Create a content brief

---
name: create-a-content-brief
category: write
description: Turn an audience need and publishing decision into a usable content brief. Use when a writer, designer, editor, or subject expert needs clear purpose, evidence, structure, constraints, and acceptance criteria.
---

# create-a-content-brief

Define the work before production without scripting every sentence.

## Procedure

1. State the business or public objective and the audience decision the content should support.
2. Record the primary audience, situation, prior knowledge, questions, barriers, and accessibility needs.
3. Define the content type, channel, lifecycle, owner, reviewer, deadline, and expected next action.
4. Gather source material and create a claim list with evidence status and subject-matter owners.
5. Write the single organizing promise and the questions the content must answer.
6. Outline a logical information sequence, required examples, visuals, links, and calls to action.
7. Specify voice, reading level, terminology, localization, privacy, legal, and brand constraints.
8. Define search intent when relevant without inventing keyword volume or distorting audience value.
9. Add acceptance criteria for factual review, accessibility, links, rendering, metadata, analytics, approval, and update ownership.
10. Walk through the brief with the producer and resolve contradictions before work begins.

## Guardrails

- Do not manufacture quotes, results, demand, or search evidence.
- Keep optional ideas separate from required claims and structure.
- Avoid prescribing a format that conflicts with accessibility or channel limits.
- Remove sensitive source material the producer does not need.

## Done

- A content brief records audience, objective, evidence, structure, constraints, and ownership
- Every consequential claim has a source or an explicit evidence gap
- Producer and reviewers confirm the brief is actionable
- Acceptance and update checks are scheduled