Milestone follow-up suggestions (followup-suggest)

Some schedulers can act automatically when a post passes a milestone: like it, comment under it, DM the people who engaged, or repost it. ReachWeaver does none of that. reachweaver followup-suggest does something narrower. When one of your published posts reaches a threshold you set, it suggests a follow-up for you to review. Each suggestion is a short brief plus the normal next commands (draft, then show, then your own approve; or idea add).

Suggestion for review; nothing is drafted, approved or sent. The command opens the local database read-only, makes no network request and has no path to like, reply, message, repost, follow, draft or publish.

Quickstart

cp examples/followup-rules.example.json config/followup-rules.json   # edit thresholds to taste
reachweaver import-metrics native.csv                                  # or metrics-fetch for public counters
reachweaver followup-suggest --rules config/followup-rules.json
reachweaver followup-suggest --rules config/followup-rules.json --json --since 2026-10-01T00:00:00Z
# Remember what was already suggested, so the same post/rule pair is not suggested again:
reachweaver followup-suggest --rules config/followup-rules.json --state state/followups-state.json --record

Flags: --rules FILE (optional, see below), --account ID (only that account’s posts), --since DATE (only posts published at or after an ISO 8601 time with a timezone), --state FILE and --record (dedupe, see below), --optout FILE (default $REACHWEAVER_OPTOUT or config/optout.json if present), --now ISO (fixed time for snapshot ages) and --json. It uses the global --db and --accounts.

Without --rules: thresholds from your own results

reachweaver followup-suggest with no --rules decides what “took off” means for each account from that account’s own results. The threshold is ceil(2 x median) interactions (likes + replies + reposts, all exact in one snapshot), using the median at the matched age of about 7 days (168 h +/- 24 h, insights method). A post is compared only against snapshots from the same source, taken no later than 192 h after posting. The output starts with “Thresholds derived from your own results” and shows each account as derived from your N posts: 2 x median M = T. Each brief repeats that basis, and the JSON carries derived_thresholds. The derived kind is recap_thread. The rule id is took-off-ACCOUNT, so --state/--record dedupe works as usual.

When an account has fewer than 10 posts with a result, has a median of 0, or is on a human-only platform, it gets no rule and the reason is shown. If no account qualifies, the command exits 0 with a friendly message: pass --rules FILE, or record results first. In that case --json gives "status": "too_little_data". --rules FILE replaces the derived rules completely.

Rules file

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "kind": "reachweaver.followup-rules",
  "rules": [
    {"id": "replies-10-day1", "metric": "replies", "threshold": 10, "within_hours": 24,
     "platforms": ["bluesky", "mastodon"], "kind": "thank_and_link",
     "link": "https://example.org/docs/getting-started"},
    {"id": "likes-100-adapt", "metric": "likes", "threshold": 100, "kind": "cross_post",
     "target_platforms": ["linkedin", "threads"]}
  ]
}

A bare list of rules is accepted too. The full example is examples/followup-rules.example.json.

Field	Required	Meaning
id	yes	Unique lowercase id (letters, digits, -), used in the output and the dedupe state
metric	yes	One of views, impressions, likes, replies, reposts, saves, clicks, signups
threshold	yes	Integer 1 or more; the rule matches when the exact value is at least this
kind	yes	thank_and_link, recap_thread, cross_post, pin_or_feature or write_up (below)
within_hours	no	Only count an observation made within this many hours of publishing (1 to 8784)
platforms	no	Only posts on these platforms
accounts	no	Only posts of these account ids
link	no	A public https URL: the resource a thank_and_link follow-up points to
target_platforms	no	cross_post only: limit the adaptation targets to these platforms
note	no	One line (up to 280 characters) added to the brief, for example “point to the guide, not the pricing page”

Unknown keys, duplicate ids, unknown metrics or platforms, a non-integer threshold, a non-public link, or a Reddit or Hacker News cross-post target are refused with exit code 2 and a message naming the rule. The rule set never half-loads.

What each kind suggests

Kind	Suggestion	Next commands
thank_and_link	A short new post from the same account that thanks readers and points to one resource (the rule’s link, or one you name). No request to like, share or follow.	RW show POST, RW draft --account ID --file followup.txt [--source-url LINK], then you review and approve
recap_thread	A recap of what the post covered and what readers asked, linking back to the original	RW show POST, RW draft --account ID --file recap.txt --source-url ORIGINAL
cross_post	An adaptation (not a verbatim copy) for each other configured account on a different platform	RW draft --account OTHER --file adapted-PLATFORM.txt, then RW repeat-check --post-id NEW_POST_ID
pin_or_feature	A manual note: pin or feature the post yourself in the official app. ReachWeaver has no pin action.	RW show POST
write_up	An idea for a longer article; captured in the ideas inbox, not drafted	RW idea add '...' --source ORIGINAL --tag followup

A brief is guidance for whoever writes the draft (you, or Claude in Claude Code). It is not post text. Every resulting draft still goes through show, check and your own approve, exactly like any other post.

What it reads, and which values count

• Only posts with status published and no reply target (your own top-level posts), newest first, up to 5000. The publish time is the latest published event, else the send start, else the scheduled or creation time, the same rule journal uses.
• The metric snapshots of those posts, from import-metrics or metrics-fetch. For each rule it uses the latest exact value of the metric (within within_hours of publishing, when set) and reports its value, source, observation time, age in hours and, when known, the snapshot window.
• Estimates are never compared. A value stored as estimated:N, suppressed, delayed or not_available is not an exact count. It is never used, like in every other ReachWeaver reader, and the skip names the status.
• Crossing a threshold is an observation. It does not show that the post caused anything, and it says nothing about future reach.

Hard rules

• No automated engagement of any kind: no auto-like, auto-comment, auto-reply, auto-DM, auto-repost or auto-follow. There is no code path for them.
• Reddit and Hacker News (and every community the distribution registry marks human-only) get no follow-up suggestion, and are never a cross-post target. Those communities are human-only or moderator-controlled; write there yourself under their rules.
• Opt-out list respected. People the original post mentions may be suggested for credit, but a handle on your opt-out list is never named; the suggestion only says how many were withheld.
• Nothing is drafted, approved, scheduled or sent. The output is text for a person to act on.

Privacy and files

• The database is opened with SQLite mode=ro plus query_only. A missing database fails with exit 2 and is never created; an older schema is never migrated (run reachweaver init once to upgrade it).
• Post text is read only to find @-mentions and is never printed.
• --state FILE is a private JSON file of (post_id, rule_id) pairs and a timestamp, nothing else. It is read when present (a symlink or a file readable by others is refused) and written only with --record, atomically, with mode 0600. Without --record, the command writes nothing at all.
• No network, no model call, no credential.

In Claude Code

After metrics are imported (import-metrics, metrics-fetch), Claude can run followup-suggest --rules FILE --json and offer the suggestions. It drafts a follow-up only when you choose one, through the normal draft command, and never approves, publishes or engages for you. See the skill’s references/engagement.md.