The living strategy
How a strategy is drafted, reviewed and activated — the hero and its next action, intent clusters, the backlog gate, AI review and version history.
A website's strategy is a living document with two sides. Research writes the Draft side. You review it and press Activate draft, which makes it the Active side and stamps it with a version number. Everything else in the Command Center — the writer, the Technical queue, the client summary — reads the active strategy.
The Strategy tab is where that happens. The card at the top, the Living strategy hero, always tells you the one thing to do next.
Before you start
A strategy comes out of a research run, so fill the Research brief first. You can author one by hand with New draft, but research is the intended path and the tab says so on a new website.
Reading the hero
The hero shows the strategy status and version, the charter summary, this month's focus, when evidence was last evaluated, any pending change, the top search intents, a live line for any running research, and one Next action.
The Next action follows the lifecycle, so it changes as you work:
| Next action | What it means |
|---|---|
| Set the Research brief | Blocking. Deep research cannot seed itself yet |
| Start research | The brief is ready; nothing has been researched |
| Review proposed update | Blocking and amber. P0 backlog items are waiting |
| Review intent | A draft is ready for an intent and ownership review — or the active strategy is aligned and intent is what to keep watching |
| Fix the brief | The active strategy's research brief is empty or was auto-filled; opens the Brief pane (the reason sits in the link's tooltip) |
| Review signals | New evidence signals can refine the current plan; opens Backlog |
| Review strategy | The active strategy has not been reconciled with the latest evidence yet; opens History |
Underneath sit four tiles — Content, Page, Technical and Backlog — counting open backlog items per workstream. Each one deep-links into that work.
The lifecycle controls
| Setting | What it changes | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Draft / Active | Which side of the strategy the page shows. The toggle only appears when both exist. | — |
| Monthly focus | A one-line focus for the month, up to 240 characters. Editable on the Draft side only. | Not set yet |
| Save focus | Commits the monthly focus to the draft. Enabled once you have edited it. | — |
| New draft | Starts an empty draft strategy for this website, for authoring by hand. | — |
| Copy active | Starts a draft seeded from the current active strategy. | — |
| Activate draft | Makes the draft the active strategy, after showing you the change summary. | — |
| Discard | Discards the draft. It is preserved in version history, not deleted. | — |
One open draft at a time
A website can only hold one open draft. While a draft is open, Start research is disabled for deep scopes — activate it, discard it or finish it first. The one exception is an empty machine-created draft shell, which a new run adopts. Activate is also blocked while a research run linked to the draft is still working.
The four sub-tabs
Under the hero sit Client summary, Intent, Research and History. A fifth segment, Backlog, appears only while you are in it.
| Sub-tab | What is there |
|---|---|
| Client summary | The automation readiness checklist and the client summary panel |
| Intent | The intent-cluster table on the active side, the full editor on the draft side |
| Research | The research workspace — brief, run, keywords, ideas, evidence |
| History | AI review findings, version history and diffs |
| Backlog | Proposed decisions, reached from the hero's Review proposed update |
Old links still work: ?strategyView=clusters lands on Intent and
?strategyView=details lands on History.
Intent clusters
An intent cluster is a named group of search queries with a business outcome, an owning page and supporting pages. It is how the strategy decides which page should rank for what.
Open the Intent sub-tab
StrategyIntent. On the active side the table is read-only. That is deliberate — the active strategy is a record of what you agreed.
Switch the hero toggle to Draft
Editing happens on the draft side.
Edit the cluster
Set the Cluster key, the Business outcome, the Owning page path and any Supporting page paths.
Send a cluster to Claude
Use the per-row terminal icon to turn a cluster into a page brief. The business outcome seeds the goal line for you.
A retired cluster cannot be sent to the terminal, and a cluster with no queries has its brief button disabled with that reason. The hero's Top search intents chips show the first three clusters and their query counts.
The backlog gate
Research proposes decisions as backlog items at priority P0, P1 or P2.
Open P0 items block activation
When the hero shows Review proposed update in amber, a P0 proposal is waiting. You cannot activate the draft until it has been reviewed. Use the bulk review modal to accept or reject in one pass, then return to the hero and click Activate draft.
Priority caps apply, and the panel tells you when items are being held back by the cap. Backlog is not a permanent nav item — it only appears while you are in it, so reach it from the hero rather than bookmarking it.
AI review and version history
StrategyHistory holds two things: a reconciliation of the active strategy against the latest evidence, and every version that has ever existed.
Run the AI review
Use the run button in the AI review panel's action slot. The review is read-only on the draft side.
Decide each finding
Findings are grouped by type with Accept or Reject per finding.
Apply the decisions
Applying writes the accepted findings into the strategy.
Compare versions
Scroll to version history for the diff between any two versions, with the evidence receipt behind each one.
If the strategy changes underneath an open review, the findings go stale and the decisions are disabled until you re-read them. That is a safety behaviour, not a fault.
The client summary
StrategyClient summary carries a short paragraph in client language that you publish for the client.
Activate a strategy first
Publish requires an active strategy.
Write the summary
The placeholder asks for what you are focused on this month, in client language. A character counter runs underneath.
Publish it
The summary is saved as the published one. Where the client sees it depends on their portal (below).
Where the client sees the summary
The published summary shows as the strategy card on the client's SEO tab only where that client's portal still carries the older Active SEO setting. Turning SEO reporting on under SettingsReporting & client does not set it, and no switch sets it now. With SEO reporting alone, the client sees the reports you attach (each with its own overview) and Map Pack results, but not the summary.
Attaching a report also updates the published summary with that report's overview. Refreshing an older report leaves the summary alone.
The strategy revises itself every night, so a newer version alone is not a reason to rewrite the summary. An amber Strategy changed line appears only when clusters were added, removed or changed since the summary was published, with the counts. Re-read the client language and publish again, or attach the newest report.
The automation readiness checklist
Also on Client summary. It lists exactly what is stopping this website from running on automation, with a named fix per row: enrolment, active strategy, and budget. The card hides itself when everything is met.
One row is worth knowing about: Recompile pack has no standalone action today. Clicking it takes you to the strategy review surface instead.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Start research is greyed out with a draft conflict | This website already has an open draft strategy | Activate, discard or finish the draft from the hero |
| Activate draft is disabled | A research run linked to the draft is still working | Wait for the run to finish or cancel it |
| The hero shows Review proposed update in amber | Open P0 backlog items | Review them, then activate |
| Intent shows nothing but a prompt to run research | No strategy exists yet | Run research; the draft brings clusters with it |
| AI review decisions are disabled | The strategy changed while the review was open | Re-read the findings to refresh them |
| The client summary shows Strategy changed | Clusters were added, removed or changed since it was published | Re-read and re-publish the summary, or attach the newest report |
| Recompile pack does nothing obvious | It has no standalone action on this build | Use the strategy review surface it takes you to |