SUB/WAVE news dispatch
Write one news article for the Dispatches page (/news). Each dispatch is a short, plain-English mini-tutorial about something that shipped: what it is, how to use it, and why it helps. Not a changelog line.
Why this skill exists
The news page reads markdown straight off disk (web/lib/news.ts reads web/content/news/*.md), so adding a post is just writing one file in the right shape. The easy-to-get-wrong parts are the frontmatter schema, keeping the tone human (short tutorial, not release-note jargon), and remembering to humanize the draft. This skill encodes all three.
Where the file goes
web/content/news/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md
- The
YYYY-MM-DD-prefix is only for sorting files on disk; it's stripped from the URL. The page slug is the frontmatterslugif present, otherwise the filename minus that date prefix. So2026-05-30-clone-a-voice.mdserves at/news/clone-a-voice. - Pick the date from when the feature actually shipped. For a real commit:
git show -s --format=%cs <sha>. Evergreen "this is what SUB/WAVE does" posts use theSpotlightcategory and any sensible recent date. - The eight seed articles already in
web/content/news/are the reference set. Match their length and voice.
Frontmatter schema
yaml--- title: Make your DJ sound like anyone # the headline; sentence case, no trailing period needed date: 2026-05-30 # ISO yyyy-mm-dd; drives ordering (newest first) category: Feature # Release | Feature | Fix | Announcement | Spotlight version: v0.2.0 # optional, shows as a dateline tag author: The SUB/WAVE desk # optional, byline on the article page excerpt: One or two sentences shown on the index card and used as the meta description. ---
categorydescribes the nature of the post, not the raw conventional-commit type. Afix(web)commit that listeners will notice is usually aFeatureorFixdispatch; achore: releaseis aRelease; an evergreen feature explainer is aSpotlight.excerptis required in practice. It's the deck on the index and the meta description / OG description. Keep it concrete.- Watch the YAML.
titleandexcerptare parsed as YAML, so a colon-then-space inside the value (a new bit: a moon phase) makes the parser read it as a nested key and the build fails. Avoid raw:in those values (reword, or use a comma), or wrap the whole value in double quotes. The same goes for a value that starts with a quote,[,{,@, or`.
Structure of the body
Aim for ~150-350 words. Three beats, in this order:
- What's new. One or two lines. What shipped, in plain words.
- How to use it. The concrete steps. Real commands, the exact filename/folder, where to click in admin. Use fenced code blocks for commands and paths. This is the part readers came for.
- Why it helps. The benefit, in one short paragraph. What it lets them do now that they couldn't before.
Use ## subheads (sentence case) to break those up. Look at the seed articles for the rhythm. The first paragraph gets an automatic vermilion drop cap, so open with prose, not a heading.
Writing rules
- No em-dashes. Reword with a comma, a colon, parentheses, or a full stop instead. This is a hard rule for the wire.
- Short sentences. Vary the rhythm. First person ("we traced it to the Opus mount", "nothing for you to do") is fine and reads human.
- No changelog-speak, no inflated significance, no rule-of-three padding.
- Be specific: real paths, real commands, the real button name in admin. Pull the detail from
git log, the PR, or the relevant manual page underweb/components/manual/. - Straight quotes, sentence-case headings, no decorative emoji.
Required: de-slop before saving
ALWAYS run the finished draft through the no-ai-slop skill in edit mode, apply its edits, then write the .md file. This is not optional. It's the step that keeps the wire from reading like AI release notes, and it's where the em-dash, throat-clearing opener, and rule-of-three habits get caught.
Two things to hold onto when you apply its edits: the no-em-dash rule above is absolute here even though no-ai-slop allows 1-2 in longer drafts, and the wire's first-person voice ("we traced it to the Opus mount") is a voice signal to preserve, not throat-clearing to cut.
Verify
bashcd web && npm run lint && npm run build
- Confirm the new slug appears under
● /news/[slug]in the build output (it's statically prerendered). A frontmatter typo shows up here as "Failed to collect page data for /news/[slug]". - The article shows on
/newsautomatically, newest first, and the sitemap (web/app/sitemap.ts) picks it up viagetNewsSlugs(). No other file to touch. - Optional spot check:
cd web && npm run dev, openhttp://localhost:7700/news, confirm the headline, dateline, and body render.
Worked example (abridged)
File: web/content/news/2026-05-30-clone-a-voice.md
markdown--- title: Make your DJ sound like anyone date: 2026-05-30 category: Feature version: v0.2.0 author: The SUB/WAVE desk excerpt: PocketTTS can now clone a voice from a single WAV. Drop a clip in the voices folder, point a persona at it, and that's the voice on air. --- Voice cloning used to be a Chatterbox-only trick. PocketTTS can do it too now... ## What's new PocketTTS does zero-shot cloning from one reference WAV... ## How to use it Drop the `.wav` into the voices folder:
state/voices/morning-host.wav
Then open a DJ persona in admin and set its voice to that filename. Save. ## Why it helps Your station gets a real on-air identity...
