For small agencies building content workflows, a deterministic input check can catch incomplete briefs before an AI request.
Start with Manual Trigger → Edit Fields → Code.
Supply topic, audience, search_intent and content_pillar. Reject missing, non-string or whitespace-only values. Trim valid strings and lowercase search_intent. Keep the node’s default stop-on-error behaviour.
Test with fictional data:
- Complete brief: passes
- Empty content_pillar: fails and names the field
- Numeric audience: fails the type check
- Restored valid input: passes again
Connect the AI step only to the validator’s successful output. A Code node using $input.first() handles only one incoming item; add deliberate per-item processing before connecting a spreadsheet or queue.
These checks establish structure; they don’t validate search demand, factual accuracy or publication readiness.