/kai-brief — A Brief /kai-write Can Execute Without Asking Anything

Objective

A structured content brief that fixes the strategy before drafting starts: format, keyword set, persona, the specific angle, three hook options, the audience pain, the proof on hand, the CTA, word count, and publish date. It is the handoff contract /kai-write and /kai-email-system consume. The angle is the load-bearing field — "AI for law firms" is a topic; "Why law firms lose 40% of leads after 5pm" is an angle.

Done when

Work type strategy-plan — floor E3/C3/O1 (harness/eco-floors.yaml).

• E3 — the brief conforms to harness/brief-schema.md and the requester accepted it; /kai-write does not proceed on an unapproved brief.
• C3 — banned_word_check clean, and the three validation rules below hold under a read by someone other than the brief's author.
• O1 — the brief names the piece it spawns and its publish date. A brief nothing gets written from is not finished.

Constraints

• Read MARKETING.md from the project root first. It carries product, ICP, value prop, monetization, voice, current channels, and competitive landscape. If it does not exist, build it from the codebase — CLAUDE.md, README.md, PROJECT.md, package.json, landing pages, email/ad/analytics config — using the template from /kai-email-system, and confirm the draft. Do not ask the user what the product is.
• Six things must be known before the brief is written: the format (blog, email, LinkedIn, ad, press), the topic or keyword, who it is for, the angle, what the reader should do next, and what proof or data exists to use.
• Load the full persona file, not just the one-line hook — it carries the language patterns, pain points, and hooks that shape the angle. The brief then follows the schema in harness/brief-schema.md, which is the format contract: fields are neither invented nor dropped.
• Three rules must hold before handoff: hook_options has exactly 3 variants; angle is differentiated from target_keyword rather than restating it; proof_available names real data or a named example, never a vague gesture at proof.

Context

Need	Load
Brief field schema and format contract	harness/brief-schema.md
Full persona profiles, language, pain points	knowledge/personas/_persona-index.md
Product, ICP, voice, channels	MARKETING.md (project root)

Persona selection — pick one from the set below, then load its full file:

Persona	Core hook	Best for
Competent Cog	"The system treats you like a child"	B2B SaaS, enterprise
Shock Absorber	"Accountability without authority"	Middle management
Ghosted Applicant	"The game is rigged"	Job seekers, HR tech
Subscription Serf	"They bet you won't fight back"	Consumer SaaS
System Manager	"No village, only vendors"	Parents, household managers
Admin Martyr	"Death by a thousand tasks"	Admin and ops roles
Obsolescence Anxious	"Working hard isn't the variable"	Career-concerned professionals
Credibility Fighter	"You're not crazy"	Experts fighting misinformation

Escalate when

• No proof, data, or named example exists for the angle — a brief promising specificity the writer cannot deliver moves the failure downstream.
• The requested topic maps to no persona in the set, or the angle needs a claim the business cannot substantiate.
• Format and word count conflict with the skill contract for that format.