Automate with briefs
Set up a brief with sources, tone, and a schedule so articles generate automatically on the cadence you choose.
Automate with briefs
A brief is a reusable content plan: it defines what to write about, where to find sources, how it should read, and — optionally — when to generate it. Add a schedule and EarlyForge produces articles for you on a regular cadence, hands-free. In this tutorial you build a brief that generates an "AI and Machine Learning Weekly Roundup" every Monday morning and publishes it automatically.
Prerequisites: You should have generated at least one article so you know what the output looks like. Briefs are available on paid plans, with a monthly allowance per plan: Starter 3, Pro 20, Scale 100, Enterprise custom. If you run multiple sites, pick the right one in the site switcher before you begin.
Open the brief wizard
Click Briefs in the sidebar, then New brief. The wizard walks you through the configuration in a few steps.
Each brief belongs to one site. Select the correct site from the switcher first — the articles this brief produces will use that site's style guide and publishing destination.
Define the topic
Set the editorial scope of the brief:
- Title —
AI and Machine Learning Weekly Roundup - Category —
Technology(EarlyForge prioritizes trends in this category) - Target countries —
United States,United Kingdom,Germany - Description — "Focus on practical AI applications, new model releases, and industry partnerships. Skip theoretical research unless it has immediate practical implications."
The description acts as editorial direction for the AI, so be specific about what to include and what to leave out.
Choose your sources
Tell EarlyForge where to look for material. You can combine three source types:
Turn on Auto-pick top trends and set a count (say, 5). Each time the brief runs, EarlyForge selects the highest-scoring trends matching the brief's category and countries, so the roundup always covers the most relevant stories of the moment. You can also pin specific trends — pinned trends are always included regardless of score.
You do not need dozens of URLs. EarlyForge already discovers and indexes sources across the web continuously — the sources you add here are editorial priorities, not the only material it uses.
Set the tone and structure
Define how the generated articles should read:
- Tone — for example journalistic, neutral, analytical, casual, or formal.
- Length — short (~500 words), medium (~1,000), or long (~2,000).
- Structure — outline the sections you want, for example:
- Introduction (context and hook)
- Key developments (one section per major story)
- Analysis (what it all means together)
- Conclusion (outlook and implications)
If your site has a style guide configured, it is applied on top of these settings — including preferred vocabulary, words to avoid, and structural rules. These become the defaults for every article this brief generates; you can still override them when editing an individual article.
Set the schedule
Turn on automation and pick a cadence:
- Toggle Enable automation to ON.
- Choose how often it runs — daily, weekdays, weekly, or twice daily.
- Set the time and timezone, for example Monday at 8:00 AM,
Europe/Paris. - Set max articles per run, for example 5.
Common cadences for editorial teams:
| Cadence | Good for |
|---|---|
| Every day, early morning | Daily news digest |
| Weekdays only | Business-day coverage |
| Once a week | Weekly roundup |
| Twice a day | Morning and afternoon editions |
Schedules run in the timezone you set. Double-check it — the same morning time means very different things in Paris versus New York. If you leave the timezone unset, the default is UTC.
Review and activate
The final step summarizes everything: topic, sources, tone and structure, schedule, and the next few run dates. Review it, then click Create brief. It appears in your Briefs list with its automation toggle set to ON.
What happens on each run
When the schedule fires, EarlyForge:
- Selects sources and trends according to the brief.
- Generates up to your configured number of articles — each with retrieval, AI writing, and inline citations.
- Saves them with a Brief badge that links back to this brief.
- Publishes them automatically to the site's connected destination, if one is set.
Automatic publishing works with any connected destination — WordPress, Ghost, Medium, LinkedIn, a Next.js site, or a webhook — including cross-publishing to several at once. Configure destinations in the site's publishing settings.
Monitor and adjust
After the first scheduled run, check the results:
- Brief detail page — execution history with timestamps, status, and a link to each generated article.
- Articles page — generated articles appear with a Brief badge.
- Edit the brief — if topics or quality are not what you want, adjust the brief; changes take effect on the next run.
- Pause without deleting — toggle automation OFF to pause, ON to resume.
A note on quotas
Two allowances apply to briefs:
- Briefs per month — Starter 3, Pro 20, Scale 100, Enterprise custom. This caps how many briefs you can run in a billing cycle.
- AI word budget — every plan includes a monthly AI word budget on us (Free 5,000 · Starter 10,000 · Pro 25,000 · Scale 50,000 words/month). Beyond that, paid plans connect their own AI key for unlimited generation (you pay your AI provider directly). High-volume automation across several daily briefs is exactly what BYOK is for — see Connect your AI.
Quotas reset on your billing-cycle date and unused quota does not roll over. Plan your schedules so a busy week of automated runs stays within the cadence you intend.
What's next?
- Scheduling in depth — advanced cadence and timezone handling.
- Configuring sources — feeds, priority URLs, and trend selection.
- Style and tone guide — fine-tune article voice per brief.
- Run multiple sites — separate briefs per publication.
- Connect your AI — unlimited generation for high-volume automation.