Creating Content Principles
Quick start
Collect or infer:
- •Product/brand mission and values
- •Target audience needs and pain points
- •Content quality problems to solve
- •Stakeholder priorities (speed, quality, consistency, etc.)
- •Existing content successes and failures
Then produce output using TEMPLATES.md. Validate with RUBRIC.md.
Workflow
- •Audit existing content to identify patterns (good and bad)
- •Interview stakeholders to surface implicit principles
- •Draft 5-7 principles with clear behavioral definitions
- •Add decision-making guidance for each principle
- •Create conflict resolution rules for when principles compete
- •Test principles against real content decisions
- •Run the rubric check. Revise until it passes.
Degrees of freedom
Freedom level: Medium
- •Default: follow templates exactly
- •Allowed variation: number of principles (5-7), examples per principle, specificity of decision guidance—as long as rubric passes
State awareness
- •Greenfield: Create principles first, then derive voice/tone from them
- •Existing chaos: Identify the 3 biggest content problems; write principles to solve them
- •Merger/rebrand: Document competing principles; create unified set with migration path
- •Scaling team: Prioritize principles that reduce decision-making bottlenecks
References
- •Templates: TEMPLATES.md
- •Rubric: RUBRIC.md
- •Examples: EXAMPLES.md