Editorial Process — Manneken Newsletter & Press Review 🌟

Daily Schedule (Brussels time, Mon–Fri)

Time	Task	Details
7:00	Cache press sources	Runs `scripts/fetch-press.sh` via lightpanda: BX1 🇫🇷, BRUZZ 🇳🇱, RTBF 🇫🇷, Brussels Times 🇬🇧, IRCEL air quality
7:10	Write trilingual press review	AI writes EN/FR/NL versions from cached sources → `docs/press-reviews/` + `site/src/content/blog/`
7:25	Post to channels	Twitter (thread), Nostr (3 notes), Discord #📰press-review
7:30	Send daily newsletter	Email to weekday subscribers in their language (EN/FR/NL/AR/ZH)
7:35	Generate podcast	EN audio (Xavier + Leen voices) + FR audio (Raymond Devos + Annie Cordy voices) via ElevenLabs

Weekend Schedule

Day	Time	Task
Saturday	7:00–7:25	Same as weekday (press review + post)
Saturday	7:30	Weekly newsletter with week summary + "What to do in Brussels this weekend?"
Saturday	7:35	Podcast generation
Sunday	7:00–7:35	Press review + podcast (no newsletter)

Press Sources

Source	Language	Method	URL
BX1	French	Lightpanda markdown	https://bx1.be/news/
BRUZZ	Dutch	Lightpanda markdown	https://www.bruzz.be/actua
RTBF	French	Lightpanda markdown	https://www.rtbf.be/en-continu
Brussels Times	English	Google News sitemap XML	https://www.brusselstimes.com/google-news-sitemap.xml
IRCEL-CELINE	Multi	Lightpanda markdown	https://www.irceline.be/en/air-quality/measurements/information-and-alarm-thresholds

Editions

Daily (Mon–Fri): That morning's press review with weather forecast and air quality
Weekly (Saturday): Week's highlights + "What to do in Brussels this weekend?"
Subscribers can choose daily, weekly, or both

Languages

English, Français, Nederlands, العربية, 中文

Arabic and Chinese currently receive English content with localized subject lines, labels, and UI.

Email Structure

☁️ Weather forecast (always first — current temp, min/max, feels-like, wind, humidity)
🟡 Air quality alert (only if AQI > 100)
📰 Press review content (grouped by topic, sources cited)
🎉 Weekend events (weekly edition only)
🔗 Footer with manage preferences + one-click unsubscribe

Infrastructure

Subscribe: https://manneken.brussels/newsletter/
Archive: https://manneken.brussels/newsletter/archive/
Database: SQLite at data/newsletter.db
API server: systemd newsletter-api on port 3847 (behind nginx)
Email provider: Resend (from: newsletter@manneken.brussels)

Subscriber Management

/newsletter/subscribe — sign up (POST)
/newsletter/unsubscribe?token=xxx — one-click removal (GET)
/newsletter/manage?token=xxx — change language, switch edition (GET/POST)

Podcast

Voices (ElevenLabs)

Language	Host 1	Host 2
English	Xavier (Manneken)	Leen (co-host)
French	Raymond Devos (Manneken)	Annie Cordy (co-host)

Rules

Hosts introduce themselves ONCE by voice name at the start
No "Speaker:" prefixes in scripts — voices make it clear
Weather forecast near the top
If ElevenLabs fails: stop, don't create placeholder files
Valid MP3 must be >100KB

Tools

Scraping: Always lightpanda (/usr/local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump markdown --obey_robots <URL>)
TTS: ElevenLabs API (multilingual v2 model)
Email: Resend API
Site: Astro + Tailwind, deployed via scripts/deploy-site.sh

Stats

Tracked in docs/private/chat-stats.json:

Daily/monthly chat metrics (Nostr, Discord, Twitter)
Newsletter subscriber counts (by language + edition)
Emails sent per day (by language)

Press Review Writing Rules

"Saved You a Click" — Always Include Specifics

Every summary, teaser, tweet, and Discord post must contain enough detail that readers don't need to click through to understand the story. Name people, places, initiatives, and numbers.

Bad: "A square in Brussels was redone." Good: "The Tootschmarket square in Molenbeek reopened after 18 months of works."

Apply to: Discord summaries, Twitter thread text, Nostr teasers, LinkedIn posts, newsletter intro lines.

Costume of the Day Image

Every press review now starts with an illustrated Manneken Pis costume that matches the day’s news or calendar moment.

Run the generator after the trilingual posts are saved (EN/FR/NL files in docs/press-reviews/ and site/src/content/blog/).
```
cd /root/.openclaw/workspace
node scripts/generate-costume-image.mjs --date YYYY-MM-DD
```
- Add --force to regenerate even if the PNG already exists.
What the script does automatically:
- Scans the English review for keywords (Ramadan/iftar, XR, EU summit, mobility crackdowns, weather extremes, football, etc.) to pick a costume theme.
- If no obvious topic is found, checks hard-coded calendar moments (Saint-Patrick, 22 mars commemoration, Fête nationale, etc.).
- If nothing matches, falls back to the official dressing calendar (cached under docs/cache/manneken-costumes/ via lightpanda scraping of the monthly schedule). If that page is blocked, a basic seasonal theme is used so the image still appears.
- Generates a 1024×1024 PNG via OpenAI (skills/openai-image-gen) and stores it at site/public/news/costumes/YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD-costume.png.
- Inserts a localized snippet (EN/FR/NL) immediately under the frontmatter of each press-review Markdown file:
```

![Manneken Pis — Ramadan lanterns](/news/costumes/2026/03/2026-03-19-costume.png)

<small>Costume du jour : …</small>

```
Image sourcing:
- Source: site/public/news/costumes/YYYY/MM/
- Cached schedule: docs/cache/manneken-costumes/<year>-<month>.md
- Temporary OpenAI output: tmp/costume-image/
When to rerun: anytime the review content changes meaningfully (new topics or reordering). Use --force to update the PNG + snippets.

ℹ️ Note: the official garde-robe site sits behind Cloudflare, so the monthly schedule is temporarily sourced from https://bruxelles-city-news.be/ until we can ingest the PDF directly via opendataloader-pdf.