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🪐 Shift — shift.aguidetocloud.com

The AI job-change wire. Helping people figure out what AI changes about their job — without panic, without hype.

Shift is a static-first Astro site that reads like a Sunday newspaper. Each role gets a dispatch — a one-page brief that uses the Three Dials framework (Automation pressure, Augmentation pressure, Human resilience) to say plainly what AI is doing to that profession right now.

35 dispatches. 5 voices. 15 sources. 708 generated pages, ~7s build.

What it is, in one screen

Surface What it does
shift.aguidetocloud.com/ Home — hero, launcher, ThreeDialsStrip, Lead Dispatch, 9-tile featured grid, Editor's Note
shift.aguidetocloud.com/role/<slug>/ Per-role dispatch — section-rule → dials strip → headline → deck → body → instrument → pivot-callout (4 roles only) → skills → voice → share → poster → related → adjacent → sources
shift.aguidetocloud.com/method/ Credibility anchor. Defines the Three Dials. Glossary anchor target.
shift.aguidetocloud.com/data/ Human-readable role-index data table. Skeptic-conversion lever.
shift.aguidetocloud.com/quiz/ AI Pressure Quiz — 6 questions → role weights → recommended dispatches
shift.aguidetocloud.com/all/ Domain-grouped catalogue
shift.aguidetocloud.com/compare/<pair>/ Side-by-side role comparison
shift.aguidetocloud.com/about/ Story + cosmos map + how to read a dispatch
shift.aguidetocloud.com/og/<slug>/ 1200×630 social card per role
shift.aguidetocloud.com/og-vertical/<slug>/ 1080×1920 reel poster per role

Identity

Element Decision
Atmosphere Wire + gauge. Newspaper-tight. Paper #F0E9D6 / ink #14110C. Red accent #B22222.
Type Playfair Display (headlines), IBM Plex (body, self-hosted)
Visual signature Section-rules (the wire), Pressure Instrument (gauge SVG), masthead "Vol. 1 · No. 19" volume number
Voice register Editorial. Newspaper-tight. Plain English. Honest take ("voice" entries are spicier opinions, capped at 5 across all 35 dispatches).
Theme Light-only paper feel — a deliberate divergence from Earth's light/dark dual

The Three Dials framework (the conceptual core)

Every dispatch — and every public-facing surface — must respect this framework:

Dial Plain-English blurb Token Where it appears
Automation pressure what AI does instead of you --force-automation (red-ish) Every role page (instrument), home (strip), method (defs), data (cols)
Augmentation pressure what AI changes about how you do it --force-augmentation (yellow-ish) Same
Human resilience what still needs a person --force-resilience (teal/green) Same

First-read rule

Any new copy that uses these terms MUST appear AFTER <ThreeDialsStrip /> on the page, or be inside the strip itself. Never use automation, augmentation, or resilience above the strip. A non-tech reader will bounce before they reach the explanation.

Belief language (Shift's dialect)

Shift inherits Earth's belief but speaks newspaper. Specific Shift voice notes:

  • No panic, no hype. Every dispatch's job is to lower temperature, not raise it. "Here's what's actually happening, calmly."
  • Audience: somebody worried about their job. Not "tech enthusiast", not "founder". The person reading is asking: "Will AI take my job? What should I do?"
  • Voices are capped. Sush has spicy takes, but they're rationed (5 across 35 dispatches). The rest is editorial, not opinion.
  • Plain English first. Everything technical (the Three Dials) is explained at the top of every page that uses it.

Cosmos placement

Shift is a fully cosmos-bound planet. It:

  • Participates in the [cosmos] config (newsletter URL, parent site, feedback)
  • Renders the masthead 4-icon planet rail
  • Publishes nothing back to other planets at launch (no JSON feed, no MCP endpoint — deferred)
  • Enforces cosmos law #6 at build time via scripts/check-paid-firewall.mjs (no paid content from Earth's /guided/ ever crosses to Shift)

The /wire/ page exists but is currently hidden — noindex={true}, unlinked from nav + footer, sitemap-excluded. Direct URL still 200s for re-enable. Newsletter form there reads [cosmos].newsletter_url so the URL swap is one-file.

Architecture, in one paragraph

Astro 6 + React 19 (islands only where needed). 35 dispatches are JSON in src/data/roles.json — single source of truth. src/lib/dispatch.ts auto-generates deck + body for every role from plain-English lookup tables per dial × trajectory verb (touch with care). The Pressure Instrument is a signature React SVG component used as both hero gauge and 3 dim cards with year toggle. PressureQuiz is client-side, scored against role weights. Build pipeline: check-paid-firewall.mjs → validate-roles.mjs → Astro build → optional OG generation. Deploy: direct Cloudflare Pages REST API (workerd doesn't run on win32-arm64). Audit: Playwright personas × viewports × themes via qa/live-audit.mjs.