Prerequisites: Tools, Accounts, and Knowledge
Required tools, accounts, technical setup, and knowledge foundations for building the content pipeline
Required Tools and Accounts
Building a multi-agent content production pipeline requires specific tools and accounts across three categories: core AI infrastructure, content distribution platforms, and optional enhancements. The total monthly cost ranges from one hundred forty-seven to three hundred forty-seven dollars, compared to over ten thousand dollars monthly for an equivalent human team.
The baseline system costs one hundred forty-seven dollars per month and includes Claude Pro for content generation at twenty dollars monthly, Make.com for workflow automation at twenty-nine dollars, Airtable for content management at twenty dollars, Buffer for social media scheduling at thirty-five dollars, ConvertKit for email distribution at twenty-nine dollars, and a publishing platform like WordPress or Ghost ranging from free to twenty dollars monthly.
Technical Setup
Once you have accounts for the required tools, you'll need to configure each platform before building your agents. This setup process takes approximately one to two hours and ensures smooth integration between components.
Claude Projects Setup
Create a new Claude Project named "Content Production Pipeline" in your Claude Pro account. This project will house all four specialized agents plus shared context files like your brand voice guide and content templates.
Upload your brand guidelines, style guide, and three to five examples of your best existing content. These files train the agents to match your voice and quality standards. If you don't have formal brand guidelines yet, that's fine—the Implementation chapter includes exercises for creating them.
You'll add custom instructions specific to each agent role later during the build process. For now, just create the project and upload any existing content examples you have. The agents will reference these files to maintain consistency across everything they generate.
Airtable Base Configuration
Create a new Airtable base called "Content Pipeline" with four tables. The Content Ideas table tracks potential topics with fields for idea text, status, content pillar category, priority level, target keywords, and creation date. This is where you'll add ideas that trigger the pipeline.
The Production Queue table monitors content currently being processed with fields for content ID, current stage, assigned agent, timestamps for each stage, and quality scores. This gives you visibility into what's in progress and where bottlenecks occur.
The Published Content table archives completed work with fields for title, URL, publication date, distribution channels, performance metrics (views, engagement), and revenue attribution if applicable. This becomes your content performance database for analytics.
The Performance Metrics table tracks time-series data with fields for content ID, measurement date, traffic channel, impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI calculation. Link this to the Published Content table for trend analysis over time.
Make.com Scenarios
Create four automation scenarios in Make.com that will orchestrate your content workflow. Don't configure the full logic yet—just create the scenario shells and name them appropriately. You'll build out each scenario during the Implementation chapters.
Scenario one ("Idea to Research") watches for new records in your Content Ideas table and triggers the research agent when ideas are marked for production. Scenario two ("Research to Draft") takes completed research briefs and passes them to the writing agent for content generation.
Scenario three ("Draft to Edited") sends drafted content through the editing agent with quality validation checks. Scenario four ("Distribution Automation") handles multi-channel publishing once content passes all quality gates.
Each scenario will use HTTP modules to call Claude API, JSON modules to parse agent responses, router modules for quality gate logic, and API connections to Airtable, Buffer, and ConvertKit. You'll configure these integrations step by step in later chapters.
Knowledge Prerequisites
Beyond tools and accounts, you need foundational knowledge about your content strategy and quality standards. If you have these defined already, great—you'll reference them when building agents. If not, the Implementation Guide includes exercises for developing them.
Content strategy fundamentals include your target audience definition describing who you're creating content for and what problems they face, content pillars which are three to five core topic categories your content addresses, brand voice guidelines detailing how you communicate and what makes your voice distinctive, and SEO keyword strategy identifying search terms your audience uses to find solutions.
Quality standards define what "good enough to publish" means for your content. These typically include minimum word count ranges like fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred words for long-form posts, required sections or structural elements your content should have, tone and style requirements that define appropriate formality levels and writing patterns, and fact-checking standards for how you verify claims and cite sources.
If you haven't defined these standards yet, that's completely normal. The next chapter walks you through creating brand voice profiles, content templates, and quality checklists from scratch. You can also iterate on these over time—start with basic guidelines and refine as you see what works.
The Implementation Guide includes specific exercises for defining each of these elements. You'll use Claude to analyze your existing content, extract voice characteristics, and generate template structures. Don't worry if you're starting without formal documentation—the system helps you create it.
Readiness Check
Before moving to the Theory & Architecture chapter, verify you have the following minimum requirements: active accounts for Claude Pro, Make.com, and Airtable; a rough idea of your content topic or niche even if not fully defined; at least one to three examples of content in your desired style (your own or inspirational pieces from others); and willingness to invest eight to twelve hours over the next one to two weeks.
If you're missing critical accounts like Claude Pro or Make.com, pause here and set those up. The free tiers won't provide sufficient capabilities for a production content pipeline. If you don't have any content examples, that's okay—you can use the first implementation exercise to generate initial samples that define your voice.
The optional tools can be added later. Start with the baseline seventy-five dollar per month stack (Claude, Make, Airtable) and add distribution tools as you scale. You can manually post content initially while your pipeline proves its value, then automate distribution once you're producing consistent volume.
With prerequisites handled, you're ready to understand the theoretical foundations of multi-agent architectures and why this approach produces better content economics than traditional human teams.