PR Calendar

PR Calendar

A PR calendar is the planned half of PR. newsjack-detector watches news breaking right now; this skill looks at known upcoming moments and decides which ones this brand should plan around, when pitching should start, and what proof the brand needs before anyone contacts journalists.

The calendar feed is source-backed, but the value is still judgment. Do not dump a list of dates. Most moments should disappear because the brand has no standing, the hook is too generic, or the moment is unsafe to commercialize.

This is a MOLECULE. It reads the brand's monitor profile, queries the calendar API through the CLI, cuts the feed to real candidates, checks what kinds of stories landed around last year's version of those moments, and returns a readable plan. It does not write angles or pitches itself, and it persists nothing.

What this skill will not do

• It will not promise a magical best day or best time to send a pitch. Use windows, not fake precision.
• It will not list every observance. A weak or generic hook is not a media plan.
• It will not invent dates. Every moment in Act this week, Six-month plan, Watch list, and Avoid must come from the calendar feed or from a date the user explicitly supplied. If an obvious anchor is missing from the feed, mention it only under Gaps & clusters as "missing from the feed; verify separately before planning."
• It will not run the detector pipeline, coarse relevance filter, story-origin check, or freshness gate. This is a smaller context problem. One careful LLM pass over the calendar results is enough.

Inputs

1. The brand profile. Reuse the existing monitor profile from newsjack-setup or fixture profile JSON. Read company description, topics, search terms, competitors, standing, spokespeople, proof assets, and market. Do not run a new questionnaire unless no profile exists.
2. The planning window. Default to the next six months from today. Long-lead opportunities can already be opening, so do not use a shorter default.
3. The calendar feed. Dated opportunities come from newsjack pr-calendar query, which wraps Medialyst's PR calendar API.

If no profile exists, ask only for the four things needed for judgment: what the brand does, what topics it can credibly speak to, what proof or data it can attach, and which market it pitches into.

Get The Calendar

Newsjack reaches the PR calendar two ways. Try them in this order and stop at the first one that works:

1. CLI mode (preferred). Use newsjack pr-calendar query when the CLI is installed and authenticated.
2. MCP mode (fallback). If the newsjack CLI is not installed or not on PATH but the medialyst MCP server is connected, use the MCP PR calendar query tool. It mirrors POST /api/v1/pr-calendar/query, so the request fields and response shape are the same as the CLI — only the transport differs.

The PR calendar endpoint is free to use. It requires Medialyst login only to prevent abuse. If the live path is unauthenticated, connect Medialyst and retry; do not build a fallback calendar from memory.

CLI mode

Use the repo shim in a source checkout and the installed binary otherwise:

bin/newsjack --version
newsjack --version

If the command is unauthenticated and you have shell access, run:

newsjack login

Tell the user to open the printed Medialyst link and approve newsjack CLI, then retry the calendar query.

Then query one broad six-month window per profile:

newsjack pr-calendar query --from <YYYY-MM-DD> --to <YYYY-MM-DD> \
  --industry <tech|fin|health|retail|media|food> \
  --limit 100

Use --query only when it helps without over-narrowing. Keep it short and broad, usually one or two words. For a developer-tools or AI-software profile, --industry tech is often better than packing the whole topic list into --query. Over-specific queries can hide useful conferences and seasonal hooks.

Do not use --country-code by default. Add it only when the user explicitly wants a local calendar, because many global events do not carry a country code.

For exact API-shaped requests, use:

newsjack pr-calendar query --json '{"industries":["tech"],"start_date":"2026-06-30","end_date":"2026-12-30","limit":100}'

The response returns calendar metadata plus opportunities. Important opportunity fields include title, type, industry, start_date, end_date, pitch_start_at, pitch_deadline_at, lead_time_summary, description, pitch_angles, audiences, coverage, source_urls, tags, and confidence.

MCP mode

Use this path only when the newsjack CLI is unavailable and the medialyst MCP server is connected. The MCP tool takes the API request body directly. In most runtimes the tool is named mcp__medialyst__query_pr_calendar or similar; if the runtime exposes a different PR calendar tool name, use the one whose description maps to POST /api/v1/pr-calendar/query.

MCP request body:

{
  "industries": ["tech"],
  "start_date": "2026-06-30",
  "end_date": "2026-12-30",
  "limit": 100
}

Available request fields mirror the CLI/API: q, industries, types, tags, audiences, country_codes, start_date, end_date, pitch_start_before, pitch_deadline_after, limit, and cursor.

Use MCP results exactly like CLI results: calendar metadata plus opportunities. If neither CLI nor MCP is available, stop and tell the user to connect Medialyst; do not synthesize a calendar.

Candidate Review

Review the returned opportunities once. Assign each opportunity to one of four buckets:

Use these gates inside the one pass:

Brand standing. Ask: would a journalist naturally accept this brand as a source on this moment? A developer-tools company at a major developer or enterprise software conference can be strong. A fintech on World Savings Day is usually watch unless it has proprietary savings data. A B2B logistics SaaS on National Pizza Day is drop.

Proof. A pitch-ready moment needs something concrete: usage data, a benchmark, customer access, founder expertise, technical research, product news, or a clear spokesperson. If the profile has no proof, mark watch, not pitch-ready.

Brand safety. Avoid commercializing memorials, disasters, serious illness days, religious solemn observances, and charged political moments unless the brand has genuine standing and a respectful public-interest angle. Follow skills/ETHICS.md and skills/WHY-NOT-SPAM.md.

Timing. Use the API's pitch_start_at, pitch_deadline_at, and lead_time_summary first. Compare those dates with today:

• Pitch now means today is between the pitch start and deadline.
• Window opens <date> means the pitch start is still ahead.
• Deadline passed means redirect to shorter-lead outlets or skip.
• Event imminent means only reactive commentary, owned content, or very short-lead desks remain.

When useful, explain outlet timing as windows, not exact laws:

Drumbeat. After bucketing, scan the six-month shape once. Note quiet stretches that need evergreen stories and crowded weeks that should be staggered.