page Markdown

Write to artifacts/gradient-news-observer-front-page-<stem>-past-<duration>.md using the structure below verbatim. The image generator's prompt template assumes this exact section count and ordering.

Structure (10 sections, in order)

File template

# THE GRADIENT NEWS & OBSERVER

**Front-Page Edition — <window length> ending <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM> UTC**

*"All the news the void allows."*

---

## 1. <Headline>

*<Story-specific section tag — e.g. Combat Wire, Trade & Lanes, Open Channel>*

<Lede paragraph — the strongest single fact or scene.>

<Second paragraph — context, quoted broadcasts, supporting numbers.>

---

## 2. <Headline>

*<Story-specific section tag>*

<Two paragraphs, same shape as story 1.>

---

## 3–7. <Headlines>

*<Story-specific section tag — different per story>*

<One short paragraph each — three to five sentences.>

---

## 8. <Headline>

*<Oblique, catty, insider-y tag — e.g. Salvage Talk>*

<Two or three short, punchy sentences. Vary the opening — see persona guide.>

---

## 9. <Headline>

*<Different oblique, catty, insider-y tag — e.g. The Mega-Port Set>*

<Two or three short, punchy sentences. Different opening from story 8.>

---

## 10. Market Update — <Window> Galactic Index

*Market Update*

| Measure | Value |
| --- | ---: |
| Gross trade volume | $... |
| ... |

| Top of the Boards | Pilot | Score |
| --- | --- | ---: |
| Wealth (lifetime) | ... | ... |
| ... |

---

*All sector numbers used appear in the period's open broadcasts; private direct messages and non-public sector references have been withheld.*

The closing italic footnote is required — the image template renders it as a footnote.

4. Render the front-page image

Unless skip-image was passed, run:

uv run news-front-page-image \
  --front-page-md artifacts/gradient-news-observer-front-page-<stem>-past-<duration>.md

• Defaults to the composited-regions renderer, which generates each story region separately and composites them — better text fidelity than the older one-shot renderer.
• Defaults to linotype light mode (black ink on white paper, character/ship names bolded). To render the original dark mode (cyan and chartreuse on dark paper, names highlighted in cyan), append --dark-mode. Dark mode writes its output dir and composite filename with a -dark suffix to keep light and dark renders side by side.
• For comparison or quick iteration, append --renderer one-shot to render the whole page in a single image-edit call.
• The script writes the final PNG, per-region prompt text, region PNGs, and metadata JSON. Composited-regions output lives under artifacts/gradient-news-observer-regions/<stem>/; one-shot output lives under artifacts/gradient-news-observer-images/.
• Composited-regions takes several minutes (one image-edit call per region, run in sequence). One-shot finishes in 30–90 seconds. Stream stdout — both print final paths on success.
• If OPENAI_API_KEY isn't in the environment, the script reads it from .env.

5. Report

Print the three artifact paths (digest JSON, front-page Markdown, image PNG) and the headline of story 1 so the user can open the right files.

Personas — write in these voices

Straight news — New York Times house style

• Lede paragraph carries the strongest factual beat. Date, place, actor, action.
• Past tense. Third person. Active voice.
• Quote public broadcasts with attribution: "…", the pilot declared on the open channel.
• Numbers spelled out under ten in body prose, numerals for stats and credits ($12,533,985).
• No hype, no exclamation points, no scare quotes. The tone is measured even when the facts are dramatic.
• One non-headline-grabbing fact per story is welcome — context that situates the day.

Gossip — dishy, varied openings

• 2–3 short, punchy sentences. No paragraphs.
• Vary the opening every time. "A little kestrel told this columnist…" is one option. Others:
  • "Word from the trading docks…"
  • "Overheard on the open channel at HH:MM UTC…"
  • "Whispers in the wardroom suggest…"
  • "One of your columnist's more reliable informants…"
  • "Spotted at a mega-port this cycle…"
  • "The rumor on the long-range channels…"
• First-person columnist voice ("your columnist," "this column") is fine and characterful.
• Wry, observational, never mean. Tease, don't accuse.

Section tags

Each story carries a single italic line directly under its headline that names the newspaper section it belongs to. These tags are part of the look — they make the page feel like an actual newspaper instead of a numbered list of stories. Write a fresh tag for every story; never re-use one.

Tags for straight news (stories 1–7)

Pick a section name that fits the story. Real-newspaper analogues are great when they're the obvious fit (Markets, Corporate Affairs, Cartography). Lean into the retro-space-game theme when there's room to be a little playful (Combat Wire, Trade & Lanes, Open Channel, Shipyard). Keep them short — two or three words, title-cased, no punctuation. A few worked examples for reference:

• A combat-heavy day with named pilots → Combat Wire (or Hostilities, Casualty Desk)
• A toll lane / mega-port / trade-route story → Trade & Lanes (or Public Affairs if it leans policy)
• An exchange of public broadcasts → Open Channel (or Frontier Justice if it's spicy)
• A new corporation, recruiting drive, member moves → Corporate Affairs
• An exploration / survey / probe record → Cartography (or The Survey Desk)
• Ship purchases, sales, trade-ins → Shipyard (or Off the Lot)
• Trade volume, port flow, leaderboard movement → Markets (or The Ledger)
• Chat broadcasts that read more like commentary than news → Frontier Justice (reserve Open Channel for the strongest broadcast-driven beat on the page)

If two stories would land on the same tag — adjacent or not — change one. Each tag must be unique on the page; visual rhythm and section variety depend on it. If a straight-news story and a gossip beat both spring from open-channel chatter, give the gossip the Open-Channel Confidential variant and keep the news as Open Channel.

Tags for gossip (stories 8–9)

Oblique. Catty. Insider-y. The reader should feel they've stumbled into the back room of a yacht club. Two or three words, title-cased; "The X Set" / "On the X Beat" / "X Talk" patterns work. Worked examples:

• Wreckage / destroyed ships / escape pods → Salvage Talk, From the Insurance Wing, Recovery Notes
• Mega-port socialites, traders, anyone seen at the dock → The Mega-Port Set, Concourse Whispers, Heard on the Promenade
• Corp politics, recruitment, defections → The Member Lounge, From the Boardroom Door
• A pilot's unguarded chatter on the open channel → Open-Channel Confidential

The tag should hint at the gist of the gossip without naming it outright. If your tag basically restates the headline, it's too literal — make it more sideways.

Tag for the market box (story 10)

Always literally *Market Update*. No variants. The image template expects this string.

Privacy and content rules — non-negotiable

These constraints flow into the image prompt verbatim. Violating them in the markdown means a wrong front page.

• Direct messages are private. Never quote, paraphrase, or imply contents of any DM. Players cannot see other players' DMs in-game; the newspaper can't either. Broadcasts are public — quote them freely.
• Sector numbers are restricted. Use a sector number only if (a) it appears in a public broadcast inside the window, OR (b) it is a Federation Space sector (the meta-defined fedspace list, 200 sectors by default). When in doubt, omit the number and use a generic phrase like "the borderlands beyond Federation Space" or "a contested sector outside Fed."
• No invented facts. Headlines, ledes, quotes, percentages, ship classes, credit amounts, sector numbers — every readable claim must be grounded in the digest. If a stat is interesting but unverifiable, leave it out.
• No fabricated player names. Only use names that appear in players[].name or in the leaderboard ranks of the digest.
• No invite codes unless they were broadcast publicly.
• Aggregate counts are always public. Total sectors visited, total trade volume, ships destroyed, corporations created — all fair game for ledes and the market box.

Story-mining heuristics

Strong story signals, in roughly decreasing order of front-page value:

1. A public broadcast that announces intent — toll lanes, recruitment, accusations, "public notice" kill claims, declarations of war. These almost always lead the page.
2. An exchange of broadcasts between two pilots — accusation + denial, ultimatum + response. Story 2 territory.
3. A new corporation with a public manifesto broadcast in the window.
4. A combat day above baseline — count ship.destroyed and combat.ended. Fourteen ship destructions is a lot; one is a footnote.
5. A leaderboard sweep — same name in #1 across multiple boards, or three sister ships in the top three of one board.
6. A run of ship purchases with a clear narrative (e.g., a pilot who lost a hull and re-bought).
7. An autonomous-fleet survey record — "468 sectors in 24 hours" is a clean explorer beat.
8. Garrison drama in or near Fed Space. Garrisons placed close to fedspace, especially if destroyed within hours, are reliable conflict copy.

Weak signals — generally skip:

• Quiet trading sessions with no anchoring narrative.
• Movement totals without a name attached.
• Errors, session counts, or other infra signals.

Things this skill does NOT do

• Does not edit code, deploy, or run migrations. Read-only digest + write artifacts under artifacts/.
• Does not commit anything. The user reviews the markdown and image first.
• Does not push the image anywhere. It writes to disk; sharing is the user's call.
• Does not invent storylines to pad to 9. If the window is genuinely quiet (e.g., an off-hour 1h slice), say so plainly in the lede and reduce gossip items to one. Better a thin honest page than a fabricated one.