Section 1
Why Most Hooks Fail
Most hooks are written from instinct. You sit down to record, think of something that sounds good, and hope it lands. Sometimes it does. Usually it doesn't. And you never know why.
The top 1% of hooks on any platform share something in common: they follow a structure. They're engineered, not guessed. The creator who seems effortlessly magnetic in the first three seconds? They're running a formula. You're just not seeing it.
Most "how to write hooks" advice gives you templates to fill in. Mad Libs for content creators. The problem is templates don't adapt. They give you a format with no intelligence behind it.
The skill I built takes a different approach. Before it writes a single word, it pulls real data from competitors who are already winning in your niche. It sees which hook types are trending this week, which patterns correlate with higher views, and what specific language is resonating right now. Then it applies proven structural formulas to that data and gives you five variants to choose from.
The output is always better than what you'd write cold. Not because the AI is more creative than you. Because it starts from what's already working instead of starting from nothing.
Section 2
The 3-Step Formula (Kallaway's Architecture)
This is the foundation. Every hook the skill produces is built on this three-part structure. I didn't invent it. Kallaway did. But I encoded it into a system that applies it automatically, every time, without thinking.
Context Lean
Establish what the video is about AND get the viewer leaning forward. Reference a benefit, pain point, or truth they already believe. This creates engagement before the surprise lands. You're building momentum in one direction so the next step has something to interrupt.
Scroll Stop Interjection
A single stunning line that interrupts. Often starts with "but," "however," or "yet." It hits the brakes on the momentum you just built. The viewer was nodding along, and now they're caught off guard. That's the moment their thumb stops.
Contrarian Snapback
Go in the OPPOSITE direction of the lean. This creates maximum curiosity gap. The viewer now has an open loop they must close by watching. You leaned them one way, stopped them, and snapped them the other direction. They have to stay to find out why.
Example -- all 3 steps applied
Context Lean: "Most people spend 2 hours writing hooks and still don't know if they'll work."
Scroll Stop: "But there's a way to skip the guesswork entirely."
Snapback: "And it takes ten seconds."
In a 3-second short-form hook, all three steps compress into one or two sentences. The lean and interjection merge into a single punchy claim. The snapback is the tease. You don't need three distinct beats when you have three seconds. You need the same energy packed tighter.
Section 3
The 5 Enhancers
The 3-step formula is the skeleton. These five enhancers are the muscle. They're layered on top of the architecture, not replacements for it. Not every hook needs all five. But every great hook uses at least one.
Visual Hooks
The hook is what you say AND what you show. They must reinforce each other. If someone watched with sound off for three seconds, would the visual alone make them stop scrolling? If not, you need a visual layer. The best hooks are designed for both ears and eyes simultaneously. A surprising on-screen element, an unexpected setting, text that contradicts the voiceover. The visual hook buys you the extra half-second you need for the verbal hook to land.
Identity Validation
Social validation phrases that make the viewer feel understood within the first five seconds. Not "who should watch this" but "why you feel what you already feel." The viewer should think "that's me" -- not "this might apply to me." There's a big difference. One creates recognition. The other creates consideration. Recognition stops thumbs. Consideration doesn't.
Cult Hopping
Reference a name, brand, or community with a dedicated following. Viewers who belong to that "cult" feel immediately seen. The reference tells the algorithm who the video is for too. Say "Claude Code" and every Claude user's ears perk up. Say "Notion" and a different crowd leans in. The cult reference is a targeting mechanism disguised as content.
Speed to Value
The gap between your hook landing and your first value point is where viewers drop off. Cut everything that doesn't add new information. "So in this video" -- cut. Transition filler -- cut. Credentials before the first tip -- cut. Every word between the hook and the first piece of value is a chance for the viewer to leave. Treat that gap like it costs you money. Because it does.
Rhythm Engineering
Short punchy sentences. Like this. Three words. Then one longer sentence that earns the punches before and after it. Then back to short. Variety in sentence length is how you create energy in a hook. Monotone rhythm puts people to sleep. Staccato rhythm wakes them up. The best hooks sound like they have a heartbeat.
Each of these enhancers has specific implementation patterns inside the skill -- the exact prompt phrases, the database queries that surface relevant data, the hook type taxonomy that maps each enhancer to the right format. Those are the parts that take weeks to dial in and are where the real value of the ready-made skill lives.
Section 4
Structuring the Skill File
A Claude skill is a markdown file. That's it. No Python. No JavaScript. No API endpoints. It's a .md file with YAML frontmatter at the top and a body of instructions that Claude follows when the skill is invoked.
Think of it as a detailed brief for an extremely capable assistant. The frontmatter tells Claude what the skill is called, what it does, and which tools it's allowed to use. The body tells it exactly how to do the work, step by step.
Skill file skeleton
--- name: hook-writer description: [what it does, when to trigger it] allowed-tools: [which MCP tools it can access] --- ## Initialization [What to check before running] ## Intelligence Brief [Where to pull data from] ## Core Formula [The hook-writing framework] ## Enhancers [Layered techniques] ## Output Format [How to structure the result]
The Initialization section checks for your voice profile and figures out what format the hook is for. TikTok hooks are different from YouTube hooks are different from newsletter subject lines. The skill needs to know what it's writing before it writes.
The Intelligence Brief section tells Claude what database queries to run before writing anything. This is where the data advantage comes from. More on this in the next section.
The Core Formula section is where Kallaway's 3-step architecture lives. Context lean, scroll stop, contrarian snapback. Encoded as instructions, not templates.
The Enhancers section layers on the five techniques from Section 3. The skill knows when to apply each one based on the content type and topic.
The Output Format section ensures you get consistent, usable variants every time. Five hooks, each with a label for the hook type, the enhancers it uses, and a brief rationale for why it should work.
Section 5
Wiring Competitor Data
This is where the skill stops being a fancy template and starts being something you can't replicate by hand.
The hook writer's biggest advantage is that it doesn't write hooks in a vacuum. Before producing a single variant, it queries a database of competitor content to see what hooks are actually winning right now. It checks what hook types are trending, what competitors posted on the same topic, and which patterns correlate with higher views.
The result is an intelligence brief -- a structured summary of what the data says -- that gets fed into the hook-writing step. Claude doesn't just apply formulas. It applies formulas to what's already working in your niche this week.
To make this work, you need three things:
A database with competitor content
Transcripts, hooks, view counts, engagement rates. Structured data from the accounts you're tracking. Not screenshots. Not bookmarks. Queryable data.
SQL queries the skill runs automatically
Before writing, the skill queries for trending hook types, top performers in the same topic area, and patterns that correlate with engagement. These queries run without you touching anything.
A structured intelligence brief
The raw query results get summarized into a brief that tells the hook writer what matters right now. Which hook types are over-indexing. Which topics are saturated. Where the gaps are.
Building the database layer is its own project. The scraping pipeline, the database schema, the enrichment layer that transcribes audio and classifies hook types -- it's a full system. If you want to build that from scratch, I wrote a separate guide for it: Build a Content Intelligence System.
The key insight is simple. Hooks written from data outperform hooks written from instinct. Every time. The skill doesn't just apply formulas. It applies formulas to what's already working in your niche right now. That's the difference between a template and a system.
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