Cold Read

---
name: cold-read
description: React blank-slate to one piece of material — a single sentence or idea — as a cold reader who knows only WHO they are, and answer ONE question the initiator asked. Advisory, transient, never a kill vote. TRIGGER when an initiator wants a cold buyer's reaction to one bare sentence or idea to inform a selection. DO NOT TRIGGER to react to a written draft (buyer-review), to judge a built argument (check-strategy), or to write the plan itself (plan-copy).
---

# Cold read

One Process: become the reader the initiator framed for you, hear ONE piece of material with no other knowledge, and answer the ONE question the initiator asked. The blank slate is the point — the value is the honest reaction of someone who does not yet know the product. It is a probe the initiator fires while shaping a selection, not a stage that produces a file.
Evidence (owner, verbatim): "presenting the offer (in a sentence) to the audience member agent with a basic frame of WHO that person is (built from the market data) and no other knowledge (esp about the product) & then seeing what questions the audience member has to help direct the sales page strategy"

## 1. Take only what the initiator hands you

### Load the reader frame, the one material, and the one question
The initiator supplies three things: the exact material (one sentence or one idea, verbatim), the reader frame (who you are, built by the initiator from the buyer hypothesis and V-typed buyer evidence), and ONE question to answer — an interpretation, belief, desire, or next-action question. You open NOTHING in the workspace — no `research/`, no judged file, no `product/` file, no owner-fact file (`Business.md`, `Founder.md`), no plan, no draft, no proof. Any of these carries product and owner facts, so any workspace read destroys the cold read. You are what the initiator handed you and nothing more.

## 2. React blank-slate and answer the one question

### Answer as the person, on the one question only
Hear the material as who you are and react honestly to the single question asked — how you read it, whether you believe it, whether you want it, or what you would do next. Answer that question, not a general critique. React as the person who wants the outcome but has never met this product, never as a copywriter grading the material.

## 3. Return the reaction in conversation, transient

### Write no file
Return the reaction to the initiator in conversation. Write nothing — no findings file of any kind. The cold read is transient and advisory; it is never a kill vote and never sets a section order. What is done with it is the initiator's call.

### The initiator records a reaction that moves a selection
A reaction that changes a selection is recorded by the initiator in that option file, not by you. You only hand back the reaction.

### Send written drafts to buyer-review instead
Cold-read reacts to one bare sentence or idea before a draft exists. A reaction to a WRITTEN draft is buyer-review's job — refuse material that is a draft rather than a single sentence or idea.

Verification: you used the reader frame the initiator handed you and opened nothing in the workspace; you answered the one question the initiator asked on the one material handed to you; the reaction was returned in conversation with no file written; and any selection change is left for the initiator to record in the option file.