My Automated Content Pipeline

•Auto-fires when a raw clip lands in iCloud raw/ (launchd WatchPaths + settle + iCloud-download-readiness gate); posts status to Slack on every fire

•Sub-step A — process_shorts.py: silence detection trims dead air, audio normalized to -16 LUFS (broadcast standard); outputs *_clean.mp4 to processed/

•Sub-step B — render_shorts.py (calls render_spike.py): 9:16 reframe (pass-through for phone 9:16, center-crop for 16:9 camera), word-level karaoke captions (Anton uppercase 120pt, brand-orange active word via faster-whisper word-timestamps + libass), hook overlay box (Anton uppercase brand-orange text on brand-navy rounded rectangle, 0-2.5s window, top edge), brand mark logo bottom-left for the full clip duration; outputs *_final.mp4 to rendered/

•Filename-agnostic: incoming clips named anything (IMG_NNNN.MOV from phone, Untitled.mov from MacBook, etc.) auto-routed to the right week-N manifest entry by ASR-vs-prompter-script similarity (rapidfuzz token_set_ratio, threshold 65). No rename habit required.

•Script-diff verification: rapidfuzz fidelity of ASR vs the cleaned prompter script. ≥98% + zero glossary substitutions auto-passes. 95-98% OR any glossary substitution proceeds but emits .review.txt next to the output. <95% halts unless --accept-adlib is passed (the standing policy — William ad-libs scripts on purpose).

•Idempotent via processed_log.txt + rendered_log.txt; reruns skip already-handled files cleanly.

•Effective W22 (2026-05-25): replaces Opus Clip's rendering role at this stage. See hub/decisions/2026-05-18-local-shorts-renderer.md.

•From W21+ onward: handles 6 clips per week (5 weekday tactical + 1 Saturday wrap). Output named W{N}-1_final.mp4 through W{N}-6_final.mp4.

•Push content: each clip stays on its scheduled slot, fired by the host platform on the calendar day

•Inputs are the fully-rendered *_final.mp4 outputs from Stage 4 (captions/hook/brand mark/reframe all baked in). No further rendering at this stage.

•Distribution via Postiz Cloud CLI (postiz upload + postiz posts:create per platform-slot) to YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn (PL company + WD personal), and X. Effective W23 cutover; W22 runs a parallel spike. See hub/decisions/2026-05-17-postiz-cloud-stage-5.md.

•Platform-specific timing: shorts/LinkedIn 9:00 AM ET, X 11:30 AM ET (current standard)

•X remains in the rotation per the engagement gate in brand-standards/SKILL.md > X (Twitter); the morning-2026-05-17 deprecation decision was reversed the same evening (see hub/decisions/2026-05-17-reverse-x-deprecation.md). The W22/W23 zero-engagement pause trigger handles the next decision data-driven.

•No clip appears on two platforms the same day (no-duplicate rule), enforced by the wrapper script that emits one posts:create per clip-platform-day

•No video is allowed to appear more than once on a channel ever (no-repost rule)

•Mon-Fri tactical clips capped at 5 per week. The Saturday wrap is a separate TikTok-only post (see below).

•TikTok Saturday wrap video (effective W21, 2026-05-12; format restated 2026-05-09 after the carousel verification spike): one additional TikTok-only 30-45 second casual recap clip per week, scheduled for 9:00 AM ET Saturday. Rides the same Stages 2-5 pipeline as the weekday clips. From W23 onward, scheduled via Postiz CLI with only the TikTok integration ID. Does NOT count against the no-repost rule (different content from the Mon-Fri tactical clips). Does NOT count against the same-day no-duplicate rule (TikTok-only). See reference/skills/brand-standards/SKILL.md > TikTok > Saturday wrap video format. The wrap script is produced in Stage 2; the caption is produced in Stage 6.

•W20 was a one-off manual exception: the carousel-to-wrap pivot happened mid-W20 (2026-05-09) so the W20 wrap was filmed separately, trimmed by William, and scheduled directly in TikTok Studio web. From W21 the wrap rode the Opus Clip path. W22 ships from the local renderer (Stage 4 cutover); from W23 scheduling rides the Postiz path.

•LinkedIn gets the YouTube URL in the post body with a compelling description; never 'link in comments'

•X copy stays under 280 characters as a single self-contained tweet with #ProfessorLeads as the first hashtag; the link goes in the main post body alongside the copy and hashtags (no reply threads)

•Every external URL pointing back to professorleads.com is UTM-tagged per the convention in reference/skills/brand-standards/SKILL.md (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign=w{N}-{theme}, utm_content). Effective W20.

•TikTok Saturday wrap caption (effective W21, 2026-05-12; restated 2026-05-09): 1-2 sentences setting up the recap + the standard 6-hashtag set (#ProfessorLeads first). Less involved than the weekday clips since the wrap is TikTok-only and the post body contains no external link (the bio link rotates Saturday morning). Full format spec at reference/skills/brand-standards/SKILL.md > TikTok > Saturday wrap video format.

•Every piece of copy passes both Voice DNA and Brand Standards checks

•Drafted in hub/pipeline/weekN-upload-prep.md for traceability before being applied to scheduled posts

•Publish-on-completion: fires the moment Voice DNA + Brand Standards self-checks pass AND all links verify live

•Frontmatter date stays at the canonical week-of date even when the file lands earlier

•Markdown committed and pushed to main; Vercel auto-deploys within 60 seconds

•Pull content has no audience notification, so early publish is invisible to subscribers and improves SEO indexing time

•After Vercel deploy: submit the new blog URL to Google Search Console for indexing via the URL Inspection tool (see CLAUDE.md > Google Search Console Indexing)

•Push content: drafted and scheduled in advance, fired by LinkedIn on the Monday morning slot

•LinkedIn text post with a direct link to the new blog article, posted from the William DeCourcy personal profile

•Drafted and scheduled in the same Chrome MCP session that publishes the blog (single-session pattern)

•Voice DNA and Brand Standards self-checks gate the draft before scheduling

•Not event-triggered by the blog publish: the calendar slot is the source of truth