To article

Turn an approved content/TOPIC.md into content/ARTICLE.md: the readable content master for both the eventual blog post and the video plan.

Preconditions

Read content/TOPIC.md, content/RESEARCH.md, every cited experiment report, and the source material needed to verify the selected evidence. Continue only when TOPIC.md has status: approved.

Return to /develop-topic when writing exposes a missing material claim, contradictory evidence, an unsupported conclusion, or a needed change to the approved audience, thesis, scope, argument, evidence, or conclusion boundaries. Immediately return TOPIC.md to status: draft, resolve the gap there, and renew topic approval before drafting from it. Adding evidence that changes the confidence, boundary, or interpretation is material; adding an equivalent source without changing the contract is not.

Voice

Resolve the article voice from the approved topic. Before drafting, inspect the available skills for a writing-style skill matching the output language and content type, then load every applicable user, project, or brand style source named in voice.skills or voice.documents.

If no reliable source exists for a publication-grade article, ask one compact question for the desired voice or a sample. When the user delegates that choice, or the article is explicitly an internal draft, use a clear explanatory default and record voice.status: assumed. Record unavailable named sources under voice.unavailable; they are not evidence that their rules were applied. An unavailable source does not block drafting when another available source resolves the voice.

Draft

Write a complete, platform-independent article. It must stand alone for a reader, preserve the approved argument and boundaries, distinguish fact from interpretation, and cite the original sources behind material claims. Use headings, links, tables, or notes when they help reading; site-specific SEO fields, publishing components, and platform paths belong to a later publishing adaptation.

Write content/ARTICLE.md with this frontmatter:

---
source: content/TOPIC.md
source_digest: sha256:<TOPIC approved_digest>
status: draft
voice:
  language: ...
  skills: []
  documents: []
  unavailable: []
  status: resolved | assumed
---

The article may improve the working title, prose, examples, and section order. It may compress or explain approved claims, but every material fact, viewpoint, and conclusion must trace to the approved topic and its evidence. New content goes upstream first.

Approval gate

Present the complete article for review. Only explicit user approval changes its frontmatter to:

status: approved
approved_at: YYYY-MM-DD
approved_digest: sha256:<digest>

Compute approved_digest as SHA-256 of the complete file after removing only the approved_digest: line. Before drafting or approving, recompute the topic digest and require it to match both TOPIC.md's approved_digest and this article's source_digest. A mismatch makes the relevant approval or dependent draft stale. A verified non-material edit may refresh and propagate digests without renewed approval.

Until then, do not create BEATS.md. A request to continue production does not substitute for approval of the article itself.

A material revision to TOPIC.md returns the article to draft. A material revision to an approved article also returns it to draft; copy edits, title changes, and examples that preserve the approved meaning do not.

Before presenting content/ARTICLE.md or any later revision, follow ../boring-video/references/markdown-review.md. Keep the canonical Markdown path as the current version and apply review feedback there.

The article is complete when it is approved, reads independently, every material statement traces to the approved content contract and sufficient evidence, a video planner can reorganize it without inventing facts, viewpoints, argument, or scope, and the Markdown review completion criterion is satisfied.