I have a commute. I also have a long list of things I keep meaning to learn. The two never met, so I built a Claude Skill to introduce them.
The skill takes a topic from a running bank I keep in Google Drive and turns it into a briefing written for the ear, not the eye. The output drops into a "Speechify Ready" folder, and the drive does the rest.
The part that mattered
The hard problem was not generating text. It was making the text sound like something worth listening to. A briefing read aloud has different rules than one you skim. Short sentences. Clear signposting. No dense clauses that lose you at 70 miles an hour.
So the skill spends most of its effort on structure: a hook, three or four beats, and a close that lands. The voice rules are baked in so every briefing sounds like the same narrator.
What I would change
Next version pulls the day's topic automatically based on what is on my calendar, so the briefing is relevant to whatever meeting I am driving toward. Build in public means admitting the v1 is manual on purpose. Ship first, automate second.