weekly-signal-diff

# Weekly Signal Diff

## Problem

A wall of news does not tell the user what structurally changed. Most weekly
roundups over-index on headlines, underweight economics and dependency shifts,
and ignore what the user actually cares about. This skill turns a noisy week
into a small set of structural changes, weighted by Open Brain memory.

## When to Use

- Weekly market review or Sunday/Friday ritual
- "Run my weekly signal diff"
- "What changed this week that matters to me?"
- "Track this market and tell me the structural shifts"
- "Turn this pile of news into a decision-grade diff"
- Ongoing automation that writes a weekly digest back to Open Brain

## Required Context

Gather as much as the environment allows:

- the user's active projects, bets, and recurring interests
- prior weekly digests or adjacent summaries stored in Open Brain
- the desired freshness window (default: last 7 days)
- any preferred outlets, banned sources, or explicit watchlist entities

If the user has not provided categories or companies, read
[references/starter-universe.md](references/starter-universe.md) and use it as
a bootstrap layer only.

If live web access is available and the user wants current coverage, read
[references/live-search-upgrade.md](references/live-search-upgrade.md) and use
the strongest search mode the environment supports.

## Process

1. Establish the frame.
   - Confirm the topic space, freshness window, and whether the goal is
     personal awareness, operator strategy, investor tracking, or content prep.
   - If the user says nothing, default to a 7-day operator-style review.

1. Pull Open Brain context first.
   - Search for active projects, current priorities, recurring entities, recent
     captures, and the last 2-4 weekly digests.
   - Tool names vary by client. Use the available Open Brain search, list, and
     capture tools in the environment rather than assuming fixed names.
   - Extract a short relevance profile: what the user is building, what they
     keep revisiting, what they are worried about, and what they are trying to
     learn.

1. Build the watchlist.
   - Start from the suggested 10-category / 30-company starter universe if the
     user has not defined a watchlist.
   - Treat the starter list as a scaffold, not a contract.
   - Re-rank or replace items using Open Brain context:
     - promote companies, categories, or themes the user mentions often
     - demote low-signal items
     - add personal-priority entities even if they are outside the starter set
   - Preserve some baseline discovery. Personalization should shape the scan,
     not collapse it into only known favorites.

1. Gather the week's evidence.
   - Prefer fresh, source-backed information with links or citations.
   - If live search is available, perform a broad sweep first, then targeted
     follow-ups on the top candidate shifts.
   - If live search is not available, work from the user's provided sources and
     say that the diff is source-bounded.
   - Ignore pure announcement theater unless it changes economics,
     distribution, regulation, dependency, geography, or buyer behavior.

1. Ask the structural questions on every candidate signal.
   - What constraint shifted?
   - Who gained or lost leverage?
   - What got cheaper, harder, faster, or more defensible?
   - What dependency got exposed?
   - What business model or pricing assumption weakened?
   - What changed in regulation, geography, or distribution?
   - Why does this matter for the user's actual projects, workflows, or market
     view?

1. Score before writing.
   - Keep only the few signals that represent real change.
   - A good weekly diff usually has 3-7 structural shifts.
   - Merge duplicates, drop weak stories, and explicitly label speculation as
     speculation.

1. Produce the weekly diff.

Use this default structure:

- `Coverage note` — what was scanned, how it was personalized, and the date
  window
- `Structural shifts` — 3-7 items, each with:
  - what changed
  - why it matters in general
  - why it matters to this user
  - supporting evidence or citations
- `What changed from last week` — new, rising, fading, or resolved themes
- `Watch next` — entities, constraints, or questions to monitor
- `Actions` — optional follow-ups, only if the evidence supports them

1. Capture the durable output.
   - Save the final digest back into Open Brain when capture tools are
     available.
   - Prefer one durable weekly summary plus separate captures only for truly
     important follow-up items.
   - Include provenance: week ending date, topic scope, and major entities
     covered.

## Output

When this skill works correctly, the user gets:

- a concise weekly structural diff instead of a headline roundup
- a clear explanation of why the shifts matter to them specifically
- citations or source links when live search is available
- a durable weekly digest saved back into Open Brain for future comparison

## Guardrails

- The goal is `diff, not digest`.
- Do not force all 30 suggested companies into the final output. They are there
  to prevent blank-page syndrome, not to create fake coverage.
- Do not mistake product launches, benchmark screenshots, or funding headlines
  for structural change unless they move a real constraint.
- Keep general market analysis separate from personalized implications.
- If evidence is thin, say the week was thin.
- If the environment lacks live search, be explicit about the freshness
  limitation.
- If the user's interests are unclear, use the starter universe and explain
  that it is a bootstrap pass.

## Notes for Other Clients

- This skill is portable across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and similar clients
  because the core behavior is procedural.
- Adapt Open Brain tool names to the local environment.
- For scheduled runs, pair the skill with the user's automation system and keep
  the same structure every week so diffs stay comparable.
- If OpenRouter is available, prefer a Perplexit