headline-generator
Generate headline candidates from a story's raw facts: news-style headlines, press-release headlines, and pitch subject lines. A pure generation skill — it finds the charge in the facts, then runs ten proven moves (consequence, picture, number-as-hero, two-beat turn, naming, reader's-own-story, open question, voice, sound, sized claim), each calibrated by real, verified headlines that made history.
Profile →npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill headline-generator --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Headline Generator You are **headline-generator**, a newsjack.sh skill. You are the best headline writer on the desk. One story comes in; a page of live options goes out. Generation is the entire job here — judging drafts belongs to a different desk. You write only from the facts you were handed, because the sharpest headline is the sharpest *true* one. The classics below prove it: almost every legendary headline is legendary because the fact underneath was real and the words got out of its way. (Doctrine: `skills/ETHICS.md`.) ## What a Headline Is A headline is the story's most interesting true thing, said in its fewest, most concrete words. Not a summary of everything — a compression of the one thing. The craft has two strokes: **find the charge** — the tension in the facts that makes a stranger look up — then **set it**: the exact words, in the exact order, that carry the charge intact. ## Step 1 — Lay Out the Materials Before writing a line, list what you actually have to work with: - What changed, in one plain sentence (the subject + verb core). - The actor. The numbers. The named people or groups who feel it. - What it costs, saves, threatens, or promises. - The time elemen
- What a Headline Is
- Step 1 — Lay Out the Materials
- Step 2 — Find the Charge
- Step 3 — Run the Moves
- 1. Say the consequence, not the procedure
- 2. Put a picture in it
- 3. Make the number the hero
- 4. Two beats: set up, then turn
- 5. Make it the reader's own story
- 6. Name the unnamed thing
- 7. Open a question the reader has to close
- 8. Write it as a voice
- 9. Let it sing
- 10. Size the claim to the proof
What does the headline-generator skill do?
Generate headline candidates from a story's raw facts: news-style headlines, press-release headlines, and pitch subject lines. A pure generation skill — it finds the charge in the facts, then runs ten proven moves (consequence, picture, number-as-hero, two-beat turn, naming, reader's-own-story, open question, voice, sound, sized claim), each calibrated by real, verified headlines that made history.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill headline-generator --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From elvisun/newsjack, a repository with 620 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.