Content Studio

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Studio sweep runs mondays · 8am and keeps the Studio dashboard fresh. Mondays — reads the belt, redraws the board, and says what has been sitting at one stage too long.
• What is captured lands in the Content calendar dataset, which lives at Data/Content Calendar in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Review checklist dataset, which lives at Data/Review Checklist in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Studio dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: the belt, idea to published · pieces on the belt · published in the last 30 days · sitting too long · out the door lately · the publishing calendar · the ideas bank · review a piece, check by check · where each piece stands · pieces by topic · pieces by format · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Content idea capture writes to Content calendar · Content calendar shown by Studio · Studio kept fresh by Studio sweep · Studio sweep run by Bryony · Bryony holds Content idea capture · Bryony holds Plans and briefs · Bryony holds Writing desk · Bryony holds Review and results · Plans and briefs writes to Content calendar · Writing desk writes to Content calendar · Review and results writes to Review checklist.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Open Studio on a Monday, after the Studio sweep has run. Sitting too long is the honest signal — it is the only panel that answers "what is quietly going wrong", and it is ordered longest-first, so the top row is the piece most likely to never come out. The belt funnel underneath tells you WHERE work is being lost: a big drop between Drafting and In review is a writing problem, and a big drop between In review and Scheduled is a reviewing problem, and they need different fixes.
• Say things in passing rather than opening anything. "I have started the pricing one", "it is with Sam", "that went out this morning" — Content idea capture moves the stage and stamps the day it moved, which is the whole mechanism behind Sitting too long. A stage Bryony never hears about is a stage that can never go stale, so the board is exactly as true as your asides make it.
• Put the ideas on the belt even when you have no intention of writing them yet. The ideas bank is the half of this kit that pays for itself: a row at Idea costs one sentence, and the Monday board is the only place you will reliably meet it again. Bryony never chases an idea — an idea is allowed to sit for ever, by design. Drop the ones you are not going to do, out loud: "we are not doing the tooling roundup". Dropped is a real stage, the row is kept with its history, and the piece leaves the funnel instead of inflating the ideas band for ever.
• Give Bryony the windows in your own terms during the first chat — how long is too long in review, how often you actually mean to publish, what you will not write about. Those are the numbers Sitting too long uses, and a board that cries wolf on a two-day-old draft is a board you stop opening.
• Ask before you go looking. "What is going out this week?" and "what has been sitting?" both read the register and answer in a line, which is faster than the board when you only want the one fact — and Bryony will not follow it with a suggestion about what to write next.
• Tell Bryony your plan for the season: what you mean to write about, who for and how often. Plans and briefs writes it down as a note under Content/ in your words, and once a piece carries its theme, Pieces by topic on Studio shows the belt by your plan. It records the plan you give it; when you ask it proposes themes, ranks ideas and says which piece to do next, and why.
• Ask for a brief before you start a piece. Bryony asks only what you have not said (who it is for, the one thing it should leave the reader with, what it draws on), writes the brief and an outline you can change, and links it from the piece's row. Ask for a search brief as well and it reads your own site's figures when Site & Search is installed and looks up what people are asking, naming every source. It never quotes a search volume it cannot cite.
• A draft is there when you ask for one, and only then. The Writing desk works from your brief, your notes and the pieces you have already published, holds the draft to your style guide, leaves a marked gap wherever it would need a fact or a figure you have not given, and tells you what it drew on. Your own draft is never written over. Ask for a piece cut for other channels and the cuts are written beside it. Keep a style guide, even a short one: Content/Style guide.md is a note you own. Bryony builds it from what you tell it and what your published pieces show, adds a rule when you correct a draft in a way that is plainly a rule, and holds every draft and every review checklist to it.
• When a piece goes for review, say who has it and ask what they should check. Review and results writes the checks to the Review checklist, each saying where it came from, and Review a piece, check by check on Studio takes you through them one at a time with a tick and a note. The hand-over message is drafted for you to send; nothing is sent for you. A second round keeps the first round's notes.
• Once a piece is out, say where it went out and ask how it did. If you keep Site & Search or Social Presence, Bryony reads their own record for that page or those posts, week by week as recorded, and says what it makes of the figures when you ask. If you keep neither, it says there is nothing here to read.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• How long is too long at each stage before you want telling — the windows Sitting too long uses, in your words.
• How often you mean to publish, what you will not write about, and the shapes you never make.
• Whose review a piece normally goes through, so the owner is right without you saying it each time.
• What you call each stage in conversation — Bryony speaks your words back and writes the six the belt stores.
• When the Monday sweep runs, or pausing it and keeping the belt entirely by hand.
• Whether Notion is where your drafts live — said once, and the sweep checks a draft by title from then on.
• Your style guide, Content/Style guide.md: edit it by hand, or tell Bryony a rule and it goes in.
• Your plan for the season, a note under Content/ you can change at any time. Its themes are what Pieces by topic groups by, once a piece carries one.
• A check you want on every review, said once, and every new review checklist starts with it.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Adding the Kit ends with an invitation to meet Bryony, and the first conversation is the setup. Nothing this kit can reach knows what you are making — there is no way to read a content database out of anywhere — so the belt starts from what you say, and it is a short chat rather than an interview. Before it asks you anything, Bryony looks at what you have already told 1Presence and at any content plan, calendar or drafts in your vault, and offers what it finds for you to confirm, so it asks only for the gaps.
2. Bryony works DOWN the belt, because the near-done pieces are the ones you can answer without thinking: what is with someone for review or already scheduled, then what is being drafted, then the ideas. For each piece it takes what you call it, what shape it takes, who has it, roughly when it should go out, and where the draft lives if there is one. A rough date is fine; a blank is fine. Each row is written as you agree it, so stopping after three pieces leaves a working belt.
3. One short multi-select comes early, offering the shapes you might be making — blog post, newsletter, case study, guide, talk, video script, social thread — so the thing you did not think to mention gets its chance, leaving out any shape it has already found. Then the ideas bank in one pass: everything you have been meaning to write, each a row with no date.
4. Once, in passing, Bryony asks what your writing is for: who it is meant to reach and the themes you mean to keep to. It is one question, kept as a preference for when you ask for a plan or a brief, and a blank is a fine answer.
5. No connector is asked for, at any point. If you mention that your drafts live in Notion, Bryony says once that connecting it under Connectors would let it look a draft up by its title — and leaves it there. That is the only connector this Kit ever reads, and nothing here publishes, schedules, posts or writes to a tool. The one other place it looks is the public web, when you ask for a search brief or a sourced check, and it names what it found.
6. Skip the conversation, or stop part-way, and the door quietly stays open. Whatever is still missing waits on the Kit page with a way back to Bryony, and Bryony offers it once the next time you talk: a piece with no shape, a piece in review or scheduled with no date, and the ideas bank. Tell it you keep no ideas bank, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
7. From then on the Studio sweep runs on Monday mornings, redraws the board, and says what has been sitting at one stage too long — then asks what you want to do about it. It moves nothing itself. A week where nothing slipped gets no card at all.
8. While the belt is still empty the sweep has nothing to read, so it invites you back into that first conversation rather than running over nothing.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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