Idea through publish on every platform

This is the photo-based path ChicagoShining Studio uses today: write or pick an idea, attach stills, let Studio plan the packages, review the renders, then approve. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube publish publicly. TikTok is saved as a draft.

1. Confirm the city in the top bar. The profile (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles) stamps branding, defaults, and which library the new work uses. Change it anytime from Profile in the header. Open Home
2. Start in the publishing wizard. On Home, answer where you want to start: an idea, photos you already have, AI images, or a mix. Then pick a platform package. Ideas and Production stay in the sidebar if you already know the path.

   

   Open Ideas
3. Add photos from the idea drawer. Open the idea, then Add new photos or Use existing. New uploads start an empty Production request. Library stills attach first, then you customize. Studio builds a multi-platform plan from the photo count, not from a content-type picker on the idea.
4. Confirm platforms and crops in Production. Two default packages. Vertical video: Instagram Reel, Facebook Reel, TikTok draft, YouTube Short, plus Instagram and Facebook 9:16 Stories and a grid thumbnail. Voiceover and music stay on. Scrollable slides: Instagram carousel, Facebook album, TikTok photos; YouTube is a rendered Slideshow Video (no image post). First slide can introduce a multi-day event; later slides hold the details. Reframe crops, write or AI-fill captions, then Save.

   

   Open Production
5. Approve & Promote. Production hands the request to render. Companion Stories attach from the same 9:16 stills. YouTube 16:9 covers can finish in the background; 9:16 plan crops are enough to continue.
6. Watch Pipeline until Ready for Review. Open Platform Pipeline. Rows move through package, asset selection, Remotion render, and review mail. Click a row to open the creative editor: preview, audio mix, per-photo titles, then Save & rerender preview if you change the mix.

   

   Open Pipeline
7. Approve for publishing. When the preview is right, Approve for publishing (or Pipeline Approve All). Confirm the public/draft warning. Studio stages a public R2 URL (AP0) for video, then:
   • Instagram Reel — auto-publish to the professional account
   • Instagram Story companion — AP1 story webhook
   • Facebook Slideshow Reel — FBS3 / FBS4
   • Facebook Story companion — Graph binary upload
   • TikTok Video Draft — TTD0 (stays a draft in TikTok)
   • YouTube Short — YouTube orchestrator when the row is due
   Carousels, Facebook multi-image, and TikTok multi-photo use the native still packages instead of a Remotion reel. Those publish through their own carousel / photo paths after the same Approve.
8. Confirm in Operations if you need a clock or a manual mark. Ready to schedule lists approved rows that still need a post time. Ready to publish lists due packages. Use mark published only when you posted by hand. Profiles, Drive intake, and render repair live on the same page (admin roles).

   

   Open Operations

Other entry: Home can skip the Ideas table when you start with photos or AI images. Name the piece on Production if needed, and the rest of this walkthrough is the same from step 4.

Home

Home is the start screen. It does not run the pipeline by itself.

• Publishing wizard — where to start, input type, counts, then a platform package.
• Sidebar — Ideas and Production remain available as power-user paths.

Come back here anytime to begin a new piece. The top-bar Profile selector is the city/brand for new work.

Dashboard

Dashboard is the queue overview. Metric cards stay on the page and filter the table under them.

• Cards typically cover ideas waiting, production drafts, ready-for-review outputs, and publish-side states.
• Click a card to show those records in the list below. It does not leave Dashboard.
• Use Refresh after a promote or approve if the counts look stale.

Open an idea or output from the filtered list, or switch to Ideas / Production / Pipeline when you need the full workspace.

Ideas

Ideas holds Idea Candidates before they become Content Items. Nothing here publishes.

• Generate AI ideas — create 1–10 ideas. Studio waits until they show up in the table.
• New idea — select an existing unpromoted candidate or enter a title/summary by hand.
• Manage — edit copy, hold/restore, delete, or choose Add new photos / Use existing to open Production.
• Promote to production — creates the content item from this idea. No review email is sent. Requires a summary, content type, and platforms.

Ready to produce means the idea is in the queue. Promote it here; nothing publishes until Ready for Review → Approve publish.

Production

Production is where photos become a platform plan and a Content Item.

• Start with content — title, optional description, photo cards, per-still captions, platform checks, crop pans.
• Draft requests — unfinished production requests you can reopen.
• Promoted content items — work that already entered render. Open Pipeline to review those outputs.
• Advanced — exact titles, voiceover tail, extra output types. Empty EZ defaults do not overwrite saved Pipeline direction.

Save often while uploading. Approve & Promote is the handoff into render. Music tracks shown here come from the Music Manager catalogue.

Pipeline

Platform Pipeline is execution plus creative review. It refreshes while the page is open.

• Each row is one Platform Output (Reel, Story, Short, carousel, and so on).
• Columns cover output, platform, type / ratio, Studio state, render, review, publish, progress, and creative. Click a heading to sort. Type in Output or use the dropdown under each heading to filter. Combine filters; Show all clears them.
• Click a row for the creative editor: preview player, defaults, audio, ratios, slides, review notes.
• Approve for publishing on a ready row starts live dispatch. Approve All does the same for every Ready-for-Review output after confirm.

Publishing stays locked until that approve step. Preview-approve (when shown) records review without posting.

Music Manager

Music Manager is the Airtable background-music catalogue plus tracks you add as MP3 or WAV files.

• Browse and preview tracks before or during Production.
• Use + Add tracks or drop MP3/WAV files on this page. WAV files convert to MP3. New tracks show up in Production music pickers.
• Delete removes the Airtable row and trashes the Drive file. Studio blocks delete if a Production Request or Content Item still selects that track.
• It does not start a render. Production still decides Include background music Yes/No and the mix in Pipeline review.

Asset Manager

Asset Manager is the Drive DAM catalogue of stills and Raw Footage. Music stays on its own tab.

• The tab opens on the 5 newest assets. Cards show an Added date when Intake_Date is known, file size when File_Size_Bytes or File_Size_MB is stored, and clips show duration (0:42 or 1:02:03) when Duration_Seconds is stored or can be measured. Use Show this many on page, then Previous and Next. Search by name or location. Opening the tab does not load every thumbnail.
• Use + Add assets or drop files on this page. Photos go to the Drive photos folder; clips go to the video folder. Studio writes a Media Asset and does not keep a catalog copy on R2.
• Files dropped in the Drive ingestion folder stay Needs Classification until you assign a Content Profile on the card. That assignment starts AI tagging for that city library.
• Rename updates the Airtable name and the Drive file, then re-runs classification so tags, location, and description pick up the new name. Rename still needs a profile first.
• Delete removes the Airtable row and trashes the Drive file when nothing still has that asset attached.
• Show → Published files lists live Platform Outputs, not source stills or clips. Open live post confirms the public URL. Remove Drive copy trashes the rendered Drive file and keeps the Platform Output row, publish date, and post link for reporting.
• Library intake on Operations still scans the Drive intake folder for files that did not come through this page.

Operations

Operations is the control room. The sidebar item is limited to tenant admin, publishing, and production-configure roles. Use Control for daily jobs and queues. Use Quality Agent for the check catalog, stuck inventory, and activity log. Refresh reloads the current page from the API.

Control tabs

• Service desk — Quality Agent service lane: stuck produce, render, crop, autonomous, and public health, plus the named check list. Desk mode is the kill switch. Worker cron still heals transients every two minutes. Full behavior is on the Quality Agent Help tab.
• Profiles — per-profile Studio settings: overnight idea batch around 1:00 a.m. Chicago, hub background, default narration voice, and autonomous music pool. Toggle daily ideas on, or use Run ideas now for enabled profiles. Changing the header Profile switches Admin to that profile's context.
• Autonomous produce — harvests a Chicago trend the library can shoot, produces the standard template, and stops at Ready for Review. Nothing publishes. Scheduled around 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Chicago, or Run autonomous now. Optional landmark pin applies to the next run. Studio will not pick a new autonomous idea while a Draft, Ready, or Submitted autonomous request is already in flight.
• Library intake — Drive ingestion folder scan every 10 minutes. Process intake folder starts the same drain now. Oversized clips compress one at a time, then the next file starts immediately. Cap music leading silence rewrites catalog audio so the intro is no longer than 0.5 seconds.
• Analytics — posting-time heatmap from similar public accounts (Chicago weekday/hour). Gold marks your upcoming scheduled posts. YouTube timing is live; Instagram timing is paused pending Meta permission; TikTok and Facebook stay reference-only. Run sequentially fetches one handle at a time. Suggested times never auto-apply.
• Ready to schedule — approved outputs that still need a post date. Set the time here instead of waiting for a reminder email.
• Ready to publish — due packages. Auto-publish still starts from Pipeline review. Use mark published only after you posted by hand.
• Oversized videos — Drive files over 100 MB. Compress all starts the A1S queue now. The banner shows which clip is compressing.
• Render repair — Reset stale render URLs after Remotion moved. Retry failed asset selection only retries that failed stage. These do not run on a clock.

Control buttons pulse on-demand work when something is waiting. They do not turn interval scanners back on.

See also the Quality Agent, Testing, and Logs Help tabs.

Quality Agent

Quality Agent is the umbrella for the tester lane (nightly/PR regression + cheap catalog assertions) and the service lane (stuck / illogical Studio state). Both report against the same named check catalog. Open it from Operations → Control → Service desk, or Operations → Quality Agent.

Check catalog

Each row is a precise sentence (intake leftovers, origin-aware Promoted → Ready for Review vs published, produce/render/crop, public /health, last nightly rotation). Inventory returns every row as pass, finding, or not yet run. Kind chips still exist for fingerprints; the catalog is what operators should read.

Two lanes, one list

• Worker heal — every two minutes. Resumes stale produce, render, crop, and finished-video jobs, and drains leftover Drive ingestion files (including already-processed residue). Transient items are ticketed then left to this layer.
• Service lane — reads inventory, tickets a desk_incident for catalog findings, and may restart a down local service or open a cursor/desk-* pull request. It never Approves publish for library-stills and never sets a video-frame cover when a 3D grid cover is required.
• Tester lane — last nightly rotation from tests/regression/catalog.json plus PR hermetic packs. The 15-minute tick does not seed live mx1–mx5 rows. A missing or failing nightly job is itself a catalog finding.

Desk mode

The same selector appears on Control and on the Quality Agent Catalog tab. Missing value is observe. Airtable setting name stays STUDIO_DESK_MODE.

• off — inventory only. No tickets, no restarts, no PRs.
• observe (default) — ticket a diagnosis pack only.
• infra — also SYNC / VERIFY / one-service deploy when public health is down. Local companion on this Windows machine only. Away-from-home hourly keep-alive is HOURLY-Local-Services.bat (no pause). It calls stock START then VERIFY only when /health is down — never STOP ALL. Dirty checkout: log and skip deploy. Never hard-reset.
• patch — also open PRs. You merge. After merge, ship Worker/Pages via the production trigger files, or PLAN/DEPLOY one local service.
• automerge — leave off until proven. Allowlisted heal paths only, CI green, caps remain, and the same fingerprint is not repeating.

Origin terminals

• origin=autonomous library-stills — skip Production Approve through to Promoted, then stop at Ready for Review. Human gate = Approve publish. Nothing auto-publishes.
• origin=az-finished-video — cover + caption + final may auto-schedule / auto-approve. Operator may still change times. TikTok stays a draft.
• Manual / other — Ready for Review. Human gate = Approve publish.

Agent page

• Guide — short operator copy plus the downloadable Word guide.
• Catalog — live catalog sentences with pass/finding and last check time, plus Desk mode. Same list as Control → Service desk.
• Activity log — service incidents and automated tests under Quality Agent. See the Logs Help tab.

See also the Testing Help tab for how to pulse a safe Studio run.

Testing

Testing is the Quality Agent tester lane. The shared check catalog lives on the Quality Agent Help tab. Studio testing means proving a path to Ready for Review without posting live, unless you explicitly Approve. Operations is where you pulse a run; Pipeline is where you inspect the result. Do not seed live mx1–mx5 platform-matrix rows on the 15-minute tick.

Safe Studio tests

• Autonomous produce — Operations → Autonomous produce → Run autonomous now. It must stop at Ready for Review. Nothing publishes. Do not harvest a second idea while a Draft, Ready, or Submitted autonomous request is already in flight.
• Profiles — Run ideas now only for profiles whose Daily ideas toggle is on. Candidates land on Ideas; they are not production and not publish. Narration voice and music pool guide autonomous produce when AI picks audio.
• Finished video (AZ) — Home drop of one MP4. Studio makes the 3D cover, captions, and a 7-day schedule. You can still change or cancel times in Pipeline before they fire. TikTok stays a draft.
• Library intake / compress — Process intake or Compress all only when files are waiting. Watch the intake stages and the oversized banner instead of assuming it finished.
• Analytics — Run sequentially or Refresh similar times. This stores public-post observations. It never writes a publish time onto an output.
• Render repair — Reset stale render URLs or Retry failed asset selection only on failed/waiting rows. Healthy outputs are left alone.

What a pass looks like

• Pipeline rows reach Ready for Review with a real preview (rendered MP4 or native stills) and the 3D grid cover where the platform has a separate cover.
• Instagram Reels keep cover_url and do not fall back to a video-frame offset.
• TikTok remains an inbox draft plus the publish-package email.
• Do not Approve for publishing, and do not Approve All, unless this test is meant to go live.

GitHub and local checks

• Regression functional — runs on pull requests that touch apps, services, or tests. Hermetic packs only; it does not publish.
• End-to-end seed workflows — used to create a Studio idea/request that stops at review. Test-tagged rows must not mutate unrelated production. Leave Test Run ID blank on real autonomous work.
• Local services — Frame Extractor, Remotion, pipeline-runner, and related Windows services. Public /health on each hostname is the desk’s infra signal. Restart one service at a time.

Seeded matrix or e2e outputs are review fixtures until you say otherwise. Do not Approve leftover test content from an old run.

Activity logs

Logs for Operations live in Studio first. Worker heals that succeed quietly do not show up as desk tickets.

Studio activity log

Operations → Quality Agent → Activity log. This is the operator view. It has two lists:

• Service lane — recent desk_incident tickets (agent 3, task 1). Each row is a fingerprint, class, record, and diagnosis after Worker heal did not clear the job.
• Tester lane — Regression functional, the nightly regression suite, and Task Organizer connectivity checks. Click a card to see each job: hermetic success, health failure, and so on, plus the Actions run link.

Task Organizer

The durable store behind those lists is the Task Organizer activity log. That page is the event history, not the API schema. /docs is only OpenAPI. Worker transient heals are not copied here.

On-page progress

• Library intake — stage list (intake, compress, classify, reconcile) and the progress bar while a drain is running.
• Oversized videos — color banner with the file name, percent, and how many clips are waiting.
• Analytics — status line per sequential handle; Stop waits for the current handle to finish.
• Autonomous produce — meta line under Run autonomous now (running, resuming drafts, skipped, or waiting on frames).
• Pipeline — live studio state, render, review, and the countdown refresh while that page is open.

GitHub Actions

Production deploys and PR checks write run logs on GitHub:

• Deploy Studio Pages Production — frontend, including this Help UI.
• Deploy Studio API Worker Production — API/cron healer.
• Regression functional — hermetic tests on a pull request. Pass/fail is also copied into the Activity log.
• End-to-end seed / API control workflows — print idea, production request, and content IDs when a review fixture is created.

If a Pages or Worker deploy fails, read that Actions run before pulsing Make or re-running autonomous produce. Local companion deploy logs stay on this Windows machine under Deployment Logs.