The writing Skill — A Structured Pipeline for Content From Research to Publication
How the writing skill breaks content creation into five phases — research, drafting, self-review, editorial review, and publication preparation — with specific guards against fabricated numbers, broken links, and stale pricing.
Content creation without structure produces content that meanders. The writing skill defines a five-phase pipeline for producing written work from the first research note to the published file. Each phase has specific outputs and specific failure patterns it is designed to prevent.
The skill is loaded by the writer and editor agents. It covers six content types — technical docs, blog posts, research papers, social media posts, legal documents, and project reports — each with its own register, structure, and length expectations.
Phase 1 and 2: research, then draft
The first phase defines audience, purpose, and key messages, then gathers sources and data. The outline comes before prose — section-level detail locks in before any writing starts. Claims that will need fact-checking are identified at this stage and marked for later.
Drafting in Phase 2 follows specific guards. Every number must come from the primary source — a spec sheet, a benchmark JSON file, an invoice — not from memory or a context summary. A comparison like "37x faster" must name what it is being compared against in the same sentence. Every URL in the content must be verified as accessible before the draft is considered ready. Pricing and subscription claims require a web search, because pricing models change frequently — the skill cites two specific examples: Cursor switching from request-based to credit-based billing mid-2025, and Gemini CLI authentication changing from AI Studio to Code Assist license. Any CTA that says "tell us in the comments" requires verifying that the target platform actually has comments.
Phase 3 and 4: self-review, then editorial review
Self-review has three checks: does the text sound like a person wrote it; does every paragraph advance the argument; can a reader skim the headings and get the gist. This pass happens before the editor agent sees the draft.
The editorial review covers fact verification, AI pattern detection and removal, style consistency, and structural review. The AI pattern scan references the humanize skill's criteria. The structural review checks argument flow, section balance, and transitions.
Multi-language content
The skill specifies that multi-language versions are independent, not literal translations. Each language version may have different structure, examples, or emphasis. Russian tech content uses English technical terms with Russian explanation where needed. Social posts must be self-contained — a minimum of around 200 words for Facebook, Telegram, and LinkedIn. The skill notes that platform limits are generous and a 130-word summary is a teaser, not a post.
Phase 5: publication preparation
The final phase covers the technical SEO checklist, analytics setup (GA4 data stream, Search Console property, conversion tags), and a website pre-launch checklist covering SSL, OG tags, 404 handling, and PageSpeed mobile above 80. The skill also includes a campaign budget framework: 70% on proven channels, 20% on testing, 10% on experimental.
Read what Datarim is for broader context, or see the writing-plans skill for how the same pipeline discipline applies to implementation plans.