Gnesis · Internal · Marketing OS Plan

One spine.
One router.
Eleven disciplines.

The marketing knowledge base ships as a single operating system: every discipline conforms to the same chapter spine, and a router skill decides which chapters Claude loads based on what Gnesis is doing right now.

The concern: there's no spine and no router controlling flow.
The answer: both exist as defined artifacts. This document shows the shape of each, the build sequence, and the signals of done.

The disciplines disagree on shape.

The /revised/ folder has eleven marketing disciplines in flight. Each is in a different format. The router cannot route over inconsistency, so step one is forcing every discipline into the same skeleton.

Positioning
  • 00-positioning-os.md
  • 01-foundation.md
  • 02-audience-and-jtbd.md
  • ...
Numbered spine ✓
Social Media
  • FRAMEWORKS.md
  • PROCESSES.md
  • TEMPLATES.md
  • BENCHMARKS.md
File-type buckets ✗
Analytics
  • v3/
  • v4/
  • v5/
  • v6/
Versioned drafts ✗
Email Marketing
  • welcome-sequence.template.md
  • list-building.template.md
  • VERDICTS.md
  • v3/
Mixed flat ✗

Four shapes shown. Seven other disciplines vary similarly. None of them is wrong. They just aren't the same shape, which means the router would need eleven special cases instead of one general rule.

One chapter structure. Every discipline.

The numbered chapter spine wins because it sorts naturally, forces sequential reasoning, and is already the shape of your most mature disciplines (Positioning, CRO, paid-media). It becomes the canonical template.

Canonical chapter spine
00-
discipline-osOperating principles, scope, governance
01-
foundationDefinitions, vocabulary, core concepts
02-
audience-and-jtbdWho, what they hire the discipline to do
03-
strategyDecisions, frameworks, trade-offs
04-
execution-playbooksHow to actually run the work
05-
measurement-and-experimentationMetrics, tests, learning loops
06-
templatesReusable assets, ready to fork
07-
benchmarksReference numbers, what good looks like
08-
anti-patternsWhat not to do, why it breaks
09-
decisions-logWhy we chose what we chose
REVIEW
trifecta verdictsLives in /reviews/, not in the discipline

Naming convention rules

Every file is NN-kebab-case-name.md. Two-digit prefix, hyphen, lowercase, hyphen-separated.
Chapter slot 00 through 09 is reserved. Disciplines may add 10+ for discipline-specific chapters but the first ten are fixed.
Every discipline folder is kebab-case at the root: positioning/, paid-media/, email-marketing/.
No version subfolders inside disciplines. Versioning lives in git. v1/, v2/, v3/ get collapsed.
Verdicts and trifecta artifacts move to a sibling /reviews/ folder at the /revised/ root.
No spaces in any folder or file name. No CamelCase. No underscores except for sort-to-top utility files.

Eleven disciplines, one shape

positioning ★ mature
conversion-rate-optimization ★ mature
paid-media ★ mature
social-media reformat
email-marketing reformat
analytics-and-tracking collapse v3-v6
abm-and-demand-generation collapse v1-v2
design-and-creative reformat
influencer-marketing reformat
product-marketing-gtm reformat
marketing-psychology add
launch-strategy add

One skill. Reads context. Loads what's needed.

The router is a Claude Code skill named gnesis-marketing-router. It takes two inputs and outputs the exact chapter set Claude should load. No more dumping the whole knowledge base into context every session.

Input 1

Gnesis State
private-beta
seed-fundraising
wedge-push-founders
design-partner-activation
public-launch-prep
+

Skill

gnesis-marketing-router
state × ask
→ discipline + chapters

Output

Chapter Set
positioning/03
positioning/07
paid-media/04
email-marketing/06

Input 2

User Ask
"write the launch email" · "fix the pricing page" · "sharpen the seed-deck pitch slide" · "plan the Q3 founder-ICP campaign"
state: wedge-push-founders
ask: "write a cold-outbound sequence to seed-stage solo founders"
→ router resolves
load: positioning/02-audience-and-jtbd.md
load: email-marketing/04-execution-playbooks.md
load: email-marketing/06-templates.md (sales-email-sequences)
load: marketing-psychology/03-strategy.md (cold-outbound principles)
skip: paid-media, social, abm, influencer, analytics

Three phases. Strict order.

The router cannot be built before the spine is uniform — otherwise it bakes in the inconsistency and gets rewritten. Sequence is non-negotiable.

PHASE A

Standardize the spine

Lock the canonical chapter list, naming convention, and the /reviews/ folder. Migrate Positioning, CRO, paid-media first as the reference implementations.

Deliverables
  • SPINE.md at /revised/ root with the canonical chapter list
  • NAMING.md with the convention rules
  • /reviews/ folder created, all VERDICTS migrated
  • Three reference disciplines passing the spine
Done when: any new discipline can be scaffolded by copying the spine.
PHASE B

Refill against the spine

Every remaining discipline gets reformatted to match the spine. Content from existing files is mapped to the right chapter slots. Each completed discipline ships with a trifecta review in /reviews/ before it's allowed to cascade.

Deliverables
  • Eight disciplines reformatted: social, email, analytics, abm, design-creative, influencer, product-marketing-gtm, plus two new (marketing-psychology, launch-strategy)
  • One trifecta verdict per discipline in /reviews/
  • Versioned drafts (v1-v6) collapsed; history in git
Done when: all eleven disciplines have the same shape and a passing trifecta verdict.
PHASE C

Build the router skill

Ship gnesis-marketing-router as a skill in project-starter/.claude/skills/marketing/. Wire it to a single state file (gnesis-state.md) so the router knows what Gnesis is doing without being told every session.

Deliverables
  • gnesis-marketing-router/SKILL.md
  • state-to-discipline mapping table
  • ask-classifier (taxonomy of user asks)
  • gnesis-state.md as single source of truth for company state
  • README.md + .docx per OCC cascade rules
Done when: running /run gnesis-marketing-router with any state + ask returns the right chapter set in under five seconds.

What's true when this ships.

The promise to the partner: by the time all three phases land, here's what the marketing OS does that it cannot do today.

01

Predictable structure

Any discipline can be navigated by chapter number alone. Onboarding a new contributor takes minutes, not hours.

02

Context-aware loading

Claude pulls four to six relevant chapters per session instead of hundreds of files. Faster sessions, sharper output, lower cost.

03

Single state file controls flow

Update gnesis-state.md once. Every marketing session for the next phase routes correctly without per-session briefing.

04

QC layer is visible, not buried

Every discipline has a trifecta verdict in /reviews/. You can see at a glance which disciplines are ship-ready and which still need work.

05

Cascadable per OCC rules

The router skill ships with operational file + README + .docx. Cascades into project-starter, user-global, Excel master sheet, and the tbk-labs portal.

06

Trivially extensible

Add a new discipline by copying the spine. Add a new state by appending one line to the mapping table. The architecture absorbs growth instead of breaking under it.