Xavier workflows are repeatable SEO processes you can build for one project. Use them when the question is not a one-time chat message, but a recurring job: find content to prune every quarter, refresh article ideas every six months, review ranking drops weekly, or prepare a monthly report.
The workflow stores four things: what Xavier should do, how often it should run, which project data it may use, and where the result should live.
Where to find workflows
Open:
Project -> Workflows
The page has three parts.
Templates give you a starting workflow for common SEO operations.
Project workflows shows what is active, paused, scheduled, or waiting for a run.
Workflow detail shows the instructions, allowed actions, persistent section, and run history.
Workflows do not automatically become sidebar items. Keep the full workflow library here, then pin only the workflows that deserve fast access. Pinned workflows appear under Workflow Shortcuts in the project sidebar.
Opening Workflows from the main navigation shows the library: templates, custom workflow setup, search, and project workflow management.
Opening a pinned workflow from Workflow Shortcuts opens that workflow directly. For example, clicking Content Pruning in the sidebar takes you to the Content Pruning action plan, not the template picker.
Built-in templates
Content Pruning reviews pages that may need a refresh, merge, prune, redirect, keep, or monitor decision. It is meant for quarterly content quality reviews.
Article Ideas Refresh runs every six months by default. It looks for new article opportunities from keyword gaps, saved keywords, competitor coverage, and existing content coverage.
Rank Recovery watches important pages and keywords for drops, then turns confirmed recovery opportunities into work.
Technical Audit Follow-up keeps crawl and site health work moving on a monthly cadence.
Client Report Prep prepares the monthly story: what shipped, what changed, what improved, what needs a decision, and what happens next.
Creating a custom workflow
Click Custom workflow and fill in:
Name - what the workflow is called in the project.
Description - the decision this workflow exists to support.
Cadence - manual, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or every six months.
Scope - whole site, blog, page group, top pages, keyword set, or custom.
Xavier instructions - the operating brief Xavier should follow.
Allowed actions - the data Xavier may read or the actions it may request.
Outputs - whether the workflow should create a persistent section, work queue items, a report, or a team notification.
What a persistent section is
A persistent section is a project workspace for that workflow. For example, Content Pruning can keep a section with candidate decisions such as refresh, merge, prune, and monitor. Article Ideas Refresh can keep a section of write-now ideas, update-instead ideas, and backlog ideas.
This is different from chat. Chat answers a question and scrolls away. A workflow section stays in the project so the team can return to it, run it again, and build a process around it.
Each workflow section has action-plan rows. You can add rows when your team needs a new decision type, remove rows that do not apply to the project, queue a row for Xavier to work through, or send a row into the content pipeline as a real content task.
For Content Pruning, common rows are:
Refresh - the page is slipping, stale, or underperforming but still worth saving.
Merge - multiple URLs are splitting intent, links, or rankings.
Prune - the page has no useful traffic, links, outcome, or strategic reason to stay.
Monitor - the page has movement, but there is not enough evidence for an edit or removal yet.
Queueing a run
Click Queue run to create a Xavier workflow run request immediately. Scheduled workflows create the same kind of run request when their cadence is due.
The run history shows what was queued and when. Xavier uses the workflow's instructions, scope, allowed actions, and output choices when the runner processes the request.
Pausing or archiving
Pause a workflow when you want to keep it but stop future scheduled runs.
Archive a workflow when it should leave the active project list. Archived workflows do not schedule new runs.
Pinning workflows to the sidebar
Use Pin when a workflow is part of the team's weekly rhythm, such as Content Pruning, Rank Recovery, or Client Report Prep.
Do not pin every workflow. If you create 50 workflows, the sidebar should not become a second workflow database. Use the search field on the Workflows page to find the full list, and reserve sidebar shortcuts for the few workflows people need constantly.
How this works with Xavier skill controls
Workflow permissions are project-specific instructions for that workflow. Xavier skill controls in Project settings -> Xavier still apply on top.
If the project blocks a Xavier skill, the workflow cannot bypass it. For example, a workflow may ask to run keyword research, but if keyword research is disabled for Xavier on that project, the tool remains blocked.
Good workflows to create
Quarterly content pruning - find URLs losing search value, decide whether to refresh or remove them, and create work items for the pages worth saving.
Six-month article planning - refresh topic ideas so the content plan does not only reflect last year's keyword research.
Weekly rank recovery - catch drops on important pages before they become a monthly-report surprise.
Monthly link risk review - check toxic links, lost domains, broken target pages, and link opportunities.
Client report prep - collect proof of work, movement, wins, risks, and decisions before the report meeting.
Related
- Xavier voice input and skill controls
- What Xavier can and cannot do
- What each section of the app is for