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On a schedule

Get researched social post drafts by email every weekday

Each weekday morning you get an email with post drafts for LinkedIn, X and Instagram, written from the latest news on your topic, ready to approve and post.

Runs
On a schedule
Apps
Gmail, SerpApi
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
SerpApi key; gmail.send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every weekday at 8am, search Google News for my topic with SerpApi, have AI write a LinkedIn post, a post for X and an Instagram caption, and email them to me for approval.

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 cybersecurity consultant knows that posting regularly brings in work, but writing three posts in three formats every morning before client calls never happens. When they do post, it is often days after the news broke, when everyone else has already commented.

This automation has drafts waiting in their inbox each weekday. It searches Google News for their topic, AI writes a LinkedIn post, a short post for X and an Instagram caption grounded in that morning's news with sources, and Gmail sends it to them. They read it with their coffee, edit what they like and post.

What you get out of it

  • Be early on the news

    Drafts are based on that morning's coverage, so you can comment while a story is still fresh. Early posts get more attention than the tenth take on the same story.

  • Three formats ready at once

    Each network wants a different length and style. Getting all three together saves rewriting the same idea three times.

  • You approve everything

    Drafts come to your inbox, not straight to your accounts. Nothing is posted until you have read it and chosen to share it.

  • Sources included

    Each draft lists the articles it drew on. You can check a fact before posting it under your name.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every weekday morning, ClickRuntime searches Google News for your topic through SerpApi.

  2. It skips articles it has already used in an earlier email.

  3. AI writes a LinkedIn post, a short post for X and an Instagram caption from the new articles, and lists the sources.

  4. The drafts are emailed to you from your own Gmail address, ready to approve and post.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect SerpApi

What you get

RunsOn a schedule
Get researched social post drafts by email every weekdaytoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · Post draftsPost drafts: Acme Insurance reports rise in ransomware claims from small firms

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 Gmail and SerpApi 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.
research_a_topic_and_email_me_ready_to_post_social_content.pyexample
import base64
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, ai

TOPIC = "ransomware small business"
ME = "you@example.com"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    used = set(state.get("used") or [])
    news = http.get("https://serpapi.com/search", params={"engine": "google_news", "q": TOPIC, "api_key": credentials.secret("SERPAPI_API_KEY")}).json()
    fresh = [n for n in news.get("news_results", []) if n.get("link") and n["link"] not in used][:6]
    if not fresh:
        return {"sent": False}
    sources = "\n".join(f"- {n['title']} ({n['link']})" for n in fresh)
    drafts = ai.generate(f"News on {TOPIC}:\n{sources}\n\nWrite: 1) LinkedIn post 2) post for X under 260 chars 3) Instagram caption. Then list sources.",
                         system="Write in a clear, expert, first-person voice. Use only facts from the news.", max_output_tokens=900).text
    gmail = build("gmail", "v1", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
    mime = MIMEText(drafts)
    mime["to"], mime["subject"] = ME, f"Post drafts: {fresh[0]['title'][:80]}"
    gmail.users().messages().send(userId="me", body={"raw": base64.urlsafe_b64encode(mime.as_bytes()).decode()}).execute()
    state.set("used", list(used | {n["link"] for n in fresh})[-300:])
    return {"sent": True, "articles": len(fresh)}

FAQ

Common questions

Why email instead of posting directly?
Posting under your name deserves a quick look first. Email lets you approve, edit or skip drafts from your phone in a minute.
Can I change the networks?
Yes. Ask for any mix, such as LinkedIn and a newsletter paragraph, and the email includes those drafts instead.
What if there is no news on my topic that day?
If nothing new turned up since the last email, it is skipped that morning rather than sending drafts about old stories.
What permissions does it need?
SerpApi key; gmail.send. 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 (on a schedule). 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 “Get researched social post drafts by email every weekday” from your assistant

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