Draft to published answer
Move an exact article revision through the required reviews into publication.
4 stages · 1 approval
Roles and responsibilities
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Step 1Draft the answer
Article NumberTitleCategoryDraft Created At
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Step 3Complete required review
ArticleReview RoundSubmitted RevisionSequence
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Step 4Publish the version
Review NumberArticleSubmitted RevisionSubmitted By
Process steps
Follow the process from start to finish. Select a step to see who acts and what changes.
Draft the answer
Author creates an assigned draft from a template, reserves a tenant-unique slug and prepares title, summary, body, tags, related targets and attachments. Validate same-tenant references, safe Markdown, image alt text and permitted media. Only Draft or ChangesRequested content can be edited; each change increments Revision. Starting a replacement draft preserves the previous PublishedVersion and PublicationState Live so customers keep the approved answer while changes are prepared.
Submit the packet
The submission command checks required fields and creates an ArticleReviewRounds packet with current revision, complete content hash, immutable policy version and required reviewer set. Resolve an active SME and any required Compliance Reviewer, distinct from the submitting author; unresolved reviewer mapping blocks submission. Create ordered ArticleApprovalSteps scoped to this round and required set. Status: Draft or ChangesRequested → InReview. Lock body, metadata, tags, links and media. An explicit withdrawal cancels the round and unfinished steps before a new draft revision is editable.
Approval required
Complete required review
Assigned Subject Matter Expert approves technical accuracy and a distinct Compliance Reviewer approves when required by policy. Each decision checks current round, hash, revision, actor and prior required sequence. Required steps cannot be skipped. Any ChangesRequested decision requires a reason, returns the working article and cancels remaining pending decisions in that round. Resubmission creates a new round; old approvals never carry forward. When all current required steps are approved, Status: InReview → Approved. KB Manager cannot replace a missing required specialist decision; an author who also holds a review role still cannot self-approve.
Publish the version
KB Manager publishes only the exact current Approved round and verifies the locked payload hash, review set and current audience restrictions. Atomically create the next ArticleVersions plus PublishedTags, PublishedLinks, PublishedMedia, ArticleVersionDiffs and reading-time snapshot; update Articles.PublishedVersion, PublicationState and version metadata; supersede the previous snapshot. PublishKey makes retries return the same version. Frozen content and immutable attachment bytes cannot later change through draft edits. Withdrawal removes the snapshot from all readers and invalidates search/cache/media access; it does not delete history.
Approvals and controls
1 approval required in this process
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Complete required review
Assigned Subject Matter Expert, plus a distinct Compliance Reviewer when required signs · publish the version waits
ArticleReviewRounds, ArticleApprovalSteps - Submission locks body, audience, tags, links and media.
- A required reviewer cannot be replacedA generic manager decision.
- Changes create a fresh review round; old decisions never carry forward.
- Idempotent publish updates the snapshotCurrent pointer atomically.
Records and postings
| Stage | Records | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Draft the answer | ArticlesArticleTagsRelatedArticlesAttachedMedia | Prepare the working article revision |
| 2 Submit the packet | ArticlesArticleReviewRoundsArticleApprovalSteps | Lock the complete current revision and required review set |
| 3 Complete required review | ArticleReviewRoundsArticleApprovalSteps | Approve all current required specialist steps or request changes |
| 4 Publish the version | ArticleVersionsPublishedTagsPublishedLinksPublishedMediaArticleVersionDiffsArticles | Publish one frozen snapshot and supersede the prior one |
Process reports
All reportsArticle Engagement
Per Article: ViewCount, unique-Customer reads, HelpfulRatio, average DwellSeconds, feedback-comment volume. Drills Category × ContentType × Owner. Pairs with the Stale-Article queue as the KB Manager's daily landing report.
Article Lifecycle
Median days from Draft to Published, time spent in each Status, count of ChangesRequested round-trips per Article. Surfaces authoring-pipeline bottlenecks at the SME and Compliance steps.
Stale-Article Health
Articles with ReviewDueDate in the past, by Owner and Category, plus HelpfulRatio drift vs. last-reviewed snapshot. Drives the weekly stale-article review.
Search Effectiveness
Median time-to-first-click, zero-result rate, click-through-rate at top-3 / top-5 positions, abandon rate (search with no click). Split by Source (HelpCenterPortal vs. HelpdeskWidget) and ViewerType.
Author Contribution
Per Author: Articles Created, Edited, Reviewed, Approved, Published over a rolling 90-day window, plus average HelpfulRatio of own Published Articles. Drills from Author → Article. Powers the contributor leaderboard.
Run by an agent
Agent support
Proto cannot approve the submitting author's work, skip required specialist review, edit a locked or published snapshot, expose internal content to customers or count incomplete observation windows as successful self-service. Promotion does not grant an author role.
# Example after configuration
$ curl -fsSL https://www.erp.ai/skill.md | paste into your agent
› draft to published answer · draft the answer on Articles, ArticleTags, RelatedArticles, AttachedMedia
✓ Author creates an assigned draft from a template, reserves a tenant-unique slug and prepares title, summary, body, tags, related targets and attachments.
› draft to published answer · submit the packet on Articles, ArticleReviewRounds, ArticleApprovalSteps
✓ The submission command checks required fields and creates an ArticleReviewRounds packet with current revision, complete content hash, immutable policy version and required reviewer set.
› draft to published answer · complete required review on ArticleReviewRounds, ArticleApprovalSteps
⏸ approval · waiting for the assigned subject matter expert, plus a distinct compliance reviewer when required
# 1 more stage after approval: publish the version
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