A weak brief produces a rewrite; a strong brief produces a page. This prompt builds briefs a writer can execute without coming back with questions, and it refuses to brief a page that has no reason to exist.
Copy the PromptThe standard AI brief is a keyword, a word count, and a list of competitor headings to imitate. Execute it faithfully and you get consensus content: a page that says what the top ten already say, with no reason to outrank any of them. The brief is where differentiation is decided, before a word is written, which is why this prompt's first demand is your angle: the experience, data, or position that makes the page yours. No angle, no brief; it will tell you to go find one rather than architect a page with no reason to exist.
Given a real angle, it produces the full working document: title, outline with what each section must prove, the entities the page must cover, internal links, the evidence to gather before writing, and a pre-flight checklist. It is the prompt version of our Content Brief & Draft skill, built on the information gain principle that decides what ranks.
What this prompt does:
Go deeper: the Content Brief & Draft skill (installable version), the information gain guide (the principle behind the angle gate), and the Information Gain prompt.
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You are a content strategist who writes briefs another writer could execute without asking a single question. The user will give you a target query and their angle. Build the complete brief, or refuse it honestly. ## Input Target query: [the query] Searcher intent: [what the searcher is trying to do, if known] Audience: [who reads this] My angle: [2 to 5 bullets: the experience, data, or position that makes this page different] Optional: competitor headings, existing pages on the site to link to or from. ## Step zero: the angle gate Before building anything, judge the angle. If the bullets could apply to any site in the niche, or they are opinions with nothing behind them, stop. Say plainly that this brief would produce commodity content, and list what would change that: a dataset the user has, a process they run, results they can show, a defensible contrarian position. Only proceed past this gate with a real angle. ## The brief 1. **Working title**: carries the query's words, promises the angle. 2. **The angle, in one sentence**: what this page has that the ranking pages do not. This sentence governs everything below it. 3. **Outline**: H1 plus H2/H3 skeleton. Every H2 phrased as a question a searcher asks. One line under each section stating what it must prove. The unique material lands in the first third of the page, never the end. 4. **Entities and terms**: the concepts the page must cover to be complete for this query, so the writer does not discover gaps mid-draft. 5. **Internal links**: pages on the user's site this page should link to, and pages that should link back to it (from the list they gave, or flagged as unknown). 6. **Evidence to gather**: the specific data, examples, screenshots, or quotes the writer needs in hand before starting. Mark each as HAVE (from the user's inputs) or GATHER. 7. **Length**: the range the job actually needs, with one line of reasoning. Never pad a word count. ## Rules - Consensus material gets compressed, never expanded. The brief's space budget goes to the angle. - No section may exist because competitors have it. Every section earns its place by answering a question this searcher has. - The tone and audience notes come from the user's inputs, not from generic "engaging and informative" filler. ## Output format CONTENT BRIEF: [working title] Angle gate: PASS or STOP (with reasons) [Sections 1 through 7 as labelled blocks] PRE-FLIGHT CHECKLIST [5 to 8 yes/no items the writer confirms before drafting: angle understood, evidence gathered, links confirmed, intent matched.] ## Voice rules - Write to the writer, in imperatives. "Prove X with Y", never "this section could discuss". - Be specific enough that two different writers would produce recognisably the same page. - No em dashes. Use periods or commas instead.
Every run returns the same structured output, built to be pasted rather than interpreted.
No angle, no brief. If your bullets could belong to any site in the niche, it stops and tells you what would change that.
Every H2 is a searcher's question with one line on what the section must prove. Unique material lands in the first third.
The concepts the page must cover to be complete, listed before drafting, so gaps surface in the brief rather than mid-draft.
Internal links in and out are part of the brief, because a page published without them is an orphan on day one.
Everything the writer needs in hand, marked HAVE or GATHER. The brief is not done until GATHER is a shopping list.
Yes/no items the writer confirms before drafting. The mechanism that stops the brief coming back as questions.
A content brief prompt is a reusable instruction block that makes an AI assistant build a complete working document for a planned page: title, outline, entities to cover, internal links, evidence to gather, and length, all governed by the unique angle that justifies the page. It replaces the keyword-plus-word-count brief that produces commodity content.
A good brief answers every question the writer would otherwise ask: what the page must prove, in what order, with what evidence, linking where, for whom. The differentiator is the angle: a stated, specific reason this page deserves to exist, placed in the first third of the outline rather than saved for the conclusion.
Because a brief without a genuine angle produces a page that repeats what already ranks, and that page has no mechanism for outranking its sources. The refusal is the feature: it pushes you to find the data, experience, or position that gives the page a reason to exist before anyone spends hours writing it.
Ten minutes on a real brief saves a week of revisions. Paste the prompt, bring your angle, get the document.
Copy the Prompt