canva-creator

name: canva-creator
description: >
  Takes an approved content brief and executes a campaign end-to-end: builds
  the posting calendar, generates Canva designs for social posts, drafts
  caption and email copy, and stages social sends in HubSpot. Canva is used
  for social posts only (Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn) — email content
  is drafted as plain text and surfaced inline for the owner to send from
  their own tool. Every step requires explicit owner approval. This is the
  one-shot campaign executor: a finished brief goes in, a complete campaign
  comes out. Use when the owner hands off an approved brief or points at one
  — "run this brief," "execute the campaign," "turn this brief into posts,"
  "build the campaign from the plan we approved." For day-to-day posting with
  no brief — "I need to post more," "what should we post" — use
  social-content-engine instead; it owns the standing calendar.
allowed-tools: Read, WebFetch

Canva Creator

Scope

This skill handles a campaign in five sequential stages, each gated by owner

approval:

brief → calendar → asset inventory → Canva designs → copy → HubSpot staging

Canva is not used for email rows under any circumstance — no templates,

no autofill, no design copies, no asset uploads, no exports. Email

graphics are out of scope for this skill because email-template

autofill produces placeholder graphics when image slots exceed available

photos, and variation thumbnails fail to render in chat previews. If the

owner asks for a Canva email design, see reference/gotchas.md for the

redirect language.

Pre-flight

Before Stage 1, confirm:

1. Brief. The user has referenced or pasted an approved brief. If not:

"I'll need the content brief before I can build the campaign. Do you

have one from the content-strategy skill, or would you like to write

one now?"

1. Canva tier. Pro/Teams require manual template selection from the

user's library (no autofill API). Enterprise can autofill from brand

templates.

1. HubSpot tier. Social staging requires Marketing Hub Professional.

Starter or Free → skip Stage 5 and export a CSV instead

(see [reference/hubspot-staging.md](reference/hubspot-staging.md)).

1. Brand assets. If a storefront is connected (Shopify or Square —

peers, ../../shared/connector-neutrality.md), read the product list

first: titles, image URLs, and prices for every product the brief names.

Read only — nothing is uploaded to Canva until Stage 2 step 5, and then

only the images the approved calendar's slots need. That list is the

starting photo inventory; ask only about products the store has no

image for. The pull rules — which fields, the price-claim rule — are in

[../social-content-engine/reference/shopify-assets.md](../social-content-engine/reference/shopify-assets.md)

(written for Shopify; Square's catalog images follow the same steps

from the tool inventory). With no storefront,

confirm the path to product photos on disk or that the brand kit is

live in Canva.

1. Generation budget. Estimate the campaign's Canva volume and surface

it before Stage 1 begins. Default is 3 candidates per Canva-bound row;

each design costs ~5 API calls (autofill + export + polling).

```

Generation budget for this campaign:

Canva (social) rows: 8

Candidates per row: 3 (default — say "single candidate" to use 1)

Total designs: 24

API calls (approx): ~120 (autofill + export + polling)

Canva limit: 100 requests/minute. This will take ~2-3 minutes of

generation, well within your tier limits. Proceed?

```

If the projected total designs exceeds 30, recommend single-candidate

mode upfront — large campaigns run out of headroom fast. The owner can

override the default to 1, 2, or 3 candidates per row before Stage 1

starts. Lock the chosen value for the entire session.

Workflow

Stage 1 — Posting calendar

Pull from the brief: content themes, channels, cadence, hard dates

(launches, sales, holidays).

Build a calendar table with a Path column that routes every row to either

Canva or text-only drafting:

Tag every email-channel row as Text-only before presenting. Cap at 30

days unless the brief specifies otherwise. Flag scheduling conflicts (two

posts same day for the same product) up front.

Checkpoint 1. Present the calendar. Ask: "Does this match the plan?

Any dates to shift, channels to add, or themes to swap?" Iterate until

approved, then restate the split out loud — "N rows go through Canva, M

rows go through text-only drafting" — before moving on. Catching a

miscategorization here is free; catching it after generating designs

isn't.

Stage 2 — Asset inventory (Canva rows only)

Email rows skip this stage entirely. For each Canva (social) row, build

a manifest of what the template needs and what's already available.

1. Enumerate every image slot by name. Square Instagram posts usually

have 1-2 image slots; carousels and product grids can have 5+. List

them individually (Header_Image, Product1_Image, Product2_Image,

…) — never roll them up as "product images."

• Enterprise: read field names from dataset[].label on the brand

template (GET /v1/brand-templates/{id}).

• Pro/Teams: count every distinct image rectangle in the template.

1. Inventory available assets. Text content from the brief (product

names, offer copy, taglines, pricing), product image URLs read from the

connected storefront at pre-flight (uploaded in step 5, only for the

slots the gap table needs, and recorded by asset.id then), product

photos already uploaded to Canva (GET /v1/assets) or on the owner's

disk, brand kit colors and fonts (Enterprise). A price in a caption

comes from the storefront's returned value or the brief, never from

memory.

1. Build the slot-by-slot gap table. One row per slot per design — not

per design.

| Date | Slot name | Slot kind | Available asset | Status |

|------|-----------|-----------|-----------------|--------|

| Jun 2 | Hero_Image | image | bloom_summer.jpg → asset_id pending | upload |

| Jun 2 | Headline | text | "Summer linen, finally" | ready |

| Jun 9 | Product1_Image | image | — | MISSING |

1. Resolve slot/asset mismatches with the owner. If the template has

more image slots than the brief provides photos, pause and ask:

```

The "Summer Carousel" template has 5 image slots. The brief gave me 1

photo (bloom_summer.jpg). How should I fill the other 4?

1. Reuse the same photo across all 5 slots
2. You send me 4 more photos (file paths)
3. Pick a simpler template with fewer slots

```

No generation calls until the owner picks. Generating with empty slots

produces designs full of Canva's default landscape placeholders.

1. Upload missing photos and capture verified asset IDs. Upload via

POST /v1/asset-uploads, then poll GET /v1/asset-uploads/{job_id}

until status == "success". Record asset.id from the response — this

is the only value that works in an autofill image field. Passing an

empty string, a URL, a file path, or a stale ID silently renders

Canva's stock landscape graphic instead of the photo.

1. Confirm the manifest. Show the owner the completed slot-by-slot

table with every slot resolved and every image asset.id confirmed.

This is the last stop before Canva API calls.

Stage 3 — Canva design generation

Before any Canva API call, re-read the calendar and drop any row whose

Path is not Canva (social). Email rows do not pass through this

stage.

Generate designs one calendar row at a time, with 3 candidates per row

(or the value chosen at pre-flight). Each row follows the same loop:

generate candidates → verify → export → visually check → retry failures

→ present → wait for owner pick → next row. Pause 30 seconds between

rows. This caps the burst at 3 generations + 3 exports per ~30s — well

under Canva's 100 req/min rate limit. Do not parallelize multiple rows;

one row at a time is the protection that keeps the owner from hitting

quota mid-campaign.

Polling cadence. Poll job status every 3-5 seconds, not faster.

Tighter intervals burn quota without speeding up completion.

Preview URLs — only one type is safe to embed. Autofill responses

return design.canva.ai thumbnails that expire within minutes; embedding

them as markdown images produces broken "Show Image" placeholders.

Permanent export URLs (export-download.canva.com or the export-design

MCP tool) do not expire. Native Cowork carousels render the autofill

result directly using the connector's authenticated session — let them

render on their own, don't re-embed.

Row loop

1. Resolve template. (Once per session — same template across rows

unless the calendar mixes asset types.)

• Enterprise: GET /v1/brand-templates filtered by asset type.
• Pro/Teams: GET /v1/designs?ownership=any&query={template name},

surface top 3 to the owner, confirm one before generating.

1. Generate the row's candidates in parallel. Fire the row's 3

candidates simultaneously (or N from pre-flight).

• Enterprise: POST /v1/autofills per candidate with the template ID

and field values. Poll all jobs concurrently.

• Pro/Teams: POST /v1/designs to create copies. Describe the text and

image edits the owner applies in Canva; collect design IDs back.

1. Verify job status. For each candidate, confirm

GET /autofills/{job_id} returned status == "success" and

result.design.id is present. Handle errors per-design:

• JOB_FAILED → read job.error.message, fix the field values or

asset IDs, retry once.

• RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED (first hit this session) → wait 60s, retry

that one candidate once. This handles transient spikes.

• RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED (second hit this session) or any

quota_exceeded / daily-cap error → stop generation immediately.

Do not retry. Surface progress and ask:

```

Canva is rate-limiting the campaign. Status so far:

✓ Generated: Posts 1-4 (12 designs)

⏸ Remaining: Posts 5-8 (12 designs not yet generated)

How should I proceed?

1. Switch to 1 candidate per remaining row (4 designs total) — finishes now
2. Pause campaign — resume in 60 minutes when quota refills
3. Stop generation — work with what we have, move to captions

```

Wait for the owner's choice. Do not loop on retry.

1. Export each successful candidate to a permanent PNG. Fire the

row's exports in parallel.

• REST: POST /v1/exports with format.type: "png", poll

GET /v1/exports/{job_id} until success, capture urls[0].

• Canva MCP: export-design with the design ID.

These permanent URLs are what get embedded in previews and attached to

the HubSpot post later. The autofill response thumbnail is never used

downstream.

1. Visually verify each export. Look at the image and reject any of

these — they all indicate an unfilled slot or wrong asset:

• Generic landscape with clouds and green hills (Canva's default

placeholder)

• Solid gray rectangles where a photo should be
• Lorem-ipsum or template-default text
• Subject that doesn't match the brief (wrong product, wrong brand)

If a candidate fails verification: re-check the manifest for the

affected slot, fix the asset.id, regenerate that single candidate,

re-export, re-verify.

1. Retry per-candidate on partial failure. If 1 of N candidates in

the row failed at Step 3 or 5, regenerate just that one — don't redo

the whole row and don't present a partial broken carousel. If the

second attempt also fails:

```

The third candidate for the Jun 9 post keeps failing — Canva returned

[error / rendered placeholder]. How should I proceed?

1. Skip it — present the other 2 and move on
2. Swap to a simpler template for just this candidate
3. Try once more with a different photo

```

1. Present the row's candidates. Let the native Cowork carousel

render the autofill tool result. Below it, add a text prompt:

```

Jun 9 candidates are ready — scroll through the carousel above.

Which one should I use for the Jun 9 post?

```

If the carousel doesn't render or one position is broken, embed the

permanent export PNG URLs from Step 4 instead. Final fallback: link to

the design's Canva edit URL (https://www.canva.com/d/{design_id}).

Never re-embed design.canva.ai URLs.

1. Pause 30 seconds, then move to the next row.

Checkpoint 2. Satisfied once the owner has picked one design per

calendar row. If they want a regenerate, regenerate only that one

candidate.

Stage 4 — Copy drafting

For each calendar row, draft the copy. Social rows get a caption; email

rows get a full email.

Social captions — Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn:

• Length: channel-appropriate (Instagram ≤ 2,200 chars; Facebook ≤ 500

recommended; X ≤ 280).

• Structure: hook → one product benefit → CTA → 3-5 hashtags (not 30).
• Voice: match the brief's tone markers. If the brief says "casual and

friendly," don't write corporate copy.

• No filler. No "Exciting news!" or "We're thrilled to announce." Open

with the value.

Email content — Claude writes the entire email; no Canva:

• Subject: ≤ 50 chars, specific, no clickbait. "Spring projects are

booking up" beats "Don't miss out!"

• Preheader: ≤ 90 chars, complements the subject without repeating it.
• Body: plain prose, 100-250 words. Opening line that earns the read →

1-2 paragraphs of substance → single clear CTA → sign-off.

• Voice: same tone markers as social. Owners want their emails to sound

like them, not like a templated newsletter.

• No image references. Don't write "see image above." If the owner wants

visuals, they add them in their email tool.

• One CTA per email. Pick the most important action and lead with it.

Present captions inline below each social row. Present full emails

inline below each email row:

Subject: <subject line>
Preheader: <preheader text>

<body text>

For worked examples, see

[reference/examples/boutique-brief-campaign.md](reference/examples/boutique-brief-campaign.md).

Checkpoint 3. "Any captions or emails to rewrite? Flag the date and

what to change." Iterate until approved.

Stage 5 — HubSpot staging + email handoff

Stage social posts in HubSpot. Email content is not staged — it's

surfaced inline for the owner to copy into their email tool. For API

field reference, see

[reference/hubspot-staging.md](reference/hubspot-staging.md).

1. Create the campaign. POST /marketing/v3/campaigns with the

campaign name and start/end dates from the calendar.

1. Stage each social post. POST to the HubSpot Social API per

Canva (social) row:

• channel: map calendar channel to HubSpot account ID
• scheduledAt: ISO 8601 datetime — confirm it's in the future before

calling

• content.body: approved caption
• attachments: permanent Canva export PNG URL from Stage 3
• status: SCHEDULED (never PUBLISHED)

1. Confirm the queue. Call

GET /marketing/v3/social/posts?status=SCHEDULED, surface the list,

provide a direct link to the HubSpot campaign view.

1. Surface email content for handoff. For each email row, present the

approved subject + preheader + body inline, grouped by send date. The

owner copies these into their email tool (HubSpot Marketing Email,

Mailchimp, Gmail or M365).

Final checkpoint.

Your social posts are scheduled in HubSpot: [link]
They'll go out as scheduled — you can cancel or edit any post in HubSpot.

Email content is drafted below — copy each into your email tool when
you're ready to send:

  Jun 5 — "Spring projects are booking up"
  Jul 15 — "Summer maintenance windows are filling"

Anything to change before we're done?

Alongside that summary — never replacing it — render the campaign as an

HTML artifact per the house style (../../shared/artifact-style.md): the

posting calendar as a table, a per-channel status pill on each row

(scheduled / drafted / handoff), and a staged-post panel per row with the

approved caption or email copy and its export PNG link.

Closing offer. One line on what the campaign now contains, then the

single most relevant next step with its trigger phrase — usually "is my

marketing working?" (growth-pulse) once posts start going out. Up to

two others: "make the content" (social-content-engine) for the standing

calendar, or "my ads" (ad-manager). Max three; never re-offer something

the owner declined this session.

Approval gates

• No Canva calls for email rows. Re-check the Path column before

every API call.

• No publishing. Every HubSpot post is staged as SCHEDULED; the

owner controls go-live.

• Always surface the generation budget at pre-flight. Owner sees the

total design count and approves before Stage 1 begins.

• One row at a time in Stage 3. Candidates within a row fire in

parallel, but rows are sequential with a 30s gap — this is the quota

protection.

• On the second quota error, pause and ask. Never loop on retry.
• Always export to a permanent PNG before presenting. Job success

doesn't mean the design rendered correctly.

• Never embed design.canva.ai URLs in messages. They expire.
• Never regenerate the whole row when one candidate fails.

Per-candidate retry only.

• Never auto-select a template for Pro/Teams users. Always confirm.
• Never skip slot-by-slot inventory. Multi-slot templates render

placeholder landscapes when any slot is empty.

• Never skip Checkpoint 1. Generating before the calendar is approved

is the largest source of wasted work in this skill.

Reference

• [reference/canva-api.md](reference/canva-api.md) — Canva Connect API

endpoints, asset upload, export formats, MCP equivalents

• [reference/hubspot-staging.md](reference/hubspot-staging.md) — HubSpot

Social API and CSV fallback for non-Pro tiers

• [reference/gotchas.md](reference/gotchas.md) — Good / Bad patterns for

common failure modes

• [reference/examples/boutique-brief-campaign.md](reference/examples/boutique-brief-campaign.md)

— full worked examples (single-slot social, multi-slot template)

Using a tool that isn't listed

The connectors named in this skill are the tested paths, not a wall. If the owner wants this flow to use a tool that isn't connected or listed, offer build-connector — it checks the connector directory first and connects through Zapier otherwise, never hand-building against a raw API. Once the connection exists, the tool joins this skill like any other optional connector, under the same approval gates.