Editorial Strategy

Content Strategy Skill

This skill produces an editorial planning framework — content pillars, topic clusters, content mix, and cadence — and registers the output as project context so cc-content skills automatically align individual pieces to it.

This skill follows the shared step sequence in ../_shared/skill-contract.md. Steps below add only content-strategy-specific behavior.

Step 0–1: Recall learnings and load context

If .claude/learnings.md exists, read it silently. Apply relevant entries — in particular, content strategy preferences, rejected frameworks, or discovered constraints. Do not announce this step. If the file is absent, continue normally.

Read the ## Context files table in CLAUDE.md. Match the following needs against the Summary column semantically — never against a label or filename:

• Business goals/KPIs — business objectives, targets, success metrics, growth stage
• Target audience — positioning, audience profile, customer segments, buyer personas, organization background (prefer a positioning output file if registered)

Note silently if present, never ask about: brand voice, existing content inventory, competitive landscape, and a prior strategy performance review (strategy-performance-review output) if registered — factor validated/invalidated pillar bets into the strategy.

Step 2: Gating — Three-State Model

This skill gates on exactly two needs: business goals and target audience. For each, resolve one of three states:

1. Covered — present in the context table (Summary match) → use silently, no ask.
2. Absent-but-supplied — ask once (never twice in one invocation); user answers → use, non-degraded.
3. Absent-and-unanswered — asked once, no usable answer → that section is labelled ⚠ DEGRADED, never fabricated, and the rest of the document still generates.

Check business goals

Search the context table Summary column for semantic matches: business goals, KPIs, objectives, targets, growth stage, success metrics.

If covered, use silently.

If absent, ask once:

"I need to understand what this content strategy should support. Briefly: What are your primary business goals or KPIs right now? (e.g. revenue growth, lead volume, retention, brand awareness) Is there a specific target or metric this content strategy should move?"

If the user provides a usable answer, proceed non-degraded. If the user declines or the answer is too vague to use, label the section ## Business Goals ⚠ DEGRADED in the output and continue.

Check target audience

Search the context table Summary column for semantic matches: target audience, positioning, organization background, customer segments, buyer profile.

Prefer a positioning output file's Summary if one is registered; else fall back to organization background.

If covered, use silently.

If absent, ask once:

"I need to understand who this content is for. Briefly: Who is the target audience? (role, company type/size if B2B, or demographic if B2C) What stage are they typically at when they encounter your content? (just learning you exist, actively comparing options, or already a customer)"

If the user provides a usable answer, proceed non-degraded. If the user declines or the answer is too vague to use, label the section ## Target Audience ⚠ DEGRADED in the output and continue.

Step 3: Calibrate

Infer funnel stage and audience type from loaded context. Present a one-line inference summary and wait for user confirmation or correction before drafting. Include this example format: "Audience: B2B mid-market · Goal: lead generation · Funnel focus: MOFU".

Step 4: Generate

Apply Message House from ../_shared/campaign-frameworks.md. State the choice before generating:

"Using Message House for content pillar architecture."

Produce a content strategy that includes:

• Content pillars — at least two, each a Message House pillar, each with supporting topic clusters.
• Content type mix — a recommended mix of content types (e.g. blog, video, social, case study) with rationale tied to the inferred funnel stage (TOFU skews video/social; BOFU skews case studies/comparisons).
• Publishing cadence — a suggested frequency per content type.

Step 5–6: Quality check and delimited output

Review the generated content strategy for:

• Completeness: All three elements above are present (at least two pillars, each with topic clusters; content type mix; publishing cadence).
• Consistency: All sections reinforce the same strategic focus and business goals.
• Clarity: The pillars are defensible and grounded in context.

Fix any gaps before proceeding.

If Step 2 ended in a degraded state for one or both gated needs (business goals and/or target audience), prefix the output with:

⚠ DEGRADED OUTPUT — generated without: <comma-separated list of unmet needs>

For example, if target audience is degraded but business goals are not, prefix with:

⚠ DEGRADED OUTPUT — generated without: target audience

If both are degraded, prefix with:

⚠ DEGRADED OUTPUT — generated without: business goals, target audience

If neither need is degraded, omit the prefix.

Return the content strategy inside clear delimiters:

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
## Content Strategy
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

[Generated content strategy here]

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Step 6.5: Register output

Write the content strategy document to context/content-strategy.md by convention. Apply collision-check logic: if the file already exists, append a -N suffix before .md (try -2, then -3, etc.) until a filename that does not already exist is found. Never overwrite an existing file.

Confirm the file was created, then add a row to the ## Context files table in CLAUDE.md. Use this format:

| Content strategy | `context/content-strategy.md` | Content strategy: content pillars, topic clusters, content type mix, publishing cadence |

The Summary must explicitly name "content strategy," "pillars," and "topic clusters" — this wording is what makes the file legible to blog-article and linkedin-post's Summary-matching; it is functionally part of this requirement, not cosmetic (FR-062).

Do not hand-edit the Key Config Files table — the pre-commit hook owns that sync.

Step 7: Feedback

Store learnings tagged [cc-concept:editorial-strategy] in .claude/learnings.md. Examples:

[cc-concept:editorial-strategy] client prefers thought-leadership pillars over product-led pillars, positions as an industry voice — 2026-07-19
[cc-concept:editorial-strategy] client publishes weekly on LinkedIn but only monthly long-form; cadence recommendations should respect that split — 2026-07-19

If the session revealed a content-strategy preference, framework override, or project constraint that future runs should apply, record it now.