/daily-brief

name: daily-brief
description: Generate personalized news intelligence with verified sources (7-day freshness requirement)
roles: [all]
integrations: [web-search]

COG Daily Brief Skill

Purpose

Find verified, relevant news for personalized daily briefings with strict verification standards and strategic relevance analysis tailored to user's specific interests and projects.

When to Invoke

• User wants their daily news briefing
• User says "daily brief", "news", "what's happening", "morning brief"
• User wants to stay updated on their interests
• Morning routine or regular check-in time

Agent Mode Awareness

**Check `agent_mode` in `00-inbox/MY-PROFILE.md` frontmatter:**

• If `agent_mode: team` — delegate news research across different interest areas to parallel sub-agents (e.g., one agent per topic cluster). Each agent searches, verifies sources, and returns findings. Combine and synthesize results into the final brief.
• If `agent_mode: solo` (default) — handle all research and synthesis directly in the conversation. No delegation.

Pre-Flight Check

**Before executing, check for user profile:**

1. Look for `00-inbox/MY-PROFILE.md` and `00-inbox/MY-INTERESTS.md` in the vault 2. If NOT found:

   Welcome to COG! Daily briefs work best when personalized.

   Let's quickly set up your profile (takes 2 minutes).

   Would you like to run onboarding first, or should I generate a general brief?

3. If found:

• Read `MY-INTERESTS.md` to get topics for news curation
• Read `MY-PROFILE.md` to get user's name and active projects
• Read `03-professional/COMPETITIVE-WATCHLIST.md` if exists for competitive tracking
• Use topics to curate relevant news
• Connect news to user's active projects when relevant

**Get current timestamp (REQUIRED before generating any files):**

1. Run `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M'` using Bash to get the actual current date and time 2. Store this value and use it for the `created:` frontmatter field 3. NEVER guess or fabricate the time — always use the value returned by the `date` command

Process Flow

1. Gather Context

Collect the information needed for personalized curation:

• Read `00-inbox/MY-PROFILE.md` for:
• User's name
• User's role/job
• Active projects

• Read `00-inbox/MY-INTERESTS.md` for:
• Topics they're interested in
• Preferred news sources

• Read `03-professional/COMPETITIVE-WATCHLIST.md` (if exists) for:
• Companies/people to track

Deduplication — Previous Brief Scan

Read up to 3 most recent daily briefs from `01-daily/briefs/` (most recent first):

• Extract `dedup_urls` from their frontmatter (if present)
• Also scan their headlines/story titles as semantic fallback for cross-source matching
• Build a set of **covered stories** to avoid repeating

**Matching rules (in priority order):** 1. **URL match (primary):** If a candidate story's main source URL already appears in `dedup_urls`, it's a known story 2. **Headline match (fallback):** If the URL is different but the headline describes the same event as a previous story, treat as duplicate — this catches the same story reported by different outlets

During news research (Step 2), apply dedup rules:

• **Skip** stories already covered unless there is a **material update** (new data, resolution, escalation, reversal)
• If including an update, prefix with "**Update:** _first covered [date]_"
• Stories older than 3 briefs are eligible for re-inclusion if still developing

2. News Research and Curation

Apply comprehensive news research methodology:

Interest-Based Research

• Search based on user's current interest profile
• Focus on strategic relevance to user's role and projects
• Identify emerging patterns and developments
• Diversify sources for balanced perspective

Verification Standards (MANDATORY)

**Date Verification:**

• ALL news MUST be from last 7 days ONLY
• Verify publication dates with verified timestamps
• NEVER include older news without explicit disclosure

**Source Credibility Assessment:**

• **Tier 1 Sources (Highest Credibility):** Major news organizations (Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, WSJ, NYT), official company announcements, government statements
• **Tier 2 Sources (High Credibility):** Industry publications, credible tech/business blogs, research reports from reputable firms
• **Tier 3 Sources (Moderate - Verify Carefully):** Social media from verified accounts, company blogs, community discussions
• Minimum 2 credible sources for any claim
• Cross-reference key facts and figures

**Fact Cross-Reference:**

• Verify claims across multiple independent sources
• Use WebFetch to verify any statistics before including them
• Identify potential bias and provide balanced perspective

Strategic Relevance Analysis

Assess impact on user:

**Direct Impact (High Priority):**

• News directly affecting user's projects or companies
• Regulatory changes affecting user's industry
• Competitive moves by direct competitors
• Technology developments affecting user's tech stack

**Strategic Impact (Medium Priority):**

• Market trends affecting user's target customers
• Investment patterns in user's industry
• Talent market changes affecting hiring
• Partnership opportunities or threats

**Contextual Impact (Lower Priority):**

• Broader economic trends affecting business climate
• Technology trends affecting future planning
• Industry thought leadership and opinion
• Educational content for professional development

Opportunity and Threat Identification

**Opportunities:**

• Market Opportunities: New markets or customer segments opening
• Technology Opportunities: New tools or platforms to leverage
• Partnership Opportunities: Potential collaboration partners
• Competitive Opportunities: Competitor weaknesses or market gaps

**Threats:**

• Competitive Threats: New competitors or competitive advantages
• Technology Threats: Disruptive technologies or obsolescence risks
• Market Threats: Market shifts or customer