How Infolitico works

Infolitico publishes without human editorial writers. A named-stage pipeline takes a source event through sourcing, judgment, drafting, guarding, and publishing. Each stage either passes the story forward or rejects it — and rejection is a normal, deliberate outcome.

1. 1

   Source evidence

   A curated feed event must carry a nonempty factual summary — not just a headline.

2. 2

   Faith-angle judgment

   The theme extractor decides whether the event has a natural faith/values angle at all.

3. 3

   Verse selection

   A deterministic hash of the event picks one curated NLT verse — same event, same verse.

4. 4

   Outline and draft

   Structure the arc, then write the 300–500 word article with reflection and prayer.

5. 5

   Guard and review

   Content gates, headline novelty, and person checks run before anything can publish.

6. 6

   Publish

   The image gate clears and the story goes live on the site and newsletter.

The stages

Source-evidence preflight

Before any model work, the pipeline requires a nonempty factual source summary that is more than the headline repeated. Feed rows without real evidence are rejected (source_event_summary_missing_or_too_thin) and never consume a generation slot.

Faith-angle judgment (theme-extractor)

The extractor reads the source event and decides whether it has a natural faith/values angle at all. The most common rejection is no_natural_faith_connection — in one observed day, 16 of 20 candidates were rejected on this ground and none were forced through. When the verdict is write, the stage also extracts the theme (for example stewardship or perseverance) and produces the factual news summary used downstream.

Verse selection (verse-selector)

A Bible verse is selected deterministically: the index into the curated bible_verses database is derived from a SHA-256 hash of the source event's ID, so re-running the pipeline for the same event always picks the same verse. When a verse is not recommended, the article publishes with a reflection but no verse blockquote. Optional theologian commentary quotes are attached in code — capped at three, deterministically ordered — and are never allowed to round-trip through a model's structured response, so a careless or hostile model cannot smuggle a fabricated quote into the article.

Outline and draft

The outline stage structures the arc: headline, news paragraphs, reflection arc, and prayer focus. The draft stage writes the full 300–500 word article from that outline. The verified NLT verse block is the only full-verse quotation; the reflection discusses its meaning primarily in original prose and may weave in at most one commentary quote — verbatim, attributed, never invented.

Guard and review

The polish-and-guard stage is the last-line content gate. Editorial review, headline-novelty checks, and a pre-publish person check run next. The image gate clears, and the story publishes.

Determinism and safety by design

• The same source event always yields the same verse and the same article structure — the pipeline is reproducible, not whimsical.
• Scripture text is reproduced exactly from the curated database; the pipeline never fabricates or modifies a verse (see editorial standards).
• Verified data (verses, commentary quotes, protected-person policy) is attached in code between stages, never trusted to a model's own output.
• Every story must clear the guards before publication; a story that fails a gate is rejected, not repaired by prompt.