--- name: generating-podcast-script description: "Use this skill whenever the user asks to write, generate, or create a podcast script or podcast episode — from a topic, or from source material such as a news digest, newsletter, email review, or set of articles — and optionally convert it to audio with Azure Text-to-Speech. Handles the initial request and every follow-up refinement (source, topic, length, cast, narration) in the same task." --- # Podcast Script Generation Produces a two-host, NotebookLM-style conversational episode: a readable script plus a multi-voice SSML document ready for Azure Text-to-Speech. ## Step 1 — Gather inputs Ask only for what is missing. Do not ask for optional fields that have safe defaults. | Input | Required | Default | |---|---|---| | `source` or `topic` | Yes | — (source material such as a digest/newsletter/articles, **or** a plain topic) | | `duration` | No | `medium` — `short` ≈ 3 min / ~450 words, `medium` ≈ 6 min / ~900 words, `long` ≈ 12 min / ~1,800 words | | `language` | No | English | | `cast` | No | Two hosts, NOVA and MILES (see Step 4) | | `generate_audio` | No | Ask after the script is ready | All word targets assume ~150 spoken words per minute. Stay within 10 percent of target. Derive a lowercase-hyphenated `` from the source or topic (max 6 words, ASCII only). ## Step 2 — Parse the source material Skip this step when the user gave a bare topic with no source material. Extract every distinct article or item. For each, capture: - headline - publication / source - date, if present - the core factual claim - any figures or quotes - the "so what" Merge duplicates covering the same event. Discard boilerplate, footers, disclaimers, legal notices, unsubscribe text, and image captions. ## Step 3 — Editorial selection Rank items by newsworthiness and reader impact. Keep the top 4 to 6 for full treatment (fewer for `short`, more for `long`). Group the remainder into one fast **rapid fire** segment. If the material has a dominant theme, lead with it and thread it through the episode. ## Step 4 — Cast Two hosts, always the same personalities, always distinct voices: - **NOVA** — voice `en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural`. Lead host. Warm, curious, quick. Drives the agenda, asks the question the listener is thinking, reacts out loud, reframes jargon into plain language. Slightly faster cadence. - **MILES** — voice `en-US-AndrewMultilingualNeural`. Analyst. Calm, dry, precise. Supplies context, numbers, caveats, second-order implications. Slightly slower, lower pitch. Occasionally pushes back on Nova. Neither host is a narrator. They talk **to each other**, not to the microphone. ## Step 5 — Episode structure 1. **Cold open** (15–20s) — Nova opens on the single most striking fact or tension. No "welcome to the podcast", no channel branding, no music cues. 2. **Agenda tease** (10s) — Miles lays out what they'll cover, casually. 3. **Story segments** (60–90s each) — one item per segment. Pattern: hook → the facts → why it matters → a short exchange of interpretation → handoff line into the next story. Vary who leads each segment. 4. **Rapid fire** (45s) — alternating one-liners on the leftover items, quick tempo. 5. **Close** (20–30s) — three concrete takeaways split between the two hosts, then a short human sign-off. Alternate whether Nova or Miles ends. ## Step 6 — Dialogue style This is what makes it sound conversational rather than read-aloud. - Write spoken English, not written English. Contractions everywhere. - Keep most lines under 30 words. Break long explanations across two or three turns with the other host interjecting. - Use real conversational connective tissue — "okay so", "right", "wait, back up", "here's the part I didn't expect", "yeah, and that's the thing", "hmm". Roughly one marker every 4 to 5 turns. Never let it become a tic. - One host regularly asks the naive clarifying question so the other can explain. - Use one concrete analogy or comparison per complex item. - Genuine reactions are allowed ("that number is wild"). Invented opinions on people, companies, or politics are not. - Never read a headline verbatim. Paraphrase it into speech. - Attribute clearly: "according to the Financial Times", "Reuters is reporting". - If the source is ambiguous or a claim is unconfirmed, say so on air: "the report is careful to call that unconfirmed". - No stage directions, no "[laughs]", no speaker labels, no markdown, no emojis, no bullet points, and no URLs in the **spoken text**. ## Step 7 — TTS hygiene Applies to every word that will be spoken. - Spell out anything a synthesizer would mangle: "twenty twenty-six" not `2026`, "three point two billion dollars" not `$3.2B`, "about fifteen percent" not `~15%`. - First mention of an acronym: expand it, then use the short form. - Letter-by-letter acronyms: `API`. - Odd proper nouns: `Name`. - A non-English name or phrase inside an English line: `...`. - Escape XML entities in all spoken text: `&` → `&`, `<` → `<`, `>` → `>`. - Never emit smart quotes, em dashes, asterisks, or underscores. ## Step 8 — Write the readable script Write the human-readable transcript to: ```text /app/created/_Podcast_Script.txt ``` This file — and only this file — may carry `NOVA:` / `MILES:` speaker labels so a person can follow along. It contains no stage directions and no markdown. The spoken text itself must already satisfy Steps 6 and 7 so it can be lifted into SSML unchanged. ## Step 9 — SSML output contract Produce the SSML document and **nothing else** — no preamble, no explanation, no code fences, no trailing notes inside the artifact. Write it verbatim to: ```text /app/created/_Podcast.ssml ``` Rules: - Exactly one root `` element with `version="1.0"`, `xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis"`, `xmlns:mstts="http://www.w3.org/2001/mstts"`, `xml:lang="en-US"`. - One `` element per conversational turn. Alternate speakers. Never put both hosts inside one `` element. - Vary delivery with `` so it never sounds flat. Baselines: Nova `rate="+6%" pitch="+2%"`, Miles `rate="-2%" pitch="-4%"`. Nudge per line to match the emotion of the sentence. - Use `` where the voice supports it. Preferred styles: `chat` for banter, `friendly` for explanation, `narration-professional` for the factual core of a story, `excited` sparingly for the cold open. An unsupported style is ignored by the service, so keep styles optional — never structural. - Pauses: `` between turns within a segment, `` between segments, `` before a punchline or a pivot. Never exceed `900ms`. - **Every `` must sit inside a `` element.** A `` placed between `` elements — as a direct child of `` — is invalid in a multi-voice document and will fail synthesis. Two `` elements may sit directly next to each other with nothing between them. To pause *between* turns, put the break at the **end of the preceding turn's** text, inside that turn's ``. - `` on at most one or two key terms per segment. - Keep the total document under 40,000 characters. ### Shape ```xml Okay, so the number that stopped me cold this morning was forty percent. Forty percent, in one quarter. Right, and the part everyone's skipping is that it's off a very small base. Context matters here. ``` Note the trailing `` closing each turn: the 250ms is the gap before the next turn, the 700ms is the longer gap before the next segment. Nothing sits between the two `` elements. ## Step 10 — Review, then generate audio Show the user a table summarising each segment (title, one-line description, approximate spoken duration), print both file paths, and ask: > Would you like me to convert this to an audio file? Only if they say yes: 1. Confirm the `ConverttexttospeechwithSSML` tool is available on the agent. If it is not, tell the user how to add it and stop. 2. Call `ConverttexttospeechwithSSML` with the SSML document from Step 9 and `outputFormat: riff-24khz-16bit-mono-pcm`. 3. Decode the base64 response and save to `/app/created/_Podcast.wav`. If the document is too large for a single call, split it at a segment boundary and synthesize each part separately. When stitching, do NOT concatenate decoded RIFF/WAV bytes; instead, append the audio at the PCM-frame level (e.g., via Python’s `wave` module) and write a single valid `/app/created/_Podcast.wav` with one header. ```python import base64 with open('', 'r') as f: content = f.read().strip() audio_bytes = base64.b64decode(content) with open('/app/created/_Podcast.wav', 'wb') as f: f.write(audio_bytes) ``` ## Step 11 — Final report Always end with: | Item | Details | |---|---| | Script file | `/app/created/_Podcast_Script.txt` | | SSML file | `/app/created/_Podcast.ssml` | | Word count / estimated duration | actual vs. target at ~150 wpm | | Items covered | full segments + rapid-fire count | | Voices | `en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural` (Nova), `en-US-AndrewMultilingualNeural` (Miles) | | Audio file | `/app/created/_Podcast.wav` *(only if audio generated)* |