Bluemoonkey / Community / Newsletter Autopilot

Newsletter Autopilot Blueprint

A complete architecture for a newsletter automation app — AI content curation from RSS and social sources, draft issue generation, subscriber management, and human approval before sending. 12 nodes, ready to export to Cursor or Claude Code.

SaaS AI Automation 12 nodes
Table of contents
  1. What this app does
  2. Architecture diagram
  3. Node breakdown
  4. How it works end-to-end
  5. Cursor export prompt
  6. FAQ

What this app does

Newsletter Autopilot is for founders, creators, and indie hackers who want to publish a weekly newsletter but spend 4+ hours per issue curating links, writing summaries, and formatting. The app fetches content from RSS feeds, Hacker News, X/Twitter lists, and Reddit threads you specify, uses AI to curate the most relevant articles and draft summaries in your newsletter's voice, and routes the full draft through a human approval gate before sending to subscribers via your email service.

Consistency is the hardest part of newsletter growth. Readers unsubscribe when issues are late or feel rushed. This app makes weekly publishing sustainable by automating the curation and first-draft work, while keeping a human in the loop for quality control.

This blueprint maps out 12 nodes across frontend pages, backend APIs, AI prompts, a human checkpoint, a database, an email service integration, and a scheduler. It's designed for a solo newsletter creator with up to 10,000 subscribers.

Architecture diagram

Newsletter Dashboard (Page)Draft Editor (Page)Subscriber Settings (Page)
↕
Newsletters APISubscribers API
↕
Content Curator (AI)Draft Generator (AI)
↕
Approval Gate (Checkpoint)
↕
Newsletter DB (PostgreSQL)Email Service (SendGrid)Content Fetcher (Cron)

Node breakdown

Frontend pages

Backend APIs

AI prompts

Human checkpoint

Database, email & services

How it works end-to-end

  1. Creator sets up content sources in Subscriber Settings — adds 5 RSS feeds, a Hacker News topic, and a Reddit subreddit
  2. Connects SendGrid API key for email delivery
  3. Sets cadence: weekly, every Friday at 9am
  4. Every day, the Content Fetcher pulls new articles from all sources and stores them
  5. On Wednesday (2 days before send), the Content Curator AI ranks the week's articles by relevance and novelty, selects top 5-10, and identifies a theme
  6. The Draft Generator AI writes the full newsletter draft — intro, article summaries, section headers, closing note
  7. Draft appears on the Newsletter Dashboard as "draft ready"
  8. Creator opens the Draft Editor, reviews and edits the draft at the Approval Gate
  9. Creator approves the draft — status changes to "approved"
  10. On Friday at 9am, the Email Service sends the newsletter to all active subscribers via SendGrid
  11. Open rate, click rate, and unsubscribe count appear on the Dashboard over the next 48 hours

The Approval Gate is what separates this from spam. AI-curated newsletters without human review tend to feel generic — readers can tell. The human editor adds opinions, context, and personality that the AI can't replicate. The AI does 80% of the work; the human does the 20% that makes it worth reading.

Cursor export prompt

Open this blueprint in Bluemoonkey and export it, or copy the prompt below:

Ready to paste 
Build this app exactly as described.
Start with database schema and auth, then APIs, then frontend pages.

## Newsletter Dashboard (Frontend Page)
List of past and upcoming issues with status (curating, draft ready,
approved, sent). Subscriber count, open rate, click rate for sent issues.
Upcoming issue preview with curated article count and draft status.

## Draft Editor (Frontend Page)
Full newsletter draft with article summaries, links, intro/outro.
Edit any AI text, reorder sections, add/remove articles, swap headlines.
Preview rendered newsletter (HTML and plain text). Approve to send or reject.

## Subscriber Settings (Frontend Page)
Manage content sources: RSS feeds, Hacker News topics, X/Twitter list IDs,
Reddit subreddits. Set cadence (weekly, bi-weekly), sending day/time.
Configure newsletter voice (analytical, casual, opinionated).
Connect SendGrid API key for email delivery.

## Newsletters API (REST Endpoint)
- GET /api/newsletters — list of past and upcoming issues
- GET /api/newsletters/:id — full draft with articles and summaries
- POST /api/newsletters/:id/approve — approve draft for sending
- POST /api/newsletters/:id/send — trigger email send via SendGrid
- GET /api/newsletters/:id/stats — open rate, click rate, unsubscribe count

## Subscribers API (REST Endpoint)
- GET /api/subscribers — list with subscription date and status
- POST /api/subscribers — add subscriber (used by signup form)
- DELETE /api/subscribers/:id — unsubscribe
- GET /api/subscribers/count — total active subscriber count

## Newsletter DB (PostgreSQL)
- newsletters: id, issue_number, status, draft_html, draft_text, sent_at, subject_line
- articles: id, newsletter_id, title, url, source, summary, position
- subscribers: id, email, status, subscribed_at, unsubscribed_at
- content_sources: id, user_id, type, url, label, is_active
- users: id, email, name, newsletter_voice, sendgrid_api_key, created_at

## Content Curator (AI Prompt)
Input: fetched articles from all sources (titles, URLs, descriptions, source),
newsletter topic/niche, previous issues' topics (to avoid repetition)
Task: rank articles by relevance and novelty, select top 5-10,
identify themes or connections across articles
Output: ranked article list with relevance score, suggested section
groupings, and a theme summary for the issue

## Draft Generator (AI Prompt)
Input: curated articles, newsletter voice setting, editor's name,
issue number, previous issues' intros (for consistency)
Task: write full newsletter draft with intro paragraph, article summaries
(2-3 sentences each with key takeaway), section headers, closing note
Output: structured newsletter draft in HTML and plain text,
article links preserved

## Approval Gate (Human Checkpoint)
Before any newsletter is sent, a human reviews the full draft in the
Draft Editor. Edit intro, swap article order, remove articles, rewrite
summaries, adjust closing note. No newsletter sent without explicit approval.

## Content Fetcher (Cron Job)
Runs daily. Fetches new articles from all active sources (RSS feeds,
Hacker News API, X/Twitter lists, Reddit JSON endpoints).
Stores raw articles for Content Curator. Deduplicates articles
already included in previous issues.

## Email Service (SendGrid)
Sends approved newsletter to all active subscribers via SendGrid API.
Handles bounce tracking, unsubscribe management (footer link),
delivery analytics (opens, clicks). Uses verified sender domain.

For more prompt templates, see our Cursor prompt template or Claude Code prompt template. New to planning? Read how to plan an app before coding.

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FAQ

What is a newsletter automation app?

A newsletter automation app curates content from sources you specify, uses AI to draft newsletter issues from that content, and routes drafts through a human approval gate before sending to subscribers. It helps founders and creators publish consistently without spending hours curating and writing.

Can I export this blueprint to Cursor?

Yes. Open this blueprint in Bluemoonkey's free canvas and export it as a structured AI prompt formatted for Cursor's Agent mode. Paste it into Cursor, add "Build this app exactly as described," and it generates the full project.

Does it send newsletters automatically?

No. The AI curates content and generates a draft, but a human must review and approve the draft in the Draft Editor before sending. The email is sent on schedule only after approval. If no one approves, it doesn't send.

What content sources does it support?

The blueprint supports RSS feeds, Hacker News (via API), X/Twitter lists (via API), and Reddit (via JSON endpoints). You can add any source that provides an RSS feed or public API. The Content Fetcher stores articles daily and the Content Curator AI ranks them by relevance.