Onboarding a brand
The eight stages
Brand Onboarding works through eight setup sections and measures progress by Brand Kit coverage.
After the four-step intake, Brand Onboarding takes over. The agent works through eight setup sections. Every section has a clear objective, but completion is measured by Brand Kit coverage, not by a separate stage ledger.
The agent does not use separate stage-gate tools for the first-pass setup:
- No
evaluate-lockcalls. - No
complete-stagecalls. - Progress comes from the Brand Kit shape: known fields, sourced fields, gaps, and open questions.
The operator sees direct progress in the Brand Kit artifact. The agent reads evidence first, saves one validated section at a time, and asks one next question when evidence is missing.
The eight stages
| # | Stage | What gets captured |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brand introduction and operator goals | The brand the agent is talking to. The operator's goals for the platform. AI use cases. Public research scan results. |
| 2 | Material and knowledge gathering | Pure intake. Documents, links, facts with source tags. No assumptions. |
| 3 | Building the brand knowledge graph | The intake mapped into the brand kit schema: foundation, strategy, style. Gaps named. Reminders set. |
| 4 | Audience and market | Audience segments deepened into full personas. Competitive frame mapped. Active channels named. |
| 5 | Brand voice and snippets | Voice attributes. Tone, emotion, character, syntax, direction. Test snippets drafted, iterated, confirmed. |
| 6 | Review, guardrails, and constraints | The anti-list. Regulatory rules. Cultural rules. Franchise restrictions. The Brand Guard rule set. |
| 7 | Review and evaluation | The complete profile presented with citations. Revisions. Explicit operator approval. |
| 8 | Publish | The canon is persisted to Brand Brain. Brand Guard activates. Next steps confirmed. |
What the agent captures across the eight stages
- Brand foundation: purpose, essence, vision, beliefs, values (ranked, with behaviors), archetypes, differentiators.
- Brand strategy: positioning statement, benefit ladder, guidance framework, content strategy, success metrics.
- Audience personas: behavioral segments, jobs-to-be-done, decision criteria, motivations, pain points.
- Competitive frame: direct competitors, relative position, what the brand does versus avoids.
- Brand voice: tone, emotion, character, syntax, direction. Do and don't examples. Test snippets.
- Active channels: platforms, handles, purpose, primary channel.
- Guardrails: the anti-list, regulatory rules, cultural rules, franchise constraints.
- Gaps: every unknown field, with downstream impact and a reminder for later sourcing.
Section progression rules
- The agent focuses on one Brand Kit section at a time.
- The agent reads uploaded evidence and intake context before asking for operator input.
- The agent saves or patches one validated Brand Kit section before moving to the next section.
- The agent computes readiness from coverage, evidence quality, and unresolved gaps.
- If the operator volunteers information for a later section, the agent acknowledges and stores it. The agent then returns to the current section.
When the operator wants to skip
The operator can skip a stage. The agent will note the gaps, name the downstream impact on brief quality, and continue. Skipped stages remain reopenable later.