A research report lands in your inbox: 40 pages from Galaxy or a16z or Messari, full of charts, forecasts and terms of art that assume you already work in the field. Somewhere inside it there is a news story. Getting that story out is a different job from rewriting a press release, and most attempts go wrong in the same predictable ways — the draft compresses instead of selecting, it repeats the report's insider vocabulary without translating it, and it never answers the reader's first question, which is why any of this matters.

distro-report-writeup is a Claude skill that handles that job. Hand Claude a report URL or PDF and ask for a story, and the skill produces a 600-to-900-word wire-service writeup: a plain-English lede carrying the report's central claim, a paragraph on why the report thinks the claim is true, a "why it matters" paragraph that justifies the coverage, a definition of the report's key term, the report's own caveats woven in next to the numbers they undercut, and a scannable rundown of every company and project named.

It also encodes the traps. It refuses to credit a firm with market activity when the report only cites that firm for a statistic — the single easiest factual error to make in this genre, because it reads as true. It strips out meta commentary about how the report is organized. It insists that every number be stated the way the report states it. And it stops after the draft: filing the story to a publication is a separate step you have to ask for.

What you'll need

  • A web fetch tool, so Claude can pull the report. Long reports often exceed the fetch limit and get written to a temp file; the skill tells Claude to hand that file to a helper agent and read it in chunks rather than guess at contents it hasn't seen.
  • The Distro Reader or Distro Publisher connector (Distro's MCP integration), used two ways: to search for prior coverage of the firms and projects involved, and — only if you ask — to file the finished draft to one of your publications.
  • Nothing else. Drafting works on a vanilla Claude with web access.

What it does

  • Produces a 600-to-900-word draft in chat: headline, description and body, ready for you to edit.
  • Leads with the finding, stated declaratively and attributed to the firm — no clever negations, no paradox headlines, no quote ledes.
  • Glosses every piece of jargon exactly once, at first use. Acronyms get spelled out, proper nouns get a short explanatory clause, and the report's central term of art gets a full sentence before it is used again.
  • Picks one anchor number for the market-size point instead of stacking three competing forecasts, and keeps numbers that actually carry weight over numbers that merely impress.
  • Weaves in the report's own skepticism next to the statistic it undercuts, rather than parking it in a closing paragraph.
  • Builds a player rundown — a bulleted list of named companies and projects with a sentence or two each — because that is the part readers scan for names they recognize.
  • Surfaces the disclosure. Research firms often hold positions in what they cover; the skill reads the fine print and adds a one-line italic note.
  • Adds the house AI-use note at the bottom describing how the piece was actually produced, and uses your name alone on the byline with no AI-credit suffix.
  • Runs a pre-delivery checklist covering the lede, the why-it-matters graf, glossing, number fidelity, misattributed activity, em dashes and meta commentary.
  • Asks for the angle first when the report supports several, so you do not burn a full draft on the wrong one.

Install the skill

Ask Claude:

"Please fetch the distro-report-writeup 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-report-writeup.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.

Claude Code users: you have a direct path — ask Claude to drop the unzipped folder into ~/.claude/skills/distro-report-writeup/ 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-report-writeup, 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-report-writeup
description: Use this skill when the user (Bradley Keoun / "Brad" / "Saucy") asks to write a news story about a research report, analyst note, white paper, survey, index, or study — from a firm like Galaxy, a16z, Messari, Coinbase Institutional, Delphi, Electric Capital, a bank, a consultancy, or an academic group. Triggers on "write a story about this report," "do a writeup of this research," "cover this Galaxy report," "write this study up for DeAI News," or any request pairing a report URL/PDF with a story-writing goal. Produces a 600–900 word wire-service writeup that leads with the report's central claim, glosses every piece of jargon for a general reader, includes a why-it-matters graf, weaves in the report's own caveats, and lists the named projects/companies with a sentence each. Do NOT use for press releases (use distro-release-rewrite), link-reposts (use distro-link-post), X threads (use x-post-story), or podcast episodes (use lodecast-publishing).
---

# Distro Report-Writeup Skill

This skill turns a research report into an original news story. A report is not a press release, and the job is different in three ways that govern everything below:

1. **A report is not an event.** Nobody launched anything. So the story has to supply its own reason to exist, which means a why-it-matters graf that a press-release rewrite never needs.
2. **A report is long and dense.** The job is selection, not compression. Most of what's in a 40-minute research piece does not belong in the story.
3. **A report is written for insiders.** The story is not. Assume the reader has never heard of the report's central term of art.

Producing the first-draft story is the whole job. Filing to a Distro newslode is a separate, optional step (see "Filing is a separate step").

## The flow

1. **Get the report.** `web_fetch` the URL. Long reports routinely blow past the fetch token limit and get spilled to a temp file. When that happens, hand the file to a subagent with instructions to read it in ~40-line chunks and return verbatim quotes, every number in context, the conclusion section in full, and every named company/project with what the report says about each. Do not guess at contents you haven't read.
2. **Search for prior coverage.** Run `distro_search` on the key entities (the firm, the projects, the market). Prior coverage on the target newslode is a back-link opportunity and tells you what the reader already knows.
3. **Ask what angle the user wants**, unless it's obvious. Reports contain three or four plausible stories. Picking the wrong one wastes a full draft. If the user has already told you the angle, take it literally, and re-read their instruction before drafting.
4. **Draft in chat.** Show headline, description, and body. **Stop here** unless the user asks you to file.

## Length

**600 to 900 words.** This is not the 200-word release-rewrite. Glossing jargon and establishing stakes cost words, and cutting them to hit a shorter target is a false economy. If the user asks for 400 words, deliver the tightest possible piece but tell them the genre wants more room.

## Structure

The order that works:

1. **Lede (1–2 sentences).** The report's central claim, in plain English, attributed to the firm. Declarative, not clever. Not a negation ("isn't X, it's Y"), not an abstraction, not a quote.
2. **Mechanism graf.** *Why* the report thinks the claim is true, with the strongest supporting quote from the named author. Follow the quote with a plain-language unpacking of it.
3. **Why-it-matters graf.** Who cares and what's at stake. This is the graf that justifies covering a report at all. Typical shape: "Investors, analysts and researchers are watching whether X can take share from Y, and Z is a fresh proving ground."
4. **Define the term of art.** Every report has one ("inference capital markets," "restaking," "intent-centric architecture"). Give the reader a sentence on what it actually means before you use it again.
5. **Context graf.** What's already happening off-chain, in traditional markets, at the incumbents. Anchor with one big number, not four.
6. **The caveat.** Weave the report's own skepticism into the body, next to the stat it undercuts. Do not save it for a kicker. Use the author's own cautionary language.
7. **Subhead + player rundown.** A bulleted list of the named projects/companies, one to three sentences each: what it is, what the report says about it, one number if there is one. This is the one place a list beats prose, because readers scan it for names they know.
8. **Disclosure graf**, if the publisher has financial positions in what it covers. Italic parenthetical.
9. **AI-use note** (see below).

Use subheads. Two or three in a 900-word piece. A report writeup without subheads is a wall.

## Gloss everything

This is the rule that separates a good report writeup from a bad one. The report was written for professionals. Your reader is not one.

Every proper noun gets an appositive. Every acronym gets spelled out. Every piece of jargon gets a plain-English clause.

- "Goldman Sachs, a major Wall Street bank"
- "CME Group, the Chicago-based commodities exchange operator"
- "GPU stands for graphics processing unit, a type of computer chip increasingly used to process AI queries"
- "agents, which are really just AI-equipped computer programs"
- "Bloomberg terminals, a widely used financial data provider across Wall Street"
- "smaller GPU-rental firms known as neoclouds"

Gloss each term **once**, at first use. A second gloss is a copy-editing error.

If you find yourself writing a sentence you couldn't say out loud to a smart person outside the industry, rewrite it.

## Numbers

Reports are number dumps. Stories are not.

- **Pick one anchor number** for the market-size point. Three competing forecasts is a research finding, not a news graf.
- Use numbers that are **specific and load-bearing**: the market share stat that undercuts the hype, the yield, the burn percentage. Cut numbers that merely impress.
- **Never round or restate a number in a way the report doesn't support.** If the report says "daily tokens processed," do not write "AI jobs processed." Tokens are units of model output. Precision here is the whole job.

## Attribution

- Name the author early: "Lucas Tcheyan, a vice president of research at Galaxy."
- Then vary: "Tcheyan wrote," "he cautioned," "the analyst noted," "according to the report."
- Attribute the firm's *claims* to the firm. The story reports that Galaxy said something; it does not assert that Galaxy is right.

### The attribution trap

**Do not attribute activity to a firm that the report only cites for a statistic.** If a report quotes Goldman Sachs's capex forecast, Goldman is a *source of an estimate*, not a *participant in the market*. Writing a subhead like "Goldman Sachs and AI futures" implies a business line that does not exist in the reporting. This is the single easiest way to put a factual error in a report writeup, and it survives casual editing because it feels true.

If the user asks for a claim the report doesn't support, say so plainly and offer the accurate version of the point instead.

## No meta

The story is about the subject, not about the report's editing decisions. Do not write:

- "It gets one line, no analysis."
- "The report's centerpiece."
- "Galaxy devotes a full section to..."

The reader wants to know what Morpheus is, not how many words Galaxy spent on it. If the report says almost nothing about a project, either say what the project is in your own reporting or leave it out.

## Headline

- **Sentence case.** Always.
- **Source + finding.** "Galaxy sees role for blockchain in multi-trillion-dollar AI markets" beats "Crypto's edge in AI is the market that doesn't exist yet."
- State a claim, don't construct a paradox. No negations, no "the thing that isn't," no colons as crutches.
- Attribution can be implicit if the firm is in the hed, or trail with ", report says."

## Description / preview

- **~120–160 characters.** Slightly longer than a link post, because it has to orient.
- **Orient, don't quote.** A quote fragment means nothing to someone who hasn't read the story. Explain what's happening: "A market is springing up to let traders hedge the cost of AI computation, and a new report says on-chain protocols could have inherent advantages in the race."

## Voice and style

Follow **brads-voice** for register, with these overrides:

- **Professional, neutral, informed.** Reporter hat. Skeptical but curious. Not a cheerleader for the report's thesis and not a debunker.
- Active voice, concrete verbs, short paragraphs (1–3 sentences).
- **No em dashes.** Use commas, periods, parentheticals. A spaced en dash ( – ) once or twice per piece, max.
- **Hyphenation:** on-chain, off-chain, self-custodial, co-founder, multitrillion-dollar (AP), open-source.
- Say **when** the report was published ("published Monday," "in a report Monday"). Reports are news only because they are new.
- Don't editorialize about whether the thesis is right. Let the report's own caveats do the skeptical work.

## Disclosure

Research firms routinely hold positions in what they cover, and reports disclose this in fine print at the bottom. **Read the disclosure and surface it.** A short italic parenthetical before the AI-use note:

> *(Disclosure noted in the report: Galaxy Digital holds positions in DIEM and VVV, and Ornn is a Galaxy portfolio company.)*

This is a credibility move and it costs one line.

## AI-use note

At the very bottom, after an `<hr>`, in italics and parentheses. The house label:

> *(HOW AI WAS USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THIS PIECE: The first draft of this story was written on Claude Desktop using a custom skill and prompt. I then used Distro Publisher, our MCP server, to file a draft directly to [newslode] on DistroVerse. I used the DistroVerse editing interface to make some edits, and I personally checked all the facts prior to publication.)*

Adapt to the actual workflow. If the user rewrote heavily, say so ("in this case almost a complete rewrite"). If the piece was only drafted and never filed, trim the Distro clauses.

## Byline

Default: **`[User's name]`** (for Brad, `Bradley Keoun`). The byline is the writer's name alone, with no "assisted by Claude" or other AI-credit suffix. The AI-use note at the bottom carries that disclosure. Ask if the name isn't established.

## Filing is a separate step

Drafting is the deliverable. Do not ask which newslode, and do not file, unless the user asks.

If they do ask:

1. Resolve the newslode name to a numeric ID via `distro_content_list({source: "publication", limit: 50})` and match on the `publication.name` field. (DeAI News is publication **109**.)
2. `distro_content_publish` with `status: "draft"`, `contentFormat: "html"`, and the byline.
3. **Do not set `sourceName` or `sourceUrl`.** This is an original story, not a link post. The report link belongs in the body, in graf one, on the word "report."
4. Report the content ID. Offer to flip to published.

Revisions after filing go through `distro_content_update`, which needs HTML.

## HTML formatting

```html
<p>Lede...</p>
<p>Mechanism graf with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="tiptap-link" href="[report URL]">report</a> link...</p>
<p>Why it matters...</p>
<h3>Subhead</h3>
<p>Context...</p>
<h3>Subhead</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Project</strong> is... The report says...</li>
</ul>
<p><em>(Disclosure noted in the report: ...)</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>(HOW AI WAS USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THIS PIECE: ...)</em></p>
```

## Checklist before showing the draft

- Does the lede state a claim in plain English, attributed?
- Is there a why-it-matters graf?
- Is the central term of art defined?
- Is every proper noun and acronym glossed exactly once?
- Is the report's own skepticism in the body, not just the kicker?
- Is there a player rundown with a sentence on each name?
- Are all numbers stated the way the report states them?
- Is any firm credited with activity the report doesn't describe?
- Any em dashes? Any meta commentary about the report's structure?
- Disclosure? AI-use note? Publication day?

When to use it

  • You have a research report, analyst note, white paper, survey, index or academic study and you want a news story out of it.
  • The source is from a research firm, a bank, a consultancy, a venture firm or a university group.
  • You want the finished piece to be readable by someone who does not work in the field.
  • You want the report's caveats and disclosures handled properly rather than buried.

When not to use it

  • A press release. Use distro-release-rewrite — that genre wants roughly 200 words and a different structure.
  • A link repost with a short take on top. Use distro-link-post.
  • A thread on X. Use x-post-story.
  • A podcast or video episode. Use lodecast-publishing.
  • A company blog post. Use distro-blog-post.

Feedback

This is v1.0. Edge cases or suggestions → reply or ping Bradley Keoun.