What the Coach can do
What the WriteStack Coach (Quill) knows about your publication, what it can draft, save and schedule for you, and how chats, Memory, Library and Routines work.
The Coach is a chat in WriteStack, with an owl called Quill. It reads your notes, posts and stats, drafts notes and posts in your voice, and saves or schedules notes when you ask. It's included on every paid plan. How much you can use it depends on the plan: see Coach limits.
Open it
Click Coach in the sidebar. A new chat opens with "How can I help you grow?" and four starters:
| Starter | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Paid growth | What to focus on to grow paid subscribers |
| Note impressions | When your notes get the most impressions |
| Schedule a job | Set up a routine that drafts notes every weekday morning |
| Write notes | Five notes in your voice, on a topic you finish typing |
You can also type any question. A message can be up to 40,000 characters and carry up to 4 images.
What it knows
| Source | What the Coach reads |
|---|---|
| Your notes | Drafts, ready, scheduled and published notes. It learns your voice from published ones. |
| Your posts | The posts on your newsletters, so it can find one by title and write from it. |
| Notes statistics | Impressions, reactions, restacks and more. Needs Standard or Enterprise and the extension. |
| Posts Statistics | Views, opens, open rate, signups and more per post. Needs Standard or Enterprise and the extension. |
| Comments and mentions | The same feed as the Activity Center. |
| Your queue and schedule | Your slots and what is scheduled. |
| Your writing style | The voice it writes in. |
| The Writing Edge | WriteStack's research on what works on Substack, plus playbooks for notes, posts, titles, SEO, growth and paid subscribers. It links the source it used. |
| Inspiration | Top notes by other writers, the same search as the Inspiration page. |
| The public web | Current public pages, when the answer depends on one. |
| Memory and Library | Facts and files you gave it. |
What it can do
| Ask for | What happens |
|---|---|
| Notes | It writes each note as a Note card. Click a card to open it in the note editor. |
| Save notes | Saves notes as draft or ready. |
| Schedule notes | Saves notes and puts them on your queue, in the next open slots unless you name a time. Needs the browser extension, from a computer. See Sync. |
| Evergreen notes | Turns a note into an evergreen note that repeats. Needs the extension. |
| Tags | Adds or removes tags on your notes. |
| Cross-posting | Adds cross-post channels to a note, or writes a version for one platform, when you ask. |
| Posts | Writes a post and saves it as an article. See How the Coach writes articles. |
| Push a post to Substack | Sends the article to Substack as a draft. |
| Images | Makes or edits one image per message, for example for a note. |
| Charts | Draws a chart from your numbers. |
| Answers | Explains your stats, what works on Substack, or how to use WriteStack. |
The Coach can't publish anything, and it doesn't act on your notes or articles unless you ask. See What needs your approval and what the Coach can't do.
When two options are close, the Coach asks you with a question card instead of guessing. Pick an option, or type your own under Something else.
Chats
Each conversation is a chat. Your chats are listed by date, next to Memory, Library and Routines.
- New chat starts a fresh conversation.
- A chat made by a routine is labeled Routine.
- To delete a chat, click its delete button, then Delete chat. Its messages are deleted. Memory facts saved from it stay.
- The Coach can find an earlier chat when you refer to it, for example "like we discussed last week".
Questions sent through ask_coach from an AI agent are saved as Coach chats too.
Memory
Memory holds facts about you and your publication: audience, goals, offers, voice, preferences. The Coach saves useful facts from chats and uses them next time.
- Ask "Remember that I publish on Tuesdays", or type it under Add a fact.
- Edit or delete any fact. Delete all clears them.
- Turn Use memory off and the Coach won't save new facts or use the saved ones.
The Coach doesn't save facts about other people, health, politics, religion, credentials or personal finances.
Library
Library holds material you want the Coach to search: a public link, pasted text, or a file (.txt, .md or PDF). Give each item a title. Only you can search your Library. The Coach searches it when you ask.
Routines
A routine is a Coach job that runs on a schedule, every day or every week. Examples: morning note drafts, a weekly review of your note stats, a queue health check, or an accountability check-in against a goal.
- Ask for it in a chat. The Coach shows a card with the name, When, Timezone, Does (Saves drafts or Writes a report) and Delivery.
- Click Confirm to save it. Nothing is saved until you do.
- Manage it under Routines: Run now, Pause or Resume, or delete it.
Each run posts its result in its own chat and by email. A routine can save drafts or write reports. It can't schedule or publish. Routines are on Standard and Enterprise. Limits are on Coach limits.
How the Coach writes articles
How the Coach (Quill) drafts a post, saves it as a WriteStack article, edits existing drafts and pushes them to Substack, and which steps wait for the writer.
What needs your approval
Which Coach (Quill) actions run as soon as you ask, which wait for you to confirm or choose on a card, which the Coach never does, and how to approve, decline or undo them.