Content Calendar Skill for Claude

Content Calendar Skill

Manage editorial content through 6 pipeline stages: Ideas, Outlined, Drafted, Editing, Ready, Published. All pipeline state lives in a single content-calendar.md file -- this is the sole source of truth, never store state elsewhere.

Reference Loading Table

| Signal | Load These Files | Why |

|---|---|---|

| calendar file location, template, section formats | calendar-format.md | Loads detailed guidance from calendar-format.md. |

| errors, error handling | error-handling.md | Loads detailed guidance from error-handling.md. |

| velocity tracking and stuck-content detection | metrics.md | Loads detailed guidance from metrics.md. |

| series planning: multi-part structure, cross-linking, cadence | series-planner.md | Series planning domain from folded series-planner skill. |

| topic brainstorming: problem mining, gap analysis, scoring | topic-brainstormer.md | Topic ideation domain from folded topic-brainstormer skill. |

| headlines: charge, volume, tighten, format adaptation | headlines.md | Headline generation domain from folded headlines skill. |

| content repurposing: platform-native social variants | content-engine.md | Content repurposing domain from folded content-engine skill. |

| news collection: item qualification, freshness forensics | news-collection.md | News collection domain from folded news-collection skill. |

| executing view, add, move, schedule, archive operations | operations.md | Loads detailed guidance from operations.md. |

| stage definitions and transition rules | pipeline-stages.md | Loads detailed guidance from pipeline-stages.md. |

Instructions

Phase 1: READ PIPELINE

Goal: Load and validate the current calendar state before any mutation.

Memory of pipeline state is unreliable -- always read the actual file, because assumed state leads to overwrites of changes made by other processes or manual edits.

• Read content-calendar.md from the project root. Also read the repository CLAUDE.md to ensure compliance with project-specific rules.
• Parse pipeline sections -- extract entries from Ideas, Outlined, Drafted, Editing, Ready, Published, and Historical sections.
• Validate file structure -- all required sections exist, counts match actual entries.

Gate: Calendar file loaded and parsed successfully. All sections accounted for. Proceed only when gate passes.

Phase 2: EXECUTE OPERATION

Goal: Perform the requested pipeline operation -- only the operation requested. No speculative reorganization, no "while I'm here" reformatting of unrelated sections.

Operation: View Pipeline

• Count entries in each stage
• Identify upcoming scheduled content (next 14 days)
• Identify in-progress content (Outlined, Drafted, Editing) -- emphasize these as actively being worked on
• Gather recent publications (last 30 days)
• Display dashboard with progress indicators
• Optionally flag content stuck in a stage for 14+ days or show velocity metrics if requested

Operation: Add Idea

• Validate topic name is non-empty
• Search all sections for duplicate titles (case-insensitive); warn if a matching title exists because duplicates clutter the pipeline
• Append - [ ] [Topic name] to Ideas section
• Update pipeline count in overview table

Operation: Move Content

Content moves forward through defined stages only -- each transition represents real editorial work completed, so skipping stages misrepresents progress.

• Find topic in its current section (search all sections)
• Validate target stage is the next sequential stage:
• Ideas -> Outlined -> Drafted -> Editing -> Ready -> Published
• Remove entry from current section
• Add to target section with timestamp metadata (every transition records YYYY-MM-DD):
• outlined: (outline: YYYY-MM-DD)
• drafted: (draft: YYYY-MM-DD)
• editing: (editing: YYYY-MM-DD)
• ready: (ready: YYYY-MM-DD) -- prompt for a scheduled publication date because content without a date clogs the pipeline and goes stale
• published: (published: YYYY-MM-DD)
• Update pipeline counts

Operation: Schedule Content

• Find topic (must be in Ready section)
• Validate date is today or future
• Update or add Scheduled: YYYY-MM-DD to entry
• Update file

Operation: Archive Published

Archive prevents the Published section from growing unbounded, which makes the dashboard cluttered and counts misleading.

• Find Published entries older than current month
• Move to appropriate ### YYYY-MM section in Historical
• Update pipeline counts

Gate: Operation executed with all validations passing. Proceed only when gate passes.

Phase 3: WRITE AND CONFIRM

Goal: Persist changes and verify the write succeeded.

Read the full calendar file before writing -- never truncate or lose existing entries.

• Write the updated calendar file back to disk.
• Re-read the file and verify the change is present. Looking correct is not the same as being correct; the re-read proves it.
• Display confirmation with relevant dashboard section showing the change.

Gate: File written, re-read confirms changes persisted. Operation complete.

Error Handling

Error: "Calendar file not found"

Cause: content-calendar.md does not exist in the project

Solution:

• Create initial calendar file with all empty sections and overview table
• Confirm file creation to user
• Proceed with requested operation

Error: "Topic not found in pipeline"

Cause: User referenced a topic name that does not match any entry

Solution:

• Search all sections for partial matches (case-insensitive)
• Suggest closest matches if available
• Show current pipeline state so user can identify the correct title

Error: "Invalid stage transition"

Cause: User attempted to skip a stage (e.g., Ideas directly to Ready)

Solution:

• Explain the required stage sequence
• Show the topic's current stage and the next valid stage
• Ask user to confirm sequential move or move to adjacent stage

References

| Task | Load |

|------|------|

| Stage definitions, transition criteria | ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/pipeline-stages.md |

| File format, section structure, date fields | ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/calendar-format.md |

| Command reference, edge cases per operation | ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/operations.md |

| File not found, corrupt sections, count drift, malformed dates | ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/error-handling.md |

| Velocity metrics, stuck content, pipeline health dashboard | ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/metrics.md |