Pick an AI writer, choose your stories, and HeyNews writes a full newsletter draft.
You'll need:
A Draft Brief applies only to the draft you are about to write. HeyNews clears it before your next draft, so you can give one issue special direction without changing your AI Writer. HeyNews still uses only the Stories you selected for facts and links.
Choose Add stories from links when your research already lives in a spreadsheet, document, Slack message, CSV, TSV, or plain text list. Paste the whole block. HeyNews finds links in any column and ignores the surrounding notes, labels, and empty cells.
Review the detected links, then choose Add stories. Existing Stories are selected without fetching them again. New links become one-off Stories, so HeyNews does not follow those sites for future content. The combined selection can contain up to 50 Stories.
If HeyNews cannot review the links right now, it keeps the pasted list in place. Wait a moment, then choose Review links again.
You can close the import window or leave Compose while HeyNews works. Reopen it to check progress, retry temporary failures, cancel pending work, or continue with the Stories that are ready. Compose keeps Write Draft unavailable until that decision is settled.
Some sites block automated readers even though the article opens normally in your browser. When that happens, open the article in Chrome, use the HeyNews extension's Save as story action, then return to Compose and select the saved Story.
Generation runs in the background and typically takes 30-60 seconds. While it works, Compose shows the AI Writer, the locked input summary, and the draft generation being used.
HeyNews gives your AI Writer the intended issue date in your publication timezone. This helps weekday-specific wording match the issue, even when the draft is prepared on a different day.
Your AI Writer also looks at a few past issues when it writes. If your publication has more than one source of past issues, HeyNews can include an older example from a source that recent issues would otherwise hide. These examples help it keep details such as humour, emoji habits, paragraph rhythm, and sign-offs without copying old sentences. Subject suggestions use past subject lines in the same way. If there are no suitable past issues, Draft Creation continues normally with the AI Writer's Voice Profile.
You don't have to wait on the Compose page. If you navigate away while a draft is generating, HeyNews keeps working in the background, saves the result to Issues, and shows a message when the draft is ready. Look for the New badge there.
If you come back to Compose while generation is still running, a banner at the top shows you the job is in progress.
Use Automations in the sidebar to create drafts on a schedule. Pick a ready AI Writer, select one or more Issue Days, choose when to create the drafts, then set the time, timezone, and a cadence from one to four weeks. HeyNews will:
Automations never send or publish a newsletter. You still review the draft in Compose before copying, publishing, or sending it.
Issue Days and draft creation stay separate. A Friday issue prepared one day early starts on Thursday, while the AI Writer receives Friday as the issue date. The calendar preview shows both dates in the automation timezone.
If a temporary service problem interrupts draft creation, HeyNews retries every five minutes for up to 30 minutes. A paused or deleted automation cancels the unfinished draft. Missed Issue Days are not created later.
Each automation can set a minimum story count, maximum story count, date window, and whether used stories can be reused. HeyNews picks from the eligible stories available when the automation runs. Standard automations do not lock drafts to one fixed source list; managed Company Newsletter automations may stay tied to the sources approved during setup. If there are not enough matching stories, HeyNews skips the run and explains why instead of creating a weak draft. If the same setup keeps failing, HeyNews pauses the automation until you review it.
For a full walkthrough, see Automated Drafts.
Compose hides stories you've already used so your next issue starts with fresh options. If your search only matches stories you've used before, Compose shows a Show used stories button. Click it when you want to reuse or reference an older story.
If you send stories from Content Desk into Compose, they stay selected even if they sit outside the current date or source filters. That makes it safer to adjust filters without losing the stories you already picked.
Once generation finishes, you'll see:
Your story and source choices are locked after a draft is created. To use different inputs, start a new draft. That uses another draft generation from your plan.
The draft title is created automatically from your writer name and the current date (e.g., "Weekly Tech Roundup - Friday, March 21").
HeyNews also checks measurable Style Rules, such as Never use '-' and
Summaries are 200 to 260 characters. For a summary length rule, it counts the
visible text in each paragraph that contains a Story link. A rule scoped to one
Section checks only that Section. If the first draft misses one of these rules,
HeyNews tries one repair. If the repaired draft still misses it, HeyNews saves
the draft and shows a warning so you can review it. These style warnings never
override Story and link safety checks.
Edit the subject line, preview text, or draft copy directly. Changes stay on screen as you work, but they are not saved to Issues until you click Save changes.
Use Refine with AI to request changes in plain language:
Unless you ask to rename a heading, Refine with AI keeps every Markdown heading exactly as it appears. To change one, name the heading in your request.
The AI revises the draft in the background. You can refresh the page or move elsewhere in HeyNews while it works. When you return to Compose, HeyNews restores the refinement in progress or applies the finished copy as unsaved changes for you to review. The Draft stays locked until the refinement finishes so another edit cannot overwrite it. While it runs, the Draft Review header explains the read-only state, shows when the refinement started, and keeps Cancel refinement available. If the refinement fails, your previous copy stays intact and becomes editable again.
Use Ideas for subject line options, or Suggest both to generate a new subject line and preview text together. Applying a suggestion creates unsaved changes, just like manual editing.
Suggestions follow patterns HeyNews can see in your past subject lines, including emoji and punctuation. When there is no clear pattern yet, HeyNews defaults to subject lines without emoji or exclamation marks.
Each draft has a refinement limit based on your plan. Free trial and Hobbyist accounts get 5 AI refinements per draft. Starter gets 10, Pro gets 20, and Team includes unlimited revisions.
You'll see a running counter in the refinement panel so you know how many you've used. Cancelling a refinement before it starts working doesn't use up a revision; once the AI has begun applying your change, that revision counts.
What happens at the limit depends on where you are:
After a draft is written, the draft workspace gives you:
Click Save changes to store your edits. A newly generated draft appears in Issues with a New badge. Once you save edits, it appears as Edited.
To use the issue in your email platform, open Copy, choose Copy full issue, and paste the content into beehiiv, Kit, Mailchimp, or wherever you send from. If you have unsaved edits, Copy uses the version currently on screen.
If you try to leave Compose with unsaved changes, HeyNews asks you to save or discard first.
Each generation attempt counts toward your limit, whether you save the result or not.
Each section of your AI Writer can have its own story count. These counts set the most Stories HeyNews should use in that section. A "Top Stories" section set to 5 can use up to 5 Stories, while a "Quick Hits" section set to 2 can use up to 2. If your selected Stories do not support a section, HeyNews leaves it out instead of filling it with unrelated material. Change the counts in your AI Writer's section settings when you want tighter or broader coverage.
Section names and descriptions also guide where your selected Stories go. Make each description specific about the kind of Story that belongs there, especially when the same topic could fit more than one section.
Before saving a generated draft, HeyNews checks that its article links come from the Stories you selected and that each included section has source material. It also blocks generated images, raw HTML, unrelated links, repeated Stories across sections, and placeholder content, even when a placeholder is wrapped in a valid Story link. You can still add an image after generation with Image search.
Your AI Writer can still use the closing lines that make the newsletter yours, including sign-offs, invitations to keep reading, and mentions of your other newsletters. By default, generated drafts leave out sponsor spots and ads. A call to action is only linked when its URL comes from a selected Story or an approved reusable link.
If your newsletter always uses the same Publication home or CTA link, add it to the AI Writer's Reusable Links card. Approving a link does not force it into every draft. It makes the destination available when the Writer's voice and the draft call for it. Links in historical examples do not carry over to a new Draft unless you approve them or they are already approved in the Voice Profile.
HeyNews follows the link placement learned by your AI Writer. When your Voice Profile has no clear pattern, it uses inline links.
If the first result fails these checks, HeyNews rewrites it with the approved links. When a backup generation model is available, HeyNews can make one final safe rewrite before stopping. If that final rewrite adds an unapproved link, HeyNews restores the correct link when the wording exactly matches one selected Story title. Other unapproved links become plain text before HeyNews checks the full Draft again. When the link wording is itself a web address, removing the link would still leave that address in your issue, so HeyNews stops instead. It saves the Draft only when every source check passes. Otherwise, HeyNews saves nothing and tells you to review the selected Story links or Reusable Links before trying again.