Preflight

Preflight

Pre-publish content through simulated audience personas. Get a verdict before you ship.

Workflow

Given content the user wants to publish, run it through audience personas and return a verdict.

1. Load Personas

Check for preflight-personas.md in the project root. If it exists, use those personas. Otherwise use the defaults in references/personas.md.

For quick checks, use 4 personas: The Scroller, The Skeptic, The Ready Buyer, The Amplifier. For thorough checks, use all 8.

2. Evaluate

For each persona, adopt that persona fully and evaluate the content by answering:

1. FIRST REACTION (1-2 sentences): Gut reaction in the first 3 seconds
2. WOULD YOU ENGAGE? (yes/no + why): Would you like, comment, click, or reply?
3. WOULD YOU SHARE? (yes/no + why): Would you send this to someone or repost it?
4. ONE REWRITE (1-2 sentences): One change to make this work better for this persona

Be blunt, specific, and honest. No hedging. Stay in character.

3. Score

Count engagement and share signals across all personas:

• Engage rate: % of personas who would engage
• Share rate: % of personas who would share

4. Verdict

• 🟢 SHIP IT — 50%+ would share. Publish as-is.
• 🟡 REVISE — engaging but not shareable. Read the rewrites, apply the best one, optionally re-run.
• 🟠 RETHINK — mixed signals. The message itself may be wrong, not just the wording.
• 🔴 KILL IT — not landing. Don't publish. Rethink the approach.

5. Output

Present results as:

PREFLIGHT: [verdict]
Engage: X/Y personas | Share: X/Y personas

[For each persona, one line summary of reaction + their rewrite suggestion]

If patterns emerge across personas (e.g., "3 of 4 want to see an image"), call that out as the top actionable insight.

Keep output brief. The user wants a decision, not an essay.

Customization

See references/personas.md for the default persona library and instructions for creating project-specific personas.

Integration

This skill works as a step in any publishing workflow. When used autonomously (heartbeats, cron, content pipelines), run the quick check (4 personas) by default. Use the full 8 when the user explicitly asks for a thorough preflight.