---
name: signal-mine
description: "Turn a raw dump of external material — news articles, social threads, community discussions, competitor moves, research, sales-call notes — into content angles mapped to the brand's pillars, with what didn't map listed and why. Use when: the user pastes industry material and asks what to do with it, a trend needs a brand-relevant take, or research needs converting into a content plan. Triggers on \"/signal-mine\", \"mine this\", \"what content is in here\", \"turn this into content ideas\", \"here's what's happening in the industry\", \"any angles in this\"."
argument-hint: "[brand-name] [--signals <pasted material>]"
user-invocable: true
---

# /digital-marketing-pro:signal-mine

The intelligence layer between "interesting" and "ours to say". Raw input comes
from anywhere — a newsletter, a Reddit thread, three competitor posts, notes
from yesterday's sales calls. The output is only the angles this brand has
standing to make, each mapped to a pillar, with everything else explicitly
dropped.

The mapping is the value. Any model can turn news into generic content ideas;
the discipline is refusing the ideas that do not serve this brand's authority.

## Inputs

- **The dump** — pasted material, in any shape. More is fine; this skill's job
  is triage.
- **The brand profile** — pillars, audience, positioning, competitors from
  `~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/`. **No profile → stop**: signal-mining
  without pillars produces trend-chasing, which is the exact failure mode this
  skill exists to prevent. Run /digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup first.

## Process

1. Split the dump into discrete signals (a claim, an event, a sentiment, a
   number, a competitor move).
2. For each signal, ask the standing question: *does this brand have something
   to say here that its audience would rather hear from it than from anyone
   else?* Pillar fit is necessary but not sufficient — authority fit decides.
3. For signals that pass: name the angle (the brand's specific take, not a
   summary of the signal), the pillar, a format, and a timeliness window.
4. For signals that fail: list them as dropped, with the reason. This list is
   half the deliverable — it is the record of discipline, and the user may
   overrule it with context you lack.

## Output structure

```
# Signal mine — {brand}, {date}

## Angles ({n})
### A1. [The angle — the take, not the topic]
**From signal:** [one-line source reference]
**Pillar:** [brand pillar]  **Timeliness:** [act this week / evergreen / expires ~date]
**Format:** [post / article / newsletter section / campaign hook]
**Why this brand:** [one sentence of standing — why this take is credibly ours]

## Dropped ({n})
- [signal] — [why: off-pillar / no standing / competitor's story to tell /
  stale by the time we publish / compliance risk]

## Sourcing note
[Which signals carry claims that need verification before anything cites them —
route those through /digital-marketing-pro:verify-claims before drafting]
```

## Critical rules

- **An angle is a take, not a topic.** "AI regulation is changing" is a topic.
  "The new rules reward exactly the disclosure work our clients already do" is
  an angle. Return angles.
- **Authority beats relevance.** A signal can be perfectly on-pillar and still
  be dropped because the brand has nothing distinctive to add. Say that
  plainly.
- **Timeliness is honest.** A "react this week" label on something that takes
  three weeks to produce is a plan to be late. Match the window to the brand's
  real production speed.
- **Claims from pasted material are unverified by definition.** Nothing cites
  a pasted number until it has been through verification — pasted text carries
  no provenance, and provenance is the house rule.
- **The dropped list always ships.** An output with ten angles and no
  rejections means the triage did not happen.