Content Generation Workflow

Overview

This document describes the end-to-end workflow for creating content using the AI-assisted content generation system. The workflow combines automated scheduling, AI drafting, human review, and multi-platform publishing.

Workflow Diagram

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        Weekly Content Workflow                           │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                          │
│  MONDAY 9:00 UTC                                                        │
│  ┌──────────────────┐                                                   │
│  │  GitHub Actions  │                                                   │
│  │  Calendar Check  │                                                   │
│  └────────┬─────────┘                                                   │
│           │                                                              │
│           ▼                                                              │
│  ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐                          │
│  │  Scan Calendars  │───▶│  Create Issues   │                          │
│  │  for Due Content │    │  for Due Items   │                          │
│  └──────────────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘                          │
│                                   │                                      │
│  MONDAY-THURSDAY                  ▼                                      │
│  ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐                          │
│  │  Assign Issue    │───▶│  Draft Content   │                          │
│  │  (Human/Copilot) │    │  (AI-Assisted)   │                          │
│  └──────────────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘                          │
│                                   │                                      │
│                                   ▼                                      │
│  ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐  │
│  │  Validate Draft  │───▶│  Human Review    │───▶│  Schema Check    │  │
│  │  Against Schema  │    │  & Edit          │    │  (CI Workflow)   │  │
│  └──────────────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘  │
│                                   │                       │             │
│  PUBLISH DAY                      ▼                       │             │
│  ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐            │             │
│  │  Merge to Main   │───▶│  Jekyll Build    │◀───────────┘             │
│  │  (PR Approved)   │    │  & Deploy        │                          │
│  └──────────────────┘    └────────┬─────────┘                          │
│                                   │                                      │
│  POST-PUBLISH                     ▼                                      │
│  ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐  │
│  │  Social Posts    │───▶│  Update Calendar │───▶│  Close Issue     │  │
│  │  (Repurposing)   │    │  Status          │    │                  │  │
│  └──────────────────┘    └──────────────────┘    └──────────────────┘  │
│                                                                          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Phase 1: Calendar Check (Automated)

When It Runs

Schedule: Every Monday at 9:00 AM UTC (4:00 AM EST)
Trigger: GitHub Actions cron schedule
Manual Override: gh workflow run calendar-check.yml

What It Does

Scans Calendar Files

// Checks all YAML files in calendar/ directory
const calendarDir = 'calendar';
const files = fs.readdirSync(calendarDir, { recursive: true });

Finds Due Content
- Looks ahead 7 days (configurable via days_ahead)
- Filters for status: planned only
- Ignores published and in-progress items
Creates GitHub Issues
- One issue per due content item
- Includes context for AI drafting
- Applies labels: content, copilot, type-specific labels

Issue Format

## Content Request from Editorial Calendar

**Type**: blog
**Title**: The State of AI Coding Assistants in 2026
**Due Date**: 2026-01-09
**Publish Date**: 2026-01-13
**Priority**: high

### Description
Comparing Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and emerging tools

### Topics
- ai-development
- tools
- industry-analysis

### Platforms
- blog
- twitter
- linkedin

---

### For Copilot

Use the following resources:
- Brand voice: `brands/zircote/brand.yml`
- Blog template: `brands/zircote/templates/blog-post.prompt.md`
- Schema: `schemas/blog.schema.yml`

Save draft to: `content/blog/drafts/2026-01-09-the-state-of-ai-coding-assistants.md`

---
*Auto-generated from calendar/2026/q1.yml*

Phase 2: Content Drafting

Option A: AI-Assisted Drafting (Recommended)

Step 1: Gather Context

# Read the issue for requirements
gh issue view <issue-number>

# Load brand configuration
cat brands/zircote/brand.yml

# Review the template
cat brands/zircote/templates/blog-post.prompt.md

Step 2: Research (For News Integration)

For posts with news_integration: true:

Check news sources from calendar
Search for recent developments
Note 2-3 relevant news items
Include citations in draft

Step 3: Generate Draft

Using Claude Code or similar AI:

Based on the following context, generate a blog post draft:

**Title**: The State of AI Coding Assistants in 2026
**Target Word Count**: 2000
**Topics**: ai-development, tools, industry-analysis

**Brand Voice** (from brands/zircote/brand.yml):
- Tone: technical, practical, direct, helpful
- Style: Write from hands-on experience, show code examples
- Audience: Software architects, backend developers, DevOps engineers

**Structure Requirements**:
1. Hook/Introduction (150-200 words)
2. Main sections (3-4 major points)
3. Code examples where relevant
4. Practical takeaways
5. Call to action: "What's your preferred AI coding setup?"

**News to Incorporate**:
- [Recent development 1]
- [Recent development 2]

Step 4: Save Draft

# Save to drafts directory
# Format: YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md
content/blog/drafts/2026-01-09-the-state-of-ai-coding-assistants.md

Option B: Manual Drafting

Open issue for context
Create new file in content/blog/drafts/
Use templates/blog-post.md as starting point
Write content following brand guidelines
Reference topics from issue

Draft File Format

---
layout: post
title: "The State of AI Coding Assistants in 2026"
date: 2026-01-13
author: Robert Allen
categories: [ai-development, tools]
tags: [claude-code, copilot, cursor, ai-assistants]
description: "Comparing Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and emerging tools"
image: /assets/images/blog/2026/ai-coding-assistants.png
canonical_url: https://www.zircote.com/blog/2026/01/13/ai-coding-assistants
---

<!-- Content here -->

Phase 3: Review and Validation

Automated Validation

On PR creation, the validate-content.yml workflow:

Checks Frontmatter
- Required fields present
- Date format correct
- Categories valid
Schema Validation
- Validates against schemas/blog.schema.yml
- Reports errors in PR comments
Link Checking
- Verifies internal links
- Flags broken external links

Human Review Checklist

Update Issue Status

# Update calendar status
# In calendar/2026/q1.yml, change:
# status: planned → status: in-progress

# Comment on issue
gh issue comment <number> --body "Draft submitted: #<pr-number>"

Phase 4: Publishing

Pre-Publish Steps

Merge PR to main
```
gh pr merge <number> --merge
```
Verify Build
- GitHub Pages builds automatically
- Check Actions tab for success
Verify Live
- Visit published URL
- Test all links
- Check mobile rendering

Post-Publish Steps

Update Calendar

# Change status
status: published

# Add published URL
published_url: "https://www.zircote.com/blog/2026/01/13/slug"

Close Issue

gh issue close <number> --comment "Published: <url>"

Use prompts/blog-to-social.prompt.md:

Given this blog post, create social media versions:

**Source**: [Blog post content]

**Target Platforms**:
1. Twitter/X (280 chars, 2-3 tweet thread)
2. LinkedIn (professional, 1000-1500 chars)
3. Bluesky (300 chars, conversational)

**Include**:
- Link to full post
- Relevant hashtags
- Call to action

Platform-Specific Prompts

Each platform has a dedicated template:

Platform	Template	Character Limit
Twitter	`templates/social/twitter.prompt.md`	280
LinkedIn	`templates/social/linkedin.prompt.md`	3000
Bluesky	`templates/social/bluesky.prompt.md`	300
Mastodon	`templates/social/mastodon.prompt.md`	500

Scheduling

Use your preferred social media scheduler:

Buffer
Hootsuite
Later
Native platform scheduling

Friday Roundup Workflow

Special Process for Weekly Digests

THURSDAY
┌──────────────────┐
│  Curate News     │
│  from Sources    │
└────────┬─────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌──────────────────┐
│  Select 3-5      │
│  Top Stories     │
└────────┬─────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌──────────────────┐
│  Draft Using     │
│  Recurring.format│
└────────┬─────────┘
         │
FRIDAY   ▼
┌──────────────────┐
│  Post to All     │
│  Platforms       │
└──────────────────┘

Curating News

Check Sources (see NEWS-SOURCES.md)
- Anthropic Blog
- OpenAI Blog
- HuggingFace
- AgFunder
- GitHub Blog
Selection Criteria
- Relevance to audience
- Recency (within 7 days)
- Actionability (can readers use this?)
- Uniqueness (not covered elsewhere)

Format Output

🗞️ Friday Roundup - Week 2

🤖 AI Development:
- Claude 4 adds extended thinking with 128K output tokens
- LangChain releases v0.3 with improved agent framework

🌾 Agriculture Tech:
- New USDA grants for precision agriculture

🛠️ Developer Tools:
- GitHub Actions now supports M4 Mac runners

What caught your attention this week?

Video Content Workflow

Pre-Production

Script from Calendar
- Use title and description as outline
- Reference related blog post if exists
Recording
- Screen capture for demos
- Talking head for explanations
- Keep under 5 minutes for demos

Post-Production

Edit and Export
Create Thumbnail
Write Description
- Include links to related content
- Add timestamps for longer videos

Publishing

YouTube (primary)
LinkedIn (native upload)
Twitter (if under 2:20)

Emergency Content Updates

Urgent News Response

When major news breaks that affects your content areas:

Evaluate Relevance
- Does it fit content pillars?
- Is it actionable for audience?
- Time-sensitive?

Create Ad-Hoc Issue

gh issue create --title "[URGENT] Analysis: Major AI Announcement" \
  --label "content,urgent" \
  --body "Breaking news requires immediate response..."

Fast-Track Review
- Expedited review process
- Same-day publish if critical

Rescheduling Content

When planned content must be delayed: