Generate Content From a Brief

Overview

Once a brief is Approved, CntX can generate the linked content item: title, intro, body sections, SEO metadata, and format-specific fields informed by the brief, workspace context, and channel rules. Generation never bypasses brief approval—you control which topics become drafts.

You can trigger generation from a calendar item, the briefs table next-action column, Approve and generate, or Generate first drafts for many approved briefs at once. Jobs run in the background; the Background draft generation panel tracks progress while you keep editing the calendar.

When to use

• Brief status is Approved and no draft exists yet.
• You updated an approved brief and need a fresh draft (force regeneration when content was protected or unchanged).
• To do now shows drafts to generate on your focused strategy.
• A campaign or strategy batch passed review and you want parallel first drafts.

Before you start

• Confirm brief status is Approved (or use Approve and generate in one step).
• Check editorial status—if a draft already exists and was manually edited, batch jobs may skip with USER_CONTENT_PROTECTED.
• Set the correct generation focus strategy for calendar-level batch actions.
• Ensure context prerequisites exist (products, personas, brand platform)—weak context produces weak drafts, not generation errors.

Steps

Generate one draft from the calendar

1. Open Calendar → Briefs (or open the item on the date grid).
2. Find a row whose next action is Generate draft or Approve and generate.
3. Click the action. If approving and generating together, wait for both steps to complete.
4. When the draft is ready, next action becomes Open editor or Review content.
5. Click through to the content editor and verify the draft matches the brief.

Batch generate from the calendar

1. Focus the target content strategy in the planning selector.
2. Click Generate first drafts (or Generate content linked to briefs when offered after calendar generation).
3. Watch the Background draft generation panel:

– Queued / In progress — still running – Drafts ready — open from the list or briefs table – Failed — inspect and use Retry failed items – Skipped — read the reason code (no brief, ineligible status, brief unchanged, etc.)

1. Continue calendar work while jobs run—you do not need to stay on the page.

Regenerate after brief changes

1. Edit the approved brief with meaningful changes to angle, persona, or structure.
2. From the item, run Generate draft again.
3. If generation skips with Brief unchanged, confirm your edits saved or use force regeneration when the UI prompts for confirmation.
4. Review the new draft—compare with the prior version if the old draft was not protected.

Expected result

• A content item exists with editorial status Draft or In progress.
• Body, intro, and SEO fields reflect the approved brief and channel format.
• Calendar next action points to editorial review steps.
• Skipped items remain without overwriting protected human edits.

Tips

• Approve before generating — NOT_ELIGIBLE_STATUS in batch panels almost always means the brief is not approved yet.
• Campaign briefs — Often arrive approved or as Needs review; validate before batch generating an entire campaign week.
• Do not publish from here — Generation sets editorial Draft; CMS publish comes only after editorial Approved.
• Batch limits — Very large selections may hit batch limits; process in waves by week or channel filter.
• Empty draft — Retry once; persistent failure may indicate missing brief data or an active job already running on the same item.

Next step

Use the Content Editor to refine the generated draft.