> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.shipstar.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How Does It Work?

> How Shipstar transforms your GitHub commits into polished marketing content

## Overview

Shipstar connects to your GitHub repositories, analyzes your commits, and uses AI to generate marketing content that focuses on what matters to your users — not implementation details.

<Info>
  All content generation happens asynchronously. You trigger a generation request, and Shipstar processes it in the background.
</Info>

## The Pipeline

<Steps>
  <Step title="Connect & Track">
    Install the Shipstar GitHub App on your organization, choose the repositories it may read, and select which of them to track. Shipstar monitors commits across all your tracked repos using short-lived installation tokens — no personal access token is stored.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Analyze Commits">
    When you trigger content generation, Shipstar fetches commits from all active tracked repositories for the specified date range (default: last 7 days). Each commit's message, author, date, and repository are collected.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Generate Content">
    The commits are passed to Claude along with a specialized prompt for the content type you requested. The AI filters out internal noise (dependency bumps, CI fixes, refactors) and focuses on user-facing changes.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review & Edit">
    Generated content is saved to your project. You can review, edit, and refine it in the dashboard or via the API before publishing.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Publish & Distribute">
    Publish content to get a public URL with an RSS feed. You can also push directly to Slack channels, or to Intercom and Featurebase for help-center articles.
  </Step>
</Steps>

***

## Content Generation

### How Commits Become Content

Shipstar doesn't just summarize your git log. Each content type has a specialized prompt that instructs the AI to:

* **Focus on the user perspective** — describe what changed in terms of benefits, not implementation
* **Filter out noise** — skip internal refactors, dependency updates, CI/CD changes, code cleanup, and changes to your own marketing site, docs hosting, or SEO. The test is whether your customers can use or benefit from the change. For X threads, LinkedIn posts, feature pages, and banners, if nothing customer-facing shipped in the period, Shipstar posts nothing and refunds the credits rather than dressing up an internal change as a feature
* **Match the format** — follow the specific structure and tone for each content type (professional for LinkedIn, concise for Twitter, detailed for blog posts)
* **Follow your content guidelines** — a technical-depth preset (technical, business, or mixed) plus free-text instructions you set once per project, e.g. "call users 'members', never 'customers'"; overridable for a single run. See [Content guidelines](/guides/content-guidelines).
* **Never mention tools or AI** — the output reads as if written by your team

### Content Types

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Daily Product Update" icon="newspaper">
    Daily summary of what shipped in the last 24 hours. Markdown format covering the highlights across all tracked repos.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Weekly Product Update" icon="clipboard-list">
    Weekly summary of development highlights for non-technical stakeholders. Focused on business outcomes and user impact.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Feature Blog" icon="pen-nib">
    SEO-optimized feature announcement (1200-1800 words). Deep dive into the most significant changes with a narrative arc.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Blog Post" icon="file-lines">
    General blog post (600-1000 words). Concise coverage of recent development activity.
  </Card>

  <Card title="LinkedIn Post" icon="linkedin">
    Professional social post (150-300 words). Polished and engaging, ready to share.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Twitter Thread" icon="twitter">
    3-5 tweet thread. Each tweet stays under 280 characters. Designed for engagement.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Feature Page" icon="browser">
    Structured JSON with hero section, benefits, how-it-works steps, and CTA. Ready to render on your marketing site.
  </Card>

  <Card title="KB Articles" icon="book">
    Categorized help center articles in JSON format. Multiple articles per generation, organized by topic.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Changelog" icon="list-check">
    Structured JSON changelog with categorized entries (new features, improvements, fixes). Each entry has a title and description.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Release Notes Email" icon="envelope">
    Email-formatted release notes with subject line, introduction, structured notes, and closing. Ready to send to subscribers.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

***

## Scheduling

Shipstar supports automated content generation on a schedule using calendar events.

### Recurring Events

Set up recurring calendar events to automatically generate content on a cadence:

* **Weekly changelog** every Friday
* **Monthly blog post** on the 1st
* **Daily product update** for stakeholders

Events follow the RFC 5545 RRULE standard, so you can configure any recurrence pattern. Each event triggers the specified content type and can be set to auto-publish.

***

## Publishing & Distribution

### Public URLs

When you publish content, Shipstar generates a unique public URL. Published content is accessible without authentication:

* **Changelogs**: `https://api.shipstar.ai/api/v1/changelog/{slug}`
* **Blog Posts**: `https://api.shipstar.ai/api/v1/blog/{slug}`
* **KB Articles**: `https://api.shipstar.ai/api/v1/kb/{slug}`

### RSS Feeds

Every published changelog and blog post includes an RSS feed, so your users can subscribe to updates:

* `https://api.shipstar.ai/api/v1/changelog/{slug}/feed`
* `https://api.shipstar.ai/api/v1/blog/{slug}/feed`
* `https://api.shipstar.ai/api/v1/blogs/feed` (all blog posts)

### Integrations

Push content directly to the tools your team already uses:

| Destination | Content Types | How |
| - | - | - |
| Slack | All types | Publish to any connected Slack channel |
| Intercom | KB Articles | Sync help articles directly to your Intercom help center |
| Featurebase | Featurebase Articles | Reviewed article sets are created in your Featurebase help center (in the collection you choose) when approved |

***

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Generate your first piece of content in under 5 minutes
  </Card>

  <Card title="API Reference" icon="terminal" href="/api-reference/overview">
    Explore the full API documentation
  </Card>
</CardGroup>


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