SpaceOrbitals Daily Newsletter Plan

Effective: 2026-07-12 onward. Owner: Atlas Renner (editorial). Author: Claw on Mike's behalf.

Why a plan, why now

Three reasons.

1. Mike's directive (2026-07-12 08:35 EDT): "Update to daily newsletters. Each day should be different, original, interesting, meaningful, insightful. Consider SEO and AdSense."

1. The 2026-07-09 / 2026-07-10 / 2026-07-11 dailies worked. But they were undifferentiated — Atlas Renner voice, launch + news synthesis, ~1,200-1,500 words. Three issues in a row used the same shape. Readership would notice by issue four.

1. The cron is Mon-Fri only. Mike is asking for daily. We need to cover Saturday + Sunday too. Options:

• (a) Extend cron expr to 0 7 * (every day)
• (b) Add a new cron for weekends only
• (c) Keep Mon-Fri "Daily Tracker" + use Orbital Originals Saturday + new Sunday brief

*Decision: (a) extend expr, AND shift Daily Tracker to 0 7 , AND keep Saturday as a separate Orbital Originals slot at 9am (unchanged).** Sunday becomes a new "Weekly Read" cadence — lighter, more reflective. This gives 7 distinct shapes without overlapping the Saturday essay.

7-day content taxonomy (different, original, interesting)

Why this is "different, original, interesting, meaningful, insightful":

• Different shapes: launch-table briefs (Mon/Fri) vs news synthesis (Tue) vs deep research (Wed) vs skywatching (Thu) vs essay (Sat) vs reading roundup (Sun). Same name on the site, different beats.
• Original: Sunday's curation format is genuinely novel for a space site — most space newsletters report; few curate.
• Interesting: Wed science-focus gives Mira a real beat, not just a voice swap.
• Meaningful: Thu skywatching gives the site a reason to exist that news aggregators don't.
• Insightful: Sat essay retains the high-leverage Atlas voice but isn't the only place it lives.

Anti-pattern guards:

• No two consecutive issues from the same voice. Current cron prompt already rotates Mon-Fri. Sunday uses Atlas (different register than Mon Atlas). Saturday Atlas is essay register; Monday Atlas is briefing register — different enough to read as distinct.
• No topic repeats across last 5 issues. Track topic tags in the MD frontmatter and grep before drafting. (cron-prompt rule, mirrors bithues directive.)
• No launch-time fabrication. (Already in skill.)
• No same lead/structure across consecutive issues. (cron-prompt rule to enforce.)
• No "bet/bets/betting" language. (Mirrors dependability forecast rule.)
• No fabricated stats / quotes. (Mirrors skill anti-fabrication rules.)

SEO + AdSense integration

SEO targets (per issue)

1. Title keyword placement: lead with the most-searchable phrase. Examples:

• "Starlink launch schedule this week: 11 missions, 4 visible passes" (Mon)
• "NASA Artemis II update: new launch window, what changed" (Tue news)
• "JWST finds oldest galaxy yet — what it actually means" (Wed science)
• "Best space events to see this week: meteor shower + ISS + Venus" (Thu)
• "This week in spaceflight: 14 launches, one anomaly, one big reveal" (Fri)
• "[Editorial hook]" (Sat)
• "What to read about space this week: 7 longreads, 3 essays, 1 dispatch" (Sun)

1. Description field: 1-sentence meta description with the specific number / fact / hook. 140-160 chars.

1. URL slug: keyword-rich, kebab-case, no date prefix if SEO matters more than chronology. (Current convention includes date prefix — keep for traceability; slug still gets the keyword.)

1. Tag taxonomy: 4-6 tags per issue. Use a stable tag set + ad-hoc tags. Stable: launch-schedule, iss, moon, mars, jwst, artemis, spacex, rocket-lab, china-space, india-space. Ad-hoc per issue.

1. Internal linking: every issue links to 2-4 site pages (articles, gear, other newsletters). Adds crawl depth + reduces orphan pages.

1. External linking: every factual claim cites a source. Helps E-E-A-T signal.

AdSense integration

Current state: 3 newsletter ad slots configured (newsletter_top 9300000013, newsletter_mid 9300000014, newsletter_bottom 9300000015) — TODO placeholders, not live slots yet.

Plan:

• Wire up real AdSense slots with pub-9312870448453345 matching the existing site.
• Slot positions in newsletter page template:
• newsletter_top — after the lede, before the first H2
• newsletter_mid — after the third H2 / midway point
• newsletter_bottom — before the closing blockquote, after the last H2
• Affiliate mentions: only when relevant (Amazon books about space, telescope/observation gear, mission patches). Honor bacottibot-20 affiliate tag. No forced product mentions — affiliate for relevance, not quota.

Where to land in the build pipeline

• All SEO directives go in the cron prompt (mirror bithues pattern from 2026-07-10).
• AdSense slot placement is template-level in build.py → newsletter_top, newsletter_mid, newsletter_bottom slots at fixed positions.
• Internal/external linking tracked in MD frontmatter (tags + custom related array optional).

Cron schedule changes (3 changes)

Change 1: Daily Tracker cron expr 0 7 1-5 → 0 7 1-5,7 (add Sunday)

Actually wait — Saturday is already Orbital Originals at 9am. Sunday should be at 7am too so morning email routines catch it. Let's keep Daily Tracker Mon-Fri + Sunday all at 7am, and Saturday stays Orbital Originals at 9am.

Cron expr: 0 7 1-5,7 (Mon-Fri + Sun) at 7am ET for Daily Tracker.

Change 2: Add new "Weekly Read" Sunday morning brief at 7am ET (same time, separate cron)

Actually simpler: extend Daily Tracker to include Sunday at 7am ET, and the cron prompt uses the new 7-day taxonomy. Saturday stays Orbital Originals at 9am.

*Decision: ONE cron (Daily Tracker), expr 0 7 1-5,7 (Mon-Fri + Sun), prompt switches tone by day-of-week. Saturday is separate (Orbital Originals).*

Change 3: Topic-bank file

Create projects/spaceorbitals/content/newsletters/_topic-bank.md with 4-week rotation of:

• (day-of-week) → suggested topic
• (day-of-week) → suggested voice angle
• (day-of-week) → suggested anchor source

Cron subagent reads this on each run to avoid topic repeats. Updated weekly by a new cron (separate, optional).

Cron prompt updates

Inline-enforce (mirroring bithues 2026-07-10):

1. Read SKILL.md first.
2. Read PLAN-2026-07-12-daily-cadence.md (this file).
3. Read _topic-bank.md for today's suggested angle.
4. Detect day-of-week via python3 -c "import datetime; print(datetime.datetime.now(pytz.timezone('America/New_York')).strftime('%a'))" — DO NOT hardcode.
5. Apply taxonomy mapping (Mon Atlas week-ahead / Tue Priya news / Wed Mira science / Thu Derek observation / Fri Atlas week-recap / Sun Atlas weekly-read).
6. Topic-repetition check: grep last 5 newsletters for title keywords + lead-1st-sentence; skip if duplicate.
7. SEO: keyword-rich title, 140-160 char description, 4-6 tags, internal links to 2-4 site pages.
8. AdSense: ensure 3 slots visible in page template (newsletter_top/mid/bottom at fixed positions).
9. Anti-patterns #33, #34 (literal asterisks in , raw pipe in

   ).

10. 18-step proofread pass before build.py.
11. Build → wrangler deploy → wait 30s → curl live → GSC re-submit.
12. Output format block at end of run (mirrors dependability cron).

projects/spaceorbitals/content/newsletters/
├── _README.md                                # existing
├── _topic-bank.md                            # NEW: 4-week rotation
├── PLAN-2026-07-12-daily-cadence.md          # NEW: this file
├── 2026-06-27-...                            # existing originals
├── 2026-07-09-...                            # existing dailies
├── 2026-07-10-...
├── 2026-07-11-...
├── proofread_2026-07-11.log                  # existing
├── proofread_daily_2026-07-09.log
├── proofread_daily_2026-07-10.log
└── [future daily MDs]