Distro link post skill — Distro Skills on DistroVerse

distro-link-post publishes link-style teasers to a Distro newslode — a headline, a link, and exactly the body text you provide, with nothing added.

The skill is built around one principle: link posts should be brief, copyright-respecting pointers to the original story, not a replacement for it. Earlier versions of this skill quietly added invented decks, auto-generated summaries, "Publisher's take" labels, and **Source:** link-out lines at the top of the body. This version strips all of that out. What you hand the skill is what gets posted.

What you'll need

The Distro Publisher MCP connected, so Claude can call distro_content_publish and distro_content_update.
A target newslode you own or have publish rights to.

What it does

Posts a link-style story to any Distro newslode from a URL + (optional) headline + (optional) body
Headline conventions enforced: sentence case, ≤60 characters, only first word and proper nouns capitalized
Source name and URL go in the dedicated sourceName / sourceUrl fields — not duplicated inside the body
Body is exactly what you provide, paragraphs and quotations preserved verbatim
Preview is derived from the first sentence of your body with a source-attribution prefix (e.g., The Block: ...) — never invented
Strips utm_* and other tracking parameters from the source URL when cleanly possible
Defaults to publishing live; pass status: "draft" if you want to review first

Install the skill

Ask Claude:

"Please fetch the distro-link-post skill from Distro Skills and give me a .skill file I can install."

Claude will pull this story, extract the SKILL.md from the fenced block below, and package it as distro-link-post.skill. The file will appear in your chat with a Save skill button — click it to install directly. That registers the skill with your Claude app so it shows up in your skills list and triggers on matching requests.

Requires the Distro Reader or Distro Publisher MCP connected so Claude can pull the story. While Distro Skills is private, this works for account holders with access. Public read access is coming.

Claude Code users: you have a direct path — ask Claude to drop the unzipped folder into ~/.claude/skills/distro-link-post/ and restart the session. No packaging step needed.

No Distro MCP connected? Copy the SKILL.md contents from the fenced block below into a file called SKILL.md inside a folder called distro-link-post, zip it (folder as zip root), and upload through Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill.

The skill source

This is the canonical SKILL.md:

---
name: distro-link-post
description: "Use this skill when the user asks to post, share, or publish a link/URL to a Distro publication (newslode) using the Distro MCP tools. Triggers on requests like \"post this to my newslode\", \"share this link on Distro\", or when a URL is provided alongside a Distro publishing request. Handles headline casing, headline length, source attribution, and the HTML-vs-markdown quirks of the Distro content tools."
---

# Distro link-style post skill

## Philosophy

These are link-style posts — deliberately brief, copyright-respecting teasers that point readers to the original story. **Do NOT add content the user didn't provide.** No invented decks, no auto-generated summaries, no editorial framing, no labels like "Publisher's take", no `**Source:** [headline](URL)` link-out lines inside the body, no horizontal-rule dividers. The user's body IS the body. Period.

When in doubt, post less, not more.

## What goes where

A link-style post has these pieces:

1. **Headline (title field)** — User provides it. If they don't, shorten the original publisher's headline to fit. Sentence case, **60 characters or fewer**. Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns.

2. **Body (content field)** — Exactly the text the user provided. Nothing prepended, nothing appended, nothing wrapped around it. No link-out line at the top, no deck, no horizontal rule, no "Publisher's take" label. Preserve paragraph breaks and quotations faithfully. If the user provided no body at all, leave it minimal (a single sentence is fine).

3. **Source URL (sourceUrl field)** — The URL the user provided. Strip tracking parameters (`utm_*`, etc.) when cleanly possible.

4. **Source name (sourceName field)** — The publisher name extracted from the URL (e.g., "The Block", "CoinDesk", "WSJ", "Reuters", "Bloomberg").

5. **Preview (preview field, required by the API)** — Derive from what the user gave you. Don't invent. Take the first sentence of the user's body and prefix it with the source attribution (e.g., `The Block: The fundraise was led by Fulgur Ventures...`). If that sentence is too long, truncate at a clean clause break. Aim for roughly 100–120 characters but don't pad. If the user provided no body, derive the preview from the headline plus source attribution.

## Headline conventions

- Sentence case, ≤60 characters.
- If the user-provided headline is longer than 60 chars, shorten it while preserving the core hook. Don't ask permission — just shorten and post.
- Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns.

### Good headline (sentence case, ≤60 chars)
"China's selective AI censorship is a tell" (41 chars)

### Bad headline (title case, too long)
"China's Selective AI Censorship Is A Tell And Here's Why It Matters" (67 chars)

## Body conventions

The body is exactly what the user provided. No additions.

### Good body (user provided this exact text — post it as-is, nothing else)
```markdown
The fundraise was led by Fulgur Ventures with participation from Arche Capital, as reported by The Block's James Hunt.

The company said in a statement that its KeyOS developer platform is now available to outside developers, and its Passport Prime security device can be used to set up AI agent approval flows.

"Every era has its key management problem..." Foundation co-founder and CEO Zach Herbert said, according to The Block.
```

### Bad body (do NOT do this — adds unrequested link-out, invented deck, divider, and label)
```markdown
**The Block:** [Article headline](URL)

[Invented deck sentence summarizing the article.]

---

**Publisher's take:**

[User's actual body...]
```

## Preview conventions

Derive from the user's body. Don't invent.

### Good preview
"The Block: The fundraise was led by Fulgur Ventures with participation from Arche Capital." (~90 chars)

### Bad preview (invented summary not in the user's body)
"The Block: Bitcoin hardware wallet maker Foundation raised $6.4M and is expanding into AI agent approval flows."

## Distro tool quirks

- **Multi-paragraph bodies: send explicit HTML, not markdown.** For any body with more than one paragraph, pass `<p>` paragraphs and set `contentFormat: "html"` on **both** `distro_content_publish` and `distro_content_update`. Do not rely on markdown auto-conversion for multi-paragraph bodies — it has rendered the body in a faint/muted style and dropped the break between paragraphs (observed on Liqquidity's Newslode, pub 69, May 2026). Explicit HTML guarantees regular body text and preserved paragraph breaks. A single-paragraph body can safely go through `distro_content_publish` as markdown.
- `distro_content_update` never auto-converts markdown regardless of content — always pass HTML with `contentFormat: "html"` when updating a body.
- `distro_newslode_list` surfaces private publications — use it to discover pub IDs.
- Set `status: "draft"` when the user wants to review before going live; otherwise publish live.

## When not to use this skill

- Longform original essays published directly on Distro (not link-style reposts) — those follow different conventions.
- Wire-service / Distrowire posts — those have their own formatting requirements.
- Press-release rewrites — use the `distro-release-rewrite` skill instead.

When to use this skill

You have a URL and want to post it to a Distro newslode as a link-style teaser
You've written a short body that you want to appear exactly as written, with no added framing
You want the source name and link captured in the dedicated source fields rather than duplicated inside the body

When not to use this skill

Longform original essays published directly on Distro — those follow different conventions
Wire-service / Distrowire posts — those have their own formatting requirements
Press-release rewrites — use the distro-release-rewrite skill instead

Feedback

This is v1.2.1. Edge cases or suggestions → reply or ping Brad.