The Brief stage

What this is: The first stage of the pipeline, where you define what the piece is about, who it's for, and the angle, before any outline or draft is generated.

The Brief is the foundation. Everything downstream (the outline, the research, the draft) is built from it. Getting it right here saves you rework later.

Tip: Spend time on the Brief. A vague brief produces a vague article; a sharp brief produces a focused one. This is the cheapest place to steer the piece.

Brief fields

The Brief stage includes these fields:

• Article title: the working title for the piece.
• Main keyword: the primary term you want to rank for.
• Article type: choose from Blog Post, Pillar Page, Buyer's Guide, Case Study, How-To, News, Opinion, Product Review, Tutorial, or Whitepaper.
• Awareness stage: Awareness, Consideration, or Decision.
• Target audience: who you're writing for.
• Article goal: what the piece should accomplish.
• Core angle: the specific take or hook.
• Brand relevance: how the piece ties back to your brand.
• Sub-topics: each has a topic plus optional guidance. Drag to reorder.
• Related keywords: supporting terms. Drag to reorder.

Autopilot and Supporting Materials

The Autopilot toggle appears here at the Brief stage. Turn it on for a hands-off run where stages auto-advance. (See the pipeline overview for how Autopilot works.)

A Supporting Materials card shows any repurposed sources and lets you add docs or videos for extra context. The agent uses these when generating the piece.

Approve to generate the Outline

When the Brief looks right, click Approve Brief. This locks the Brief and generates the Outline.

Gotcha: Once approved, the Brief is locked. Changing it later means clicking Unlock, which deletes and regenerates every stage after it.

Where to go next

• Continue to The Outline stage.
• New to the stages and controls? Read the pipeline overview first.