Continuous editorial operations

ZEO Creator models an editorial cycle as a caller-supplied time window—not a week, a day, or a scheduler. A runtime can compose the same contracts for a breaking update, daily desk meeting, periodic edition, or evergreen explainer.

flowchart TD
    O[SourceObservation] --> S[EditorialSignal]
    S --> R[StoryRevision]
    R --> D[StoryDossier]
    D --> A[EditorialAgenda]
    A --> E[EditionPlan]
    E --> C[Article, commentary, newsletter, or ContentBrief]

Observation is not verification

An observation says what a source made available, when it was retrieved, how it was extracted and whether the capture is complete. Popularity, repetition and a social post are observations—not verified facts. Claims become verified only in an immutable story revision under the publication's evidence policy.

Stories evolve; dossiers freeze

StoryRevision represents change through time. Its previous-revision link, verified and disputed claims, developments, unknowns, freshness and risk survive across collection windows. StoryDossier freezes one revision for one publication. This gives downstream producers a stable research package and prevents a later story update from silently changing approved work.

Agendas choose; editions arrange

An EditorialAgenda records leads, secondary stories, watch items, rejections, deferrals, follow-ups, gaps and concrete PublicationSlot demand for one desk. An EditionPlan arranges those slots into a coherent surface with prominence, publication window, update policy, correction state and human-editor requirements.

The distinction matters: the agenda explains editorial judgment; the edition describes what readers encounter.

Strategy and state boundaries

Judgment-bearing capabilities accept runner-injected strategies. The package ships conservative deterministic strategies for tests and conformance. A private newsroom can inject model-backed or human-supported implementations and persist story memory, source reliability, persona positions and editor corrections.

ZEO Creator itself remains stateless. It does not collect continuously, schedule work, store a graph, decide legal qualifications, mint effect authority or execute publication.

Campaigns, newsletters and linear sequences

EmailCampaignPlan coordinates an objective, audience intent, campaign window, CTAs, policy references and measurements. A newsletter is one periodic broadcast; a sequence is an immutable ordered revision with entry, exit, conversion, suppression, quiet-hours and migration policy references. These are design inputs, not a workflow interpreter.

plan_email_message accepts an existing NewsletterIssuePlan as an optional specialization input, verifies its publication and audience policies, and binds the old issue revision into the new common message plan. Existing newsletter contracts remain unchanged; migration requires explicit selection of the issue subject/preheader and supplied source sections and email compliance declarations.

Metric acquisition occurs outside Creator. assess_email_program receives receipt-linked aggregates and preserves partial coverage and attribution gaps.