Discover Viral Posts

Discover Viral Posts

Find posts from curated thought leaders that are relevant to what does and where is going. Surface the best engagement opportunities with concrete strategies.

This is outbound discovery (finding conversations to join), not inbound tracking (that's daily-mentions-summary).

Inputs

None required. Optionally the user may specify:

• A date range (defaults to last 24 hours)
• Additional accounts to include
• A lower or higher engagement threshold

What we're looking for

Every post must pass a relevance filter before engagement numbers matter. There are three categories of relevant posts:

Category 1: Posts describing pain points solves

Someone wants or is building something already does — one of your <FEATURE> areas, or a workflow your product handles well.

Examples (replace with calibration posts from your own space):

• @example_account_1: "" — https://x.com/example_account_1/status/
• @example_account_2: "" — https://x.com/example_account_2/status/

Category 2: Thought leadership on

Big-picture takes on where is going — trends, workflow shifts, and where the market is heading.

Examples (replace with calibration posts from your own space):

• @example_account_2: "" — https://x.com/example_account_2/status/
• @example_account_3: "" — https://x.com/example_account_3/status/
• @example_account_4: "" — https://x.com/example_account_4/status/

Category 3: Shifts that expand or threaten

Companies or people changing how they work in ways that create an opening (or a threat) for your product.

Examples (replace with calibration posts from your own space):

• @example_account_5: "" — https://x.com/example_account_5/status/

What to skip

• General AI corporate news (funding rounds, foundation announcements, leadership changes)
• Personal posts, jokes, food, sports with no product angle
• Reply fragments and conversational chatter
• Generic hype that doesn't touch

Workflow

Step 1: Read the account list

Read .agents/skills/discover-viral-posts/followed-accounts.md to get the list of accounts to query.

Step 2: Fetch recent original posts

Use the X API recent-search endpoint (with your X_API_KEY bearer token) to fetch recent posts. See /read-tweet for reading individual tweets.

Build the query from every account in the Monitor list using from: operators joined by OR. Always append -is:retweet -is:reply to get original posts only. Use -n 30 for max results.

Split into batches of ~25 accounts per query to avoid hitting URL length limits. Request up to ~30 results per query.

Example request

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $X_API_KEY" \
  --get "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/recent" \
  --data-urlencode "query=(from:example_account_1 OR from:example_account_2 OR from:example_account_3) -is:retweet -is:reply" \
  --data-urlencode "max_results=30"

Step 3: Filter for relevance, then engagement for the top 3

Read every post and ask: does this fit Category 1, 2, or 3? If not, drop it. Use the example posts above as calibration. Be strict — a post with 2000 likes about unrelated corporate news is not relevant. A post with 50 likes about a specific pain point is.

Tag each post with its category (1, 2, or 3) for use in the engagement strategy.

4. Pick the top 3 results. Bias towards recency. If fewer than 3 posts passed filtering, report what you found. Don't pad with irrelevant posts.

Step 4: Generate engagement strategy for each post

For each post, decide who should post and what they should say. Fetch the most recent 3 posts using the X API from the following accounts to get a feel for their tone.

Account selection (configure these for your own team):

• Brand account (@your-brand): product demos, official amplification, support-like clarification
• Founder account: founder voice, category framing, vision-setting
• Developer-advocate account: product-builder credibility, hands-on usage, builder-to-builder replies
• Engineer swarm: multiple teammates adding distinct, non-duplicative perspectives

You can use some or multiple accounts to engage with a post. Bias towards the simplest plan.

When drafting copy, follow the Principles, AI writing tells, and Hard constraints from draft-brand-reply.

Step 5: Format the summary

Plain text, no markdown, no emojis. One block per post:

Daily Viral Post Roundup -- <date>

1. https://x.com/<username>/status/<id>
   Why: <one sentence on why this is worth engaging with>
   Strategy: <who posts> <action type (reply / QT / RT / independent tweet)>
   Draft: <exact copy they can post>

2. ...

3. ...

Step 6: Post to Slack (optional)

Only post to Slack if the user explicitly asks to "send", "post to Slack", or "share in social-swarm".

1. Check $BUZZ_SLACK_TOKEN exists.
2. Post to #social-swarm using Python urllib.request (not curl, to avoid sandboxing restrictions):

import json, os, urllib.request

token = os.environ["BUZZ_SLACK_TOKEN"]
channel = os.environ["SOCIAL_SWARM_CHANNEL_ID"]
payload = json.dumps({
    "channel": channel,
    "text": formatted_summary,
    "unfurl_links": False,
    "unfurl_media": False,
}).encode()
req = urllib.request.Request(
    "https://slack.com/api/chat.postMessage",
    data=payload,
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {token}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
)
with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as resp:
    result = json.loads(resp.read())
print(result)

3. If BUZZ_SLACK_TOKEN is not set, refuse to send.

Step 8: Save report (optional)

Only if Step 7 was performed (Slack post succeeded):

1. Save to reports/daily-viral/<YYYY-MM-DD>.md in standard Markdown format.
2. Commit and push to the current branch:

mkdir -p reports/daily-viral
# write the report file
git add reports/daily-viral/<YYYY-MM-DD>.md
git commit -m "Add daily viral post roundup for <date>

Co-Authored-By: <your-agent> <agent@your-brand.example>"
git push

Edge Cases

• No relevant posts: Report "quiet day". Don't pad with off-topic high-engagement posts.
• API rate limit hit: Work with whatever results are available. Note incomplete coverage.
• Missing X_API_KEY: Stop and report that it is not set.

Dependencies

• /read-tweet skill — canonical instructions for reading tweets via the X API
• /draft-brand-reply skill — principles, AI writing tells, and hard constraints for all community copy
• $X_API_KEY environment variable — X API bearer token
• $BUZZ_SLACK_TOKEN environment variable — Slack bot token (only for posting)