last30days-skill/docs/plans/2026-03-07-feat-paperclip-marketing-automation-plan.md

title, type, status, date

title	type	status	date
feat: Paperclip Marketing Automation for last30days	feat	active	2026-03-07

Paperclip Marketing Automation for last30days

Overview

Set up a Paperclip "company" that auto-runs marketing for the last30days open-source skill (3,800+ stars). Four agent roles handle daily demo showcases, release announcements, community engagement, and analytics - all using a draft-then-approve workflow through Paperclip's built-in approval gates.

The killer angle: last30days markets itself by running itself. The Content Creator agent runs /last30days [trending topic] --agent on hot topics daily, then drafts X threads showing the results. Every post is a live demo.

Problem Statement / Motivation

• All marketing is currently manual - ~60KB of pre-drafted X threads sit in docs/ unposted
• No automated community monitoring (GitHub issues, contributor shoutouts)
• No metrics tracking (star growth, fork trends, social engagement)
• Solo entrepreneur can't sustain daily content + community management + development
• The tool's best ad is itself running on interesting topics, but that requires daily effort

Proposed Solution

A Paperclip company called "last30days Marketing" with 4 agent roles, all draft-then-approve.

Company Structure

last30days Marketing (Company)
  Mission: "Grow last30days to 10K GitHub stars through daily demo content,
            release marketing, and community engagement"

  Marketing Director (Claude Code agent)
    - Sets daily topic priorities
    - Reviews draft quality before surfacing to human
    - Coordinates cross-agent work

  Content Creator (Python script agent)
    - Runs last30days on trending topics daily
    - Drafts X showcase threads from the results
    - Heartbeat: daily at 8 AM PT

  Release Manager (Bash + Python agent)
    - Watches for new git tags on upstream
    - Drafts release announcement threads
    - Heartbeat: every 6 hours (tag check is cheap)

  Community Manager (Python script agent)
    - Monitors GitHub issues/PRs via gh CLI
    - Drafts welcome messages for new contributors
    - Surfaces popular feature requests
    - Heartbeat: every 4 hours

  Analytics Analyst (Python script agent)
    - Tracks GitHub stars, forks, traffic
    - Tracks X engagement (@slashlast30days)
    - Generates weekly digest
    - Heartbeat: daily at 11 PM PT (collect), weekly Monday 9 AM (digest)

Draft-Then-Approve Flow

Agent creates draft
  -> Saved to ~/Documents/Last30Days/drafts/{agent}/{date}-{slug}.md
  -> Paperclip approval gate triggers
  -> Matt reviews in Paperclip UI (approve / reject / edit)
  -> On approve: Python script posts to X API via tweepy
  -> Audit log records everything

Technical Approach

Phase 1: Infrastructure (Day 1-2)

Set up Paperclip and external API access.

Files to create:

• marketing/paperclip-config.yaml - Company definition, org chart, budgets
• marketing/scripts/post_to_x.py - X API v2 posting via tweepy (draft queue -> X)
• marketing/scripts/github_monitor.py - GitHub event monitoring via gh CLI
• marketing/scripts/metrics_collector.py - Star/fork/engagement tracking
• marketing/.env.example - Required API keys template

Setup steps:

1. Install Paperclip locally:

   git clone https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip
   cd paperclip && pnpm install && pnpm dev
   

2. Get X API v2 credentials (developer.x.com) for @slashlast30days

   • Need: API key, API secret, Access token, Access token secret
   • Permissions: Read + Write (posting)

3. GitHub token for monitoring (gh auth already configured)

4. Create the company in Paperclip UI at localhost:3100:

   • Company name: "last30days Marketing"
   • Mission: "Grow last30days to 10K GitHub stars"
   • Monthly budget cap: $50 (mostly API token costs)

Phase 2: Content Creator Pipeline (Day 3-5)

The core marketing engine. Uses last30days to market itself.

How it works:

1. Topic Discovery - marketing/scripts/discover_topics.py

   • Scrapes trending topics from: Wikipedia pageviews API, HN front page, Reddit r/all
   • Filters for topics that would make compelling demos (tech, culture, sports, geopolitics)
   • Outputs ranked topic list to ~/Documents/Last30Days/topics-queue.json

2. Research & Draft - marketing/scripts/create_showcase.py

   • Picks top topic from queue
   • Runs: python3 scripts/last30days.py "{topic}" --agent --emit=compact --save-dir=~/Documents/Last30Days
   • Reads the saved research output
   • Drafts a 1-2 tweet thread in the established style (see Style Guide below)
   • Saves draft to ~/Documents/Last30Days/drafts/content/{date}-{slug}.md

3. Approval Gate - Paperclip surfaces draft for review

   • Matt approves/edits in Paperclip UI
   • On approve: triggers post_to_x.py with the draft content

Style Guide (extracted from existing launch threads):

Format: Stats-first hook + key finding + tool credit

Example (from v2.5 launch):
"/last30days Anthropic Pete Hegseth"

14 Reddit threads. 29 X posts (11,559 likes). 20 YouTube videos (739K views).
5 HN stories. 9 Polymarket markets.

[Key finding in 2-3 sentences]

Polymarket: [relevant odds with specific numbers]

[One-liner showing the tool's value]

github.com/mvanhorn/last30days-skill

Rules:

• Always lead with the /last30days command that was run
• Always include the stats line (thread/post/video counts)
• Always end with the GitHub link
• Pick topics people care about RIGHT NOW
• Never use em dashes - use hyphens instead
• Keep threads to 1-2 tweets max for daily showcases
• Save longer threads (3-6 tweets) for releases

Phase 3: Release Manager Pipeline (Day 5-6)

How it works:

1. Tag Watcher - marketing/scripts/watch_releases.py

   • Runs git -C /Users/mvanhorn/last30days-skill-private fetch upstream --tags every 6 hours
   • Compares local tags vs upstream tags
   • On new tag: reads CHANGELOG.md diff since last tag

2. Thread Drafter - marketing/scripts/draft_release_thread.py

   • Reads changelog diff + release-notes.md
   • Drafts a 3-6 tweet thread following the v2.5 launch thread style
   • Includes: version number, headline features, demo queries, contributor shoutouts
   • Saves to ~/Documents/Last30Days/drafts/releases/{tag}.md

3. Approval Gate - Same flow as content pipeline

Template (from existing docs/v2.5-launch-tweets.md):

Tweet 1: Announcement + 3 headline features + GitHub link
Tweet 2-4: One demo per tweet (command + stats + finding)
Tweet 5: Contributor shoutouts
Tweet 6: Install instructions

Phase 4: Community Manager Pipeline (Day 6-7)

How it works:

1. GitHub Monitor - marketing/scripts/github_monitor.py

   • Runs gh issue list --repo mvanhorn/last30days-skill --state open --json number,title,author,createdAt,labels
   • Runs gh pr list --repo mvanhorn/last30days-skill --state open --json number,title,author,createdAt
   • Compares against ~/Documents/Last30Days/community/seen.json to detect new items
   • Categorizes: bug report, feature request, question, PR

2. Response Drafter - marketing/scripts/draft_community_response.py

   • For new issues: drafts a welcome + triage response
   • For new PRs: drafts a thank-you + initial review comment
   • For merged PRs: drafts a contributor shoutout tweet
   • Saves to ~/Documents/Last30Days/drafts/community/{type}-{number}.md

3. Approval Gate - GitHub responses go through same Paperclip approval

   • Approved responses posted via gh issue comment or gh pr comment
   • Shoutout tweets posted via post_to_x.py

Response templates:

# New Issue (bug)
Thanks for the report! I'll look into this. Can you share:
- Your OS and Python version
- The exact command you ran
- Whether you have SCRAPECREATORS_API_KEY set

# New Issue (feature request)
Interesting idea! [1-2 sentences acknowledging the value].
Adding this to the backlog for consideration.

# New PR
Thanks for the contribution, @{author}! I'll review this shortly.
[If first-time contributor: Welcome to the project!]

# Merged PR (tweet)
Shoutout to @{author} for [what they did] in last30days v{version}!
[Brief description of the change and why it matters]
github.com/mvanhorn/last30days-skill/pull/{number}

Phase 5: Analytics Pipeline (Day 7-8)

How it works:

1. Metrics Collector - marketing/scripts/metrics_collector.py

   • Daily: GitHub stars, forks, open issues, open PRs (via gh api)
   • Daily: X followers, tweet impressions for @slashlast30days (via X API v2)
   • Stores in SQLite at ~/Documents/Last30Days/analytics.db

2. Weekly Digest - marketing/scripts/weekly_digest.py

   • Runs Monday 9 AM PT
   • Generates markdown report with week-over-week changes:
     • Star growth (absolute + rate)
     • New forks
     • Issues opened/closed
     • PRs merged
     • Top-performing tweets
     • Notable community interactions
   • Saves to ~/Documents/Last30Days/digests/{date}-weekly.md
   • Optionally sends via email (SendGrid) or Slack webhook

Schema for analytics.db:

CREATE TABLE daily_metrics (
  date TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
  github_stars INTEGER,
  github_forks INTEGER,
  github_open_issues INTEGER,
  github_open_prs INTEGER,
  x_followers INTEGER,
  x_impressions INTEGER,
  x_engagement_rate REAL
);

CREATE TABLE tweet_performance (
  tweet_id TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
  posted_at TEXT,
  type TEXT,  -- 'showcase', 'release', 'shoutout'
  topic TEXT,
  impressions INTEGER,
  likes INTEGER,
  retweets INTEGER,
  replies INTEGER,
  link_clicks INTEGER
);

Technical Considerations

API Costs

Service	Usage	Est. Monthly Cost
Paperclip	Self-hosted	$0
X API v2	Free tier (posting)	$0
ScrapeCreators	~30 daily research runs	~$15
GitHub API	gh CLI, already authed	$0
Claude API	Marketing Director agent	~$20
Total		~$35/month

Security

• API keys stored in marketing/.env (gitignored, never committed)
• X API tokens scoped to @slashlast30days only (not personal account)
• Paperclip budget cap prevents runaway spend
• All posts go through human approval gate - no autonomous posting
• GitHub token uses existing gh auth session

Failure Modes

• last30days script fails - Content Creator skips that day, logs error, tries again tomorrow with new topic
• X API rate limit - Queue drafts and retry on next heartbeat cycle
• Paperclip goes down - Drafts accumulate in filesystem, nothing posts (safe failure)
• Bad topic selection - Marketing Director agent filters topics before research (no politics, no NSFW)
• Stale approval queue - If drafts pile up >3 days unapproved, send a nudge notification

Topic Selection Criteria

The discover_topics.py script should filter for topics that:

1. Are trending NOW (Wikipedia pageview spike, HN front page, Reddit r/all)
2. Would produce interesting multi-source results (not too niche, not too broad)
3. Are safe for a developer tool brand (tech, sports, culture, science - avoid divisive politics)
4. Haven't been covered in the last 7 days (dedup against previous showcases)
5. Span different categories to show the tool's versatility (not all tech, not all sports)

Good examples (from existing launch threads): "Anthropic Pete Hegseth", "Seedance prompting", "Arizona basketball", "Iran war"

Acceptance Criteria

• Paperclip running locally with "last30days Marketing" company created
• Content Creator agent runs last30days daily on a trending topic and produces a draft
• Release Manager agent detects new git tags and drafts announcement threads
• Community Manager agent detects new GitHub issues/PRs and drafts responses
• Analytics agent collects daily metrics and generates weekly digest
• All drafts go through Paperclip approval gate before posting
• X API integration posts approved drafts to @slashlast30days
• GitHub responses posted via gh CLI after approval
• Monthly budget stays under $50
• Style of generated tweets matches existing launch thread tone

Success Metrics

• Content velocity: 5-7 showcase tweets/week (up from ~0 currently)
• Star growth: Track week-over-week acceleration after content starts
• Time savings: <5 min/day reviewing drafts vs 30-60 min/day manual marketing
• Content quality: Drafts require minimal editing before approval (>80% approved as-is within 2 weeks)

Dependencies & Risks

Dependency	Risk	Mitigation
Paperclip stability	Early-stage project, may have bugs	Pin to specific commit, keep simple config
X API free tier	May get rate-limited or deprecated	Queue-based posting, daily limits
Topic discovery quality	Bad topics = bad demos	Human review in approval gate, topic blocklist
Claude API for Marketing Director	Cost could spike	Budget cap in Paperclip, simple prompts
ScrapeCreators API	PAYG costs scale with usage	Cap at 1 research run/day for showcases

File Structure

last30days-skill-private/
  marketing/
    README.md                          # Setup instructions
    .env.example                       # Required API keys
    paperclip-config.yaml              # Company definition
    scripts/
      discover_topics.py               # Trending topic discovery
      create_showcase.py               # Research + draft showcase tweet
      draft_release_thread.py          # Release announcement drafter
      github_monitor.py                # GitHub issue/PR monitor
      draft_community_response.py      # Community response drafter
      post_to_x.py                     # X API posting (after approval)
      metrics_collector.py             # Daily metrics collection
      weekly_digest.py                 # Weekly analytics digest
    templates/
      showcase.md                      # Tweet template for daily demos
      release.md                       # Thread template for releases
      community_responses.md           # Response templates by type

Sources & References

• Paperclip GitHub: github.com/paperclipai/paperclip
• Paperclip docs: paperclip.ing
• Existing launch threads: docs/v2.5-launch-tweets.md, docs/v2.1-tweets.md
• Existing launch copy: docs/v2.1-launch-copy.md
• Planned Last30Days.com: docs/plans/2026-02-20-feat-last30days-com-trending-topics-plan.md
• last30days --agent mode: SKILL.md line 115-142 (non-interactive output for automation)