The editor handbook we ship with every project

Every Factor1 project ships with a 14-page document we call the Editor Handbook. It's not a manual — it's an agreement between the development team and the marketing team about how the site works and who owns what.

We started writing it after the third project where a marketing manager called us six months post-launch to ask why a page looked broken. The answer was always the same: they'd done something the CMS allowed but the design didn't account for. A 200-word excerpt in a card that was designed for 80 words. A hero image uploaded at 600×400 into a slot that expected 1200×630.

The handbook has four sections:

Content model reference One page per content type: what each field is for, character limits, image dimensions, which fields are required vs optional. We generate the first draft from our schema and then edit it to be human-readable.

Editorial guidelines House style for headlines, CTAs, and alt text. Not a full brand guide — that's the client's job. Just the decisions we made in the component library that editors need to know about.

Common workflows Step-by-step for the five things editors do most: publish a new page, update a homepage section, add a team member, create a journal entry, roll back a mistake.

What to do when something looks wrong A decision tree. Is it a content problem (check field limits, check image dimensions)? Is it a code problem (file a ticket)? Is it a permissions problem (call your CMS admin)?

The document takes us about three hours to write. Clients tell us content velocity doubles in the first quarter because editors stop asking developers questions. That's eight hours of developer time saved per month. The math is straightforward.