Manual topic creation

Overview

With manual topic creation* you create a topic in Ottili LD3* deliberately by hand — without LD3 first detecting it from monitored sources (RSS, URLs, webhooks). This is useful when you want to cover a specific angle, campaign, or subject on purpose, before any source delivers it.

Manual creation is part of the Beta (BETA)* of Ottili LD3 and is included in the manual_topics entitlement of LD3 Base*. Everything runs company-scoped: every topic belongs to exactly one company (company_id) and is logged through Ottili Core Audit*.

When to create manually instead of auto-detecting

LD3 normally detects topics automatically once sources are connected (see [LD3 topics](/docs/ld3-topics) and [LD3 sources](/docs/ld3-sources)). Create manually when:

• you want to steer a topic that does not appear in any connected source;
• you want to define an angle for a campaign, event, or product ahead of time;
• you have source material (e.g. a URL) that LD3 is not yet monitoring.

A manually created topic carries source_type: manual and is not bound to a fetched source item.

Prerequisites

• An active Ottili ONE* company with access to the LD3 module (Beta).
• The manual_topics entitlement (included in LD3 Base*).
• At least one LD3 project to attach the topic to.

Create a topic manually (console)

1. In the Ottili ONE console, open LD3 → Topics*.

2. Choose Create topic* (or Create manually*).

3. Fill in the fields:

- Title* — required, 3–255 characters. The working name of the topic.

- Summary / note* — optional, up to 5,000 characters; describes what it is about.

- Source URL* — optional; links the topic to a source page.

- Language* — optional; e.g. de or en.

- Category* — optional; thematic grouping.

- Status* — starts by default as candidate.

- Relevance score* and Freshness score* — each 0–1, default 0.5; drive prioritization in the planning queue.

4. Save. The topic appears as a candidate in the topic list.

Create a topic manually (API)

You can also create a topic programmatically — via the Unified API:

POST /api/v1/content-automation/topics

Example body:

{
  "project_id": 123,
  "title": "My steered topic",
  "source_type": "manual",
  "raw_summary": "Short description of the angle.",
  "source_url": "https://example.com/source-article",
  "detected_language": "en",
  "content_status": "candidate",
  "relevance_score": 0.6,
  "freshness_score": 0.5
}

Fields:

• project_id (required) — the LD3 project id.
• title (required, 3–255 characters).
• source_type — default manual.
• source_url, raw_summary, detected_language, detected_category — optional.
• content_status — default candidate.
• relevance_score, freshness_score — 0–1, default 0.5 each.
• breaking — optional breaking-news flag.
• metadata — optional free-form object.

The request is company-scoped and authenticated; the call is attributed to the company and logged through Ottili Core Audit*.

Where the manual topic goes

A manually created topic runs through the same pipeline as auto-detected topics:

1. Candidate* — the starting state after creation.

2. Verification* — [LD3 topic verification](/docs/ld3-topic-verification) checks strategy fit, duplicates, source trust and conflicts.

3. Expansion* — [LD3 topic expansion](/docs/ld3-topic-expansion) builds the angle from facts.

4. Facts* — [LD3 fact extraction](/docs/ld3-facts) secures citable facts.

5. Package* — the piece is bundled into an [LD3 content package](/docs/ld3-content-packages).

6. Review* — a reviewer checks it before publishing ([LD3 reviews](/docs/ld3-reviews)).

7. Publishing* — publishing is channel-based, draft-/approval-first.

Weak or critical topics are flagged, not silently used — regardless of whether they were created manually or detected automatically.

Manual vs auto-detected topics

Status at a glance

How Ottili ONE publicly labels maturity is described in [Understanding feature status labels](/docs/understand-feature-status-labels). The Ottili ONE beta model is described in [What is Ottili ONE?](/docs/what-is-ottili-one) in the context of product maturity.

Related articles

• [LD3 topics](/docs/ld3-topics) — detecting and expanding topics into content angles.
• [LD3 topic verification](/docs/ld3-topic-verification) — how LD3 checks topics before expansion.
• [LD3 topic expansion](/docs/ld3-topic-expansion) — from topic to content cluster.
• [LD3 sources](/docs/ld3-sources) — where auto-detected topics come from.
• [LD3 fact extraction](/docs/ld3-facts) — turning selected angles into cited drafts.
• [LD3 content packages](/docs/ld3-content-packages) — bundling approved pieces.
• [LD3 reviews](/docs/ld3-reviews) — the human check before publishing.
• [Understanding feature status labels](/docs/understand-feature-status-labels)
• [What is Ottili ONE?](/docs/what-is-ottili-one)