Personal Project
The Context Archive
A documentary channel where the tooling does the production and I am the approval step.
- Impact
- Two videos, seven shorts, so far
- Timeline
- Ongoing
- Role
- Human in the loop
Record
The Challenge
The Context Archive is a research-led documentary channel, and it is my own. The interesting part is not the videos, it is that I do not make them. Research, scripting, design, render and publishing all run through agents against a design system I built for the channel. My job is to approve or reject, which means the thing I actually spend time on is judgement rather than production.
The Solution
The same pattern I use for client design systems, pointed at myself: a system that defines the channel's look and voice precisely enough that tooling can execute it, rather than a style guide somebody has to remember. It is portable across Claude Code, Codex and Cowork, so the work is not tied to whichever tool I happen to open. It is early and I would rather say so than imply otherwise: two videos and seven shorts published so far. What it proves is not reach, it is that a one-person production line can run on approvals instead of hours, and that a design system written for machines holds up when a human is not watching each step.