marketing: FRE-199 third pair of informational pages (drafts) + pitch narrowed to the no-figure shape

Pair 3 (internal target Thu 2026-11-12, six days early):
- agent-worktree-contention — 'How do you manage worktrees when your agents
  end up waiting on each other?' (backlog 1xlz2bs, Scan 6 #4); git worktree +
  Docker Compose project-name docs fetched and read 2026-11-05.
- agent-keeps-asking — 'Why does your coding agent keep stopping to ask you
  questions?' (handback cluster: 1xlfqmo, 1xk0ghj, 1xlxw0q); permission +
  hooks claims re-verified live 2026-11-05 against code.claude.com; the
  1xlfqmo poster's measurement figures deliberately not cited.

Pitch narrowed per CTO reopening verdict: trial→paid placeholder deleted
(FRE-202 cohort too young; ratio waits for FRE-197), second breakage chosen
(NOOK-815 uninvoked suite), any count named as activations, downloads never
quoted.

marketing/drafts/newsletter-postmortem-pitch/copy.md

@@ -1,10 +1,12 @@
-# Newsletter pitch — post-mortem shape (placeholders; numbers gated)
+# Newsletter pitch — post-mortem shape (narrowed; no conversion figure)
 
-> **Status: draft — placeholders only. No figure in this file is a measurement.**
-> FRE-199 item 2. Drafted 2026-11-05 by CMO; the plan's date was Fri 2026-11-06.
-> **Send gate:** no figure ships until FRE-202 (weekly metrics job) or a direct
-> read of the relay store provides it **and** the CTO confirms the query. Paid
-> placements stay out (TLDR ≈ $3k/placement, no verifiable CPC to buy against).
+> **Status: draft — narrowed 2026-11-06 per the CTO's reopening verdict on
+> FRE-199.** The "X% trial→paid" half of the shape **cannot ship**: the
+> FRE-202 snapshot (window 2026-10-22 → 10-29) reads trial started 2, purchase
+> 0, activation 0, with 291 of 291 analytics rows predating the FRE-366
+> instrumentation — a trial→paid ratio from that cohort is not a metric. The
+> ratio comes from FRE-197's mature Day 28–35 cohort read when it lands.
+> **No figure in this file is a measurement.** Send gates at the bottom.
 
 ## Audience & channel
 
@@ -16,9 +18,11 @@ No paid placements at any budget without a CoS + sponsor decision.
 
 A post-mortem pitch, not a product pitch: *here is what shipping a Mac utility
 alone actually broke, and what we changed because of it.* The product is the
-setting; the breakage and the fix are the story.
+setting; the breakage and the fix are the story. The story stands on its own
+with zero funnel numbers — if no verified number exists on send day, the pitch
+ships without one rather than with a placeholder.
 
-## The pitch (shape — every figure is a placeholder)
+## The pitch (shape — names and dates personalised; nothing else is a placeholder)
 
 **Subject:** What shipping a Mac utility alone broke (post-mortem)
 
@@ -33,50 +37,60 @@ ways bigger teams don't hit:
   cleanly — while every delta it named 404'd, so users on older builds were
   being offered updates that didn't exist. The publish path deleted files
   before the feed that named them was live. Nothing alerted; the feed just
-  lied quietly. (Documented in our own changelog discipline: the fix — upload
-  the feed's enclosures, verify every URL, *then* prune — is now ordered so
-  the deletion can't run first.)
-- **[PLACEHOLDER — second breakage: the launch-incident story with a real
-  number attached. Candidates from the engineering journal: the 0.13.x
-  appcast-item loss (changelog blanking on prune), or the relay regression
-  that shipped behind a passing suite. Pick the one FRE-202's data can
-  quantify.]**
-- **The numbers, as they are.** <N> activations and <X>% trial→paid as of
-  <date> — small numbers, real ones, and the interesting part is the funnel
-  shape, not the size.
+  lied quietly. The fix — upload the feed's enclosures, verify every enclosure
+  URL, copy the appcast up, and only *then* prune — is now ordered so the
+  deletion can't run first.
+- **The green suite.** Weeks earlier, a regression in our public relay shipped
+  behind a passing test run — the suite that would have caught it existed but
+  nothing invoked it. A green checkmark that covers nothing looks identical to
+  one that covers everything. The suite is now wired into the standard test
+  entry point, and the relay's deploy patcher is tested alongside it.
+- **What we're not going to quote you.** A growth number, right now, would be
+  theatre: our funnel is young and a conversion ratio from an immature cohort
+  is not a measurement. If we attach a count, it will be activations — one per
+  activated install, from our own relay store — and we will say exactly that,
+  because download counts (a different number, from a different store) flatter
+  nothing and confuse everyone. The receipts that matter here are the failure
+  modes above, not a traction line.
 
 The angle for your readers: solo distribution is a chain of quiet failure
 modes, each one invisible until it costs a user. We kept the receipts.
 
-Happy to send the full write-up, screenshots of the broken feed, and the
-exact publish-order change.
+Happy to send the full write-up, screenshots of the broken feed, and the exact
+publish-order and test-wiring changes.
 
 — <name>, FrenoCorp
 
-## Where the numbers come from (and the caveats that travel with them)
+## Where a number could come from, and what disqualifies it
 
-- **Preferred source:** FRE-202, the weekly metrics job (CTO owns the query).
-- **Fallback:** a direct read of the relay store — `installs` (one row per
-  activated install, `created_at`) for activations; `admissions`
-  (`license_id` non-empty = licensed, empty = trial) for the trial→paid split.
-- **Caveats that go in the pitch, not a footnote:**
-  - a conversion figure is per *install* (install cap is 3), not per person;
-  - DMG downloads (S3 side) and activations (relay store) are two different
-    numbers — the pitch says which one it quotes;
-  - "1,900 downloads, 6% trial→paid" is the *shape* of a pitch, never a figure
-    we hold. No number is estimated to fill a placeholder.
+- **Trial→paid ratio: cannot ship today.** FRE-202's snapshot shows a cohort of
+  2 trials, 0 purchases, pre-instrumentation rows. The ratio waits for
+  FRE-197's mature Day 28–35 read. If it lands before send day and the CTO
+  confirms the query, the ratio may be added — and it must say it is per
+  *install* (install cap 3), not per person.
+- **Activations: the only count eligible to ship.** One row per activated
+  install (`installs`, `created_at`) in the relay store; CTO confirms the query
+  before any send. The pitch names it as activations, never as downloads.
+- **Downloads (S3 side) are never quoted.** Different store, automation-heavy,
+  and the pitch that says "downloads" when it means activations burns the
+  credibility the post-mortem is built on.
+- No number is estimated to fill any gap, ever.
 
 ## Gates before anything is sent
 
-1. Figures exist (FRE-202 or CTO-confirmed direct read) — owner: CTO.
-2. CTO confirms the query behind every figure quoted — owner: CTO.
-3. Sponsor approves the send and holds the sending account (humans hold every
+1. Any count quoted is activations, from a CTO-confirmed query — owner: CTO.
+2. The trial→paid ratio ships only from FRE-197's mature cohort read with CTO
+   confirmation; otherwise the "what we're not going to quote you" paragraph
+   stands as written — owner: CTO.
+3. Both breakage paragraphs are fact-checked against the engineering record
+   (FRE-542 publish-order incident; the NOOK-815 uninvited-suite relay
+   regression) before send — owner: CMO, evidence to CTO for verdict.
+4. Sponsor approves the send and holds the sending account (humans hold every
    account) — owner: Michael Freno.
-4. The second breakage paragraph is fact-checked against the engineering
-   journal before send — owner: CMO, evidence to CTO for verdict.
 
 ## Target dates (internal)
 
-- Draft with placeholders: **done 2026-11-05** (plan date was 2026-11-06).
-- Figures dropped in: when FRE-202 or the direct read exists — no date promised.
-- Send: only after gates 1–4. Sponsor submits.
+- Draft with placeholders: **done 2026-11-05**; narrowed to the no-figure shape
+  **2026-11-06** (CTO direction).
+- Send: after gates 1–4 — with the no-figure shape, the only hard input left is
+  the CTO's query confirmation and the sponsor's send.

marketing/drafts/newsletter-postmortem-pitch/rationale.md

@@ -24,15 +24,38 @@ The lead paragraph is the 0.13.4 delta incident (FRE-542): the appcast stayed
 at 0.13.4 while its five delta files 404'd — the publish path pruned before
 the feed was up. The fix (upload enclosures, verify URLs, copy the appcast,
 then prune) is in `scripts/upload-release.sh` and is engineering-verified by
-the FRE-542 record. The second breakage paragraph is a named placeholder with
-two candidate incidents — it stays a placeholder until one can carry a real
-number.
+the FRE-542 record.
+
+**Second breakage, chosen 2026-11-06 (CTO direction):** the relay regression
+that shipped behind a passing suite (NOOK-815) — the suite that would have
+cought it existed but nothing invoked it; the fix wires it into the standard
+test entry point. It was chosen over the changelog-blanking incident because
+it is a complete story with no number needed and no overlap with the lead
+(both remaining candidates were publish-path incidents; one story about the
+publish path is enough). The placeholder is gone: no paragraph in the pitch
+waits on a figure any more.
+
+## Narrowed 2026-11-06 — what the numbers can and cannot support
+
+The CTO's reopening verdict on FRE-199 confirmed **no figure for the pitch
+today**: FRE-202's snapshot (trial started 2, purchase 0, activation 0; 291 of
+291 rows predate the FRE-366 instrumentation) cannot yield a trial→paid ratio —
+that waits for FRE-197's mature Day 28–35 cohort read. So the pitch narrowed:
+
+- the "X% trial→paid" placeholder is deleted, not held;
+- if any count ships, it is **activations** (relay store, one row per activated
+  install), named as activations — downloads (S3 side) are never quoted;
+- a new paragraph — "what we're not going to quote you" — turns the missing
+  number into part of the post-mortem's credibility instead of a gap;
+- with the no-figure shape, the only inputs left before send are the CTO's
+  query confirmation (if a count is attached) and the sponsor's send.
 
 ## Hard rules honoured
 
-- Every figure is `[PLACEHOLDER]` and labelled as such; the file says in its
-  header that no figure in it is a measurement.
-- No invented number, no estimated conversion, no user counts.
+- No figure in the file is a measurement; nothing is estimated to fill a gap.
+- No conversion figure ships — the ratio is FRE-197's, gated and CTO-confirmed.
+- Any count that ships is activations, named as activations; downloads are
+  never quoted.
 - The two caveats (per-install conversion with install cap 3; downloads ≠
   activations) are written to travel inside the pitch, not a footnote.
 - Paid placements: out, per the issue text and the plan (TLDR ≈ $3k, no
@@ -42,8 +65,9 @@ number.
 
 ## Gates before send
 
-1. Figures from FRE-202 or a CTO-confirmed direct relay-store read — CTO.
-2. CTO confirms the query behind every figure — CTO.
-3. Sponsor approves the send; a human holds the account and sends — sponsor.
-4. Second-breakage paragraph fact-checked against the journal — CMO drafts,
-   CTO verifies.
+1. Any count quoted is activations, from a CTO-confirmed query — CTO.
+2. Trial→paid ratio ships only from FRE-197's mature read, CTO-confirmed;
+   otherwise the no-figure paragraph stands — CTO.
+3. Both breakage paragraphs fact-checked against the engineering record
+   (FRE-542; NOOK-815) — CMO drafts, CTO verifies.
+4. Sponsor approves the send; a human holds the account and sends — sponsor.