Editor Pass & Export

The final five phases of the article workflow. The article is written; now it gets approved, optionally polished, given metadata, and exported as a finished markdown file.

Phase 8 — Article Approval

Goal: You read the completed article end-to-end and decide whether it’s done.

Cody presents the working draft:

The article is complete! I’ve saved it here:

📄 cody-projects/article-writer/drafts/<draft-id>.md

Please review it. Are you satisfied with the article, or would you like to make changes?

• Approved → move to Phase 9.
• Needs changes → you specify what to change (“in section 2, tighten the conclusion”, “swap the example in section 3 for something more recent”). Cody updates the specific section in the JSON, regenerates the draft markdown, and loops back for re-approval.

This loop has no limit — refine as many times as needed.

Phase 9 — Editorial Decision

After approval, Cody offers an optional editor pass:

Your article is complete! I recommend running an editorial pass to polish it.

The editor will:

• Suggest contextual examples (tables, diagrams, code snippets) based on your style preferences
• Apply your visual breaks settings for optimal readability
• Add strategic bold/italic emphasis following best practices
• Remove AI writing patterns and tighten prose
• Ensure tone consistency throughout

This significantly improves article quality. Your original will be preserved as backup.

Would you like me to run the editorial pass? (Recommended)

• Yes → Phase 10.
• Skip → straight to Phase 11.

Phase 10 — Editor Pass (optional)

Goal: Polish formatting, tighten prose, apply the style guide’s calibration rules without altering the structure or substance.

The editor pass is governed by the Editor Style Guide, which defines exactly what gets checked. Two categories of checks:

• Calibrated to your style — Visual Breaks, Blockquotes, EM Dashes, Emojis, Tone Consistency. These adapt to whatever settings you picked in your style guide.
• Always applied — AI Tell Removal, Prose Tightening, Spelling & Grammar, Flow & Transitions. These run regardless of style.

How it works

1. Cody reads the approved drafts/<draft-id>.md.

2. Applies the editorial checks (with calibration to your style settings).

3. Writes a new file at drafts/<draft-id>-editorpass.md. The original is preserved as a backup; the editor pass never overwrites it.

4. Outputs a summary of every change to chat:

   Editorial pass complete! Here's what I updated:
   
   Formatting:
   - Added 2 bulleted lists
   - Bolded 5 key terms
   - Added 1 pull quote
   
   Tightening:
   - Removed 3 instances of "Additionally"
   - Replaced 2 em dashes with commas
   
   📄 Review the edited version: cody-projects/article-writer/drafts/<draft-id>-editorpass.md
   📄 Original preserved at: cody-projects/article-writer/drafts/<draft-id>.md
   
   Approve the changes, or let me know what to adjust.

5. You approve the edited version, or iterate on it (“undo the pull quote in section 3, that one was the right line”).

Citations are untouched

The editor pass does not modify citation markers ([^1], [^2], etc.) or the References section. Those live in the writing layer; the editor pass only touches prose and formatting.

Phase 11 — Article Metadata Generation

Goal: Produce metadata that goes into the article frontmatter on export.

Cody generates:

• Title — confirms or refines the title you approved in Phase 4.
• Description — a 150–160 character meta description.
• Keywords — an array of relevant tags.

You approve or adjust:

Article Metadata:
- Title: "Your Article Title Here"
- Description: "A compelling meta description..."
- Keywords: [keyword1, keyword2, keyword3]

Approve or adjust?

Once approved, Cody suggests a filename derived from the title (kebab-case, .md extension):

Suggested filename: your-article-title-here.md

Use this, or provide your own filename (extension will always be .md):

Phase 12 — Export

Goal: Generate the final markdown file, optionally with citations, and archive the draft state.

Citation decision (re-asked at export)

If research was enabled, Cody asks one more time:

Do you want to include citations in the exported article?

• Yes: Citation markers ([^1], [^2]) and References section will be included
• No: Citations will be removed, but sources remain archived for potential re-export

This is per-export — it doesn’t change the draft state. You can re-export later (see “re-export the X article” in Triggers & Commands) with the opposite choice.

Export mechanics

1. Source file: If the editor pass ran, Cody uses <draft-id>-editorpass.md. Otherwise it uses <draft-id>.md.
2. Template: Cody loads assets/templates/article_default.md from the skill and fills in placeholders ({{title}}, {{date}}, {{description}}, {{keywords}}, {{author}}, {{content}}, {{references}}).
3. Citations:
   • If yes: keep [^N] markers in content, generate a References section from citations_used (only sources that were actually cited), format as [^1]: Author. "Title." Domain. URL.
   • If no: strip all [^N] markers from content, omit the References section entirely (no trailing whitespace).
4. Final file: Saved to cody-projects/article-writer/articles/<filename>.md.
5. Archive: The draft JSON is moved to cody-projects/article-writer/archive/<draft-id>.json (preserves all research data for potential re-export). The intermediate <draft-id>.md and <draft-id>-editorpass.md files are deleted.

Final message

Article exported successfully!
- Article: cody-projects/article-writer/articles/<filename>.md
- Draft archived: cody-projects/article-writer/archive/<draft-id>.json
  (All research sources preserved for potential re-export)

What the article folder looks like after export

cody-projects/article-writer/
├── styles/
│   └── professional-linkedin.json
├── drafts/                          ← empty after export
├── articles/
│   └── your-article-title-here.md   ← the final, shareable file
└── archive/
    └── article-id-2026-05-20.json   ← preserved state for re-export

For where each piece of data lives — including the full draft JSON schema — see Storage & Data.

Done

The article workflow is complete. To start a new article, say “I want to write an article about X.” To continue a different draft, say “show my drafts” or “continue the X article.”