Haro

/haro — Daily journalist-query response generator

Captures the highest-velocity backlink-acquisition opportunity: journalists actively requesting sources for stories that will publish in the next 3–14 days. A single response landing in a Forbes / WSJ / industry-outlet quote earns one DA-80+ editorial backlink — equivalent to ~6 months of organic-link attrition for a small site.

Important context: the original "HARO" (Help A Reporter Out) was shut down by Cision in December 2024 after a brief rebrand to "Connectively". The skill name /haro is retained per the v2 spec (familiar shorthand for the category), but the underlying source is configurable per site. As of 2026, the active sources are:

Source	URL	Format	Notes
Featured.com (ex-Terkel)	featured.com	Web UI + daily digest email	Most popular post-HARO; ~50–150 queries/day across categories
Source of Sources	sourceofsources.com	Daily email digest	Peter Shankman's relaunch (HARO's original founder)
Qwoted	qwoted.com	Web UI	Paid (~$99/mo); journalist-vetted only
Help a B2B Writer	helpab2bwriter.com	Web UI + weekly digest	B2B-focused, lower volume

Each site picks 1–3 sources via site-info.md → "Journalist sources" block.

Inputs

Required (asked at start if not given):

• Site — must match a folder under sites/[name]/.

Optional (per-run overrides):

• --source=X — pull from only one source this run (default: all configured).
• --min-match-score=N — minimum match score to draft a response (default: 70 out of 100).
• --max-drafts=N — cap responses per run (default: 5).

Workflow

Step 0 — Cron-mode detection (if invoked with --cron)

Cron mode is the DEFAULT pattern for this skill — it's designed for daily firing. Required behavior:

1. Idempotency check: if sites/{site}/_inbox/haro-responses-{date}.md exists for today, exit with idempotent-skip.
2. Escalation: any error pulling a source (API down, auth expired, rate-limit, source ToS change) → write _inbox/haro-source-error-{source}-{date}.md with full error context, continue with remaining sources.
3. Audit log: standard appendRun({ exit, ... }) per scripts/lib/audit-log.mjs.
4. Backoff: at start, checkBackoff({ routine: 'haro-daily' }). If true → pause + escalate per standard contract.

Step 1 — Read context (Rule 1)

Load in order:

1. CLAUDE.md
2. sites/{site}/site-info.md — especially "Journalist sources" block, "Authority" block (what site is on-the-record about), "Person profile" if applicable
3. sites/{site}/references/stats.md — for the numbers that make a quote citable
4. sites/{site}/references/stories.md — for relevant anecdotes
5. sites/{site}/references/voice.md — for tone consistency
6. sites/{site}/backlinks.md — for "Banned outreach targets" + outreach history

If any required file is missing → escalate per cron contract.

Step 2 — Source authentication check

For each source listed in site-info.md → "Journalist sources":

• Verify the corresponding API key / session cookie is present in .env (cron) or available via auth flow (interactive).
• If missing → escalate to _inbox/haro-auth-missing-{source}.md with setup instructions. Skip that source for this run.

Supported auth methods:

• Featured.com: API key in .env as FEATURED_API_KEY. Get from featured.com → Settings → API.
• Source of Sources: email-digest parsing (forward to [site-specific][email protected]; cron polls IMAP).
• Qwoted: session cookie scraped via Chrome MCP (Qwoted blocks API access on lower tiers).
• Help a B2B Writer: email-digest parsing (same pattern as Source of Sources).

Step 3 — Pull today's queries

For each authenticated source, fetch queries submitted in the last 24 hours. Normalize to a common schema:

- query_id: featured-2026-05-17-abc123
  source: featured
  outlet: Forbes
  reporter: [email protected]
  reporter_handle: "@jane_doe"
  category: "Business / AI"
  topic: "Examples of AI ROI in SMBs"
  query_body: "[full text of the journalist's request]"
  word_count_requested: 150
  deadline: 2026-05-19T17:00:00Z
  embargo: null
  preferred_credentials: "founders, AI consultants, SMB ops leaders"
  pull_time: 2026-05-17T09:00:00Z

Step 4 — Match-score each query against site expertise

For each query, compute a 0–100 match score from:

Signal	Weight
Topic overlap with site's "Authority" block (semantic similarity of query topic to site's documented expertise areas)	35
Preferred-credentials match (does the byline / Person profile match what the reporter wants?)	25
Available stat in stats.md that directly answers the query	20
Available story in stories.md that anecdotally answers the query	10
Outlet authority (DA 80+ = 10, DA 50–79 = 6, DA < 50 = 3)	10

Threshold (default --min-match-score=70): only queries scoring ≥ 70 generate a draft response. Lower-scoring queries are logged in the daily summary but no draft is generated.

Step 5 — Draft response for high-match queries

For each query above threshold, generate a draft pitch:

Format: 100–200 words (or word_count_requested ± 20%), structured as:

1. Lead with a number from stats.md — never round, never invent.
2. One concrete example from stories.md (anonymized unless consented) — 1–2 sentences.
3. One contrarian or specific opinion backed by the stat — the unique angle that makes the quote citable.
4. Byline matching the site's documented byline policy (per memory: site-a → "Site A", site-b → co-byline OK, site-c → real founder name).
5. Contact line with the reporter's preferred contact method.

Voice constraints: universal rules from references/voice.md apply — banned words, no exclamation marks, no AI tells. Pitch must read like a real expert wrote it, not like an AI. Run the anti-AI checklist before saving.

No links in the pitch itself — reporters explicitly reject pitches containing URLs as spam. The link gets included only IF the reporter follows up requesting more context.

Step 6 — Quality refusals

Refuse to draft a pitch when:

• Query asks for credentials the site doesn't have (e.g., reporter wants "PhD in computational biology" and site has no such person).
• Query requires fabrication (the answer can't be sourced from stats.md or stories.md).
• Outlet is in backlinks.md "Banned outreach targets" list.
• Reporter has previously declined a pitch from this site (cross-check backlinks.md "Outreach response tracking").
• Query embargo or deadline already passed.

Refused queries are logged with reason in the daily summary; no draft generated.

Step 7 — Output

Write to sites/{site}/_inbox/haro-responses-{date}.md:

# HARO daily responses — {site} — {date}

Pulled {N} queries across {M} sources. Generated {K} drafts ({K2} refused).

## Drafts awaiting your approval

### 1. Forbes — Jane Doe — "Examples of AI ROI in SMBs"
**Match score:** 82
**Deadline:** 2026-05-19 17:00 UTC (48h)
**Outlet DA:** 95
**Source:** Featured.com

**Draft pitch:**
> [pitch body, 150 words]

**To send:** copy the draft into Featured.com query response field. Reply to this inbox item with `sent` to log the outreach. The skill will create the outreach pipeline row in `backlinks.md`.

---

### 2. ...

## Queries refused (logged for transparency)

- "Topic X" — Forbes — refused: no PhD-qualified author available (matching skipped)
- "Topic Y" — Outlet Z — refused: outlet in banned-list (notes.md: prior bad-faith interaction 2025-09-04)

## Queries below match threshold (≥ 50, < 70)

(no draft generated; listed for transparency)

- "Topic A" — Outlet B — score 64 (`stats.md` has no number to anchor a 150-word pitch)
- ...

Step 8 — Update outreach pipeline (on user approval — separate skill)

The cron only DRAFTS. When user replies sent to an inbox item, a follow-up skill (/outreach-log) appends a row to backlinks.md → "Outreach pipeline" with status sent and the 14-day follow-up trigger.

Step 9 — Audit log

Standard appendRun({ exit: 'shipped' | 'idempotent-skip' | 'escalated', metadata: { queries_pulled: N, drafts_generated: K, refusals: K2 } }).

Refusal conditions

This skill refuses to run if:

• Site has no "Journalist sources" block in site-info.md.
• Site has no references/stats.md or references/stories.md (no anchor for citable pitches).
• All configured sources are unauthenticated.

Setup checklist (one-time per site)

Before this skill can run on a new site:

1. Add to site-info.md:

   ## Journalist sources
   
   - **Featured.com:** {profile_url}, API key in .env as FEATURED_API_KEY_{SITE}
   - **Source of Sources:** subscribed to digest at {forwarder_email}
   - **Authority block:** [3–5 areas this site is on-the-record about]
   - **Preferred byline format:** {per byline policy memory}
   

2. Add _inbox/ to site folder if not present.
3. Add cron entry to .claude/schedules.yml (portfolio-daily-haro).
4. Add API keys to .env + trigger prompt (per remote-cron-no-dotenv-access memory — cron secrets must be in trigger prompt, not .env).

Routine versioning + idempotency contract

Idempotency key: (site, date). The skill runs once per site per day. Re-running on the same date skips with idempotent-skip and logs the score snapshot.

Routine version: 1.0.0 (2026-05-17). Increment on schema changes to haro-responses-{date}.md output format.