Editorial File-System Designer

The brief

“The design work isn't the problem. It's tracking versions when revisions come in. It's hunting for which file is current. It's renaming everything so I can find it again. The chaos around the work eats more hours than the work.”

The pattern

Most people fix file chaos by typing 'organise my Dropbox' into Claude and getting a generic Assets / Output / Final tree back. It's already wrong before you've moved a single file. The shape of the system depends on questions the model needs to ask first — about your client cycle, your delivery format, your revision flow.

The move

Talk to the wrench. Ask Claude what it needs to know before asking it to design the system. The questions ARE the deliverable — they teach Lynne which variables matter. The same move that works for confirmation emails: the model lists the inputs, the inputs become the form.

The build

One Claude Haiku 4.5 call. ~1,400-token system prompt encoding editorial-design domain knowledge (InDesign packaging, X1a/X4 export, supplier vs stock photo flows, revision lifecycles). Output renders the questions FIRST, then the system that answers them.

The tool

Try it below. Describe a real editorial project — what type, who supplies what, how revisions flow, how delivery happens. The wrench surfaces the 4-6 questions a sharp collaborator would ask. The system then returns a real folder tree, naming convention, revision protocol, and an asset-intake template you can paste straight into a client email.