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Daily

Turn a sheet of topics into article drafts in Drive

Each day the next topic in your Content sheet becomes a 1,000-word article draft in Google Docs, with its link added to the sheet.

Runs
Daily
Apps
Google Drive, Google Sheets
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
Sheets read+write; Drive write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: each day, take the next topic in my Content sheet, write a 1,000-word article, save it to my Drive folder and put the link in the sheet.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A small company wants to publish a blog post every week to bring in search traffic. The marketing lead has a sheet full of topics and keywords, but the drafts never get written because a first draft takes half a day she does not have.

This automation writes a first draft each day from the next topic on the list and files it in Drive, so her job becomes editing and adding real examples, which is the part that needs her expertise.

What you get out of it

  • A steady supply of drafts

    One draft a day keeps the content calendar full, even in weeks when nobody has time to write from scratch.

  • Editing instead of writing

    Starting from a structured draft is much faster than a blank page, and leaves time to add your own expertise.

  • Everything in one place

    Drafts are Google Docs in a single folder, ready for comments and suggestions from the rest of the team.

  • The sheet shows progress

    Each topic gets a link to its draft, so you can see at a glance what is written and what is still waiting.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every day ClickRuntime opens your Content sheet and finds the next topic without a draft link.

  2. AI writes a 1,000-word article on that topic using any keyword and notes in the row.

  3. The article is saved as a Google Doc in your Drive folder.

  4. The link to the document is written into the sheet, so the same topic is never drafted twice.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google Drive
  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use

What you get

RunsDaily
Turn a sheet of topics into article drafts in Drivetoday, 9:00Succeeded
Google Drive · ArticlesNew draft: "How Northwind cut delivery times with route planning" (1,020 words)

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Google Drive and Google Sheets steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
articles_from_a_sheet_saved_as_drive_docs.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.http import MediaInMemoryUpload
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, ai

SHEET_ID, FOLDER_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id", "your-articles-folder-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    creds = Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work"))
    sheet = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values()
    rows = sheet.get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Content!A2:D").execute().get("values", [])
    i = next((n for n, r in enumerate(rows, start=2) if r and (len(r) < 4 or not r[3])), None)
    if i is None:
        return {"written": 0}
    r = rows[i - 2] + ["", "", ""]
    article = ai.generate(f"Write a 1,000-word blog article in clear headings.\nTopic: {r[0]}\nKeyword: {r[1]}\nNotes: {r[2]}",
                          max_output_tokens=2048).text
    doc = build("drive", "v3", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).files().create(
        body={"name": r[0], "parents": [FOLDER_ID], "mimeType": "application/vnd.google-apps.document"},
        media_body=MediaInMemoryUpload(article.encode(), "text/plain"), fields="webViewLink").execute()
    sheet.update(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range=f"Content!D{i}", valueInputOption="RAW",
                 body={"values": [[doc["webViewLink"]]]}).execute()
    return {"written": r[0]}

FAQ

Common questions

What should each row in the sheet contain?
A topic, and optionally a target keyword, the audience and a few notes or points to cover. Extra detail gives a more useful draft.
Are the articles ready to publish?
They are first drafts. Plan to check facts, add your own examples and adjust the tone before publishing.
Can I change the length?
Yes. 1,000 words is the default, and you can set a different length for all articles or per row.
What permissions does it need?
Sheets read+write; Drive write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (daily). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Turn a sheet of topics into article drafts in Drive” from your assistant

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