Projects & release planner

A Project in Patchline is a single, EP, or album release campaign — the persistent home for everything that has to happen for that release to land. Aria generates a campaign blueprint for you: phases, tasks, dates, and Patchline surfaces grounded in your artist’s stage, catalog, audience, and release goal. Free tier sees a basic manual project. Starter and up unlock Aria-generated campaigns.

What a Project is

When you click + Start a project, Patchline asks four questions:

Field	Options	Why Aria needs it
Artist	Any artist on your profiles	Anchors the campaign to that artist’s audience, catalog history, and stage
Format	Single · EP · Album	Shapes phase weighting (an album campaign is not a single rollout)
Release path	Self-releasing · With a label	Decides which tasks you own vs. which a label partner is handling
Project name	The release title	Threads it through pitches, smart links, fan messaging

That’s the entire intake. From there, Aria builds the first draft.

What Aria builds

A generated campaign is broken into six phases, ordered by how far from release day each task lands:

Phase	Window (relative to release)	What lives here
Pre-production	day -75 to -46	Master, artwork, video assets, distribution prep
Planning	day -45 to -22	Strategy, pitch list, smart-link build, audience targeting
Pre-release	day -21 to -8	Editorial submissions, pre-saves, teaser content, curator outreach
Announcement	day -7 to -1	Release-week posts, fan-email send, momentum building
Release	day 0 to +7	Release-day execution, storefront, first-week response
Post-release	day +8 to +42	TikTok push, follow-up pitches, post-mortem, momentum to next release

Each phase has a quota of tasks. Aria picks tasks from a curated library of release actions and adapts them to your artist and your release.

Aria chooses the right runway at generation time

Tell Aria the release date and the generated blueprint is shaped around the time you have:

Runway	Days to release	What changes
Extended	84+	Full pre-production through post-release
Standard	43–84	Balanced, the textbook campaign arc
Short	22–42	Skips deep pre-prod, leans pre-release
Urgent	8–21	Small pre-prod, heavy pre-release + post-release
Release-week	0–7	Almost no pre-prod, all release-day + post-release
Already live	past release date	Diagnostics + post-release recovery only

You don’t have to know any of this. You set a date; Aria picks the runway and weights the phases accordingly when it generates the plan. If your release date changes later, review or regenerate the campaign instead of assuming every task should shift automatically.

How Aria grounds the blueprint

Patchline’s campaign planner uses a curated release-planning system: phase definitions, runway buckets, task templates, Patchline link surfaces, and artist-context inputs. When Aria builds a campaign, it matches that system to your specific situation:

Your artist’s stage and recent momentum.
Your release format (single, EP, or album).
Your goal for the release.
Your runway: how long you have before release day.
The Patchline surfaces you plan to use, such as smart links, pitch links, media kits, and the Music Store.

The result is a blueprint. It is meant to give you a strong starting structure, then leave room for your own taste, relationships, timing, and judgment.

What’s in a generated task

Every task in your campaign is more than a checkbox. It carries:

Phase · due date — where it lives in the timeline.
Channel — streaming, social, community, playlist-pitching, publicity, ads, creative, operations, analytics.
Why it’s here — the planning rationale behind the task.
What Aria can help with — drafting copy, preparing pitch notes, or opening the right Patchline surface when that action exists.
Patchline surface link — if the task wires into a Patchline feature (a Smart Link, Pitch Link, Drop Link, Media Kit, Store Link, Briefing Link), it’s deep-linked so you can act in one click.

Where it lives

Web: Sidebar → Projects → + Start a project
Aria: “Start a project for [track]” — runs the same intake in chat, generates the campaign, asks if you want to commit it.
Claude plugin: Same flow, native to Claude. The plugin includes a progressive interview that walks the project setup with you step by step.
MCP: Programmatic access via the product MCP — your AI tool can read release and campaign context through get_releases.

Quick start

Pick the artist & track

The artist needs to be in your profiles. The track is much better when it’s in your catalog with an AI-readable description attached — Aria uses it to ground the sonic positioning.

Start the project

Sidebar → Projects → + Start a project. Pick the artist, choose Single/EP/Album, choose self-releasing or with a label, name the project. Or just ask Aria:

Set your release date & goal

Aria asks: launching, growing existing traction, or sustaining? It also offers promo tiers — essentials (organic-first), standard (playlist pitching + paid boosts), pro (full rollout + PR + ads). These feed into the generated blueprint.

Generate

Aria combines the release-planning system with your artist and catalog context, then returns a phased campaign — typically 30 to 50 tasks across the six phases, each with a date, a reason, and (where applicable) a Patchline action.

Edit, commit, work the plan

Edit any task that doesn’t fit. Click Save to persist the campaign as a project. Every morning you can ask “what’s coming up today?” and Aria walks the next tasks. As you ship, mark tasks complete and add your own tasks when your real-world plan changes.

When to use it

You’ve finished a track and don’t know where to start. Open Projects and ask Aria. You’ll have a draft campaign in under a minute.
You’re managing multiple artists with overlapping schedules. Projects let you track every campaign independently without losing state. Enterprise customers can configure multi-user workspace access for larger teams.
Your last release flopped and you want a smarter rollout. Aria uses your catalog, artist context, and prior release history to make the next blueprint more specific.
You’re working with a label and need to show what you own. Choose the with a label path during setup so the generated blueprint can emphasize artist/team-owned tasks.

What a campaign looks like

A typical 8-week campaign for a dreampop single (Mira’s “Sleeper”):

🎵  Sleeper — Mira — Single, self-releasing
    Target release: 2026-07-15 (in 8 weeks — standard runway)
    Sonic positioning: dreampop-adjacent, slow, melancholy, soft acoustic

━ PRE-PRODUCTION (day -75 to -46) ─────────────────────────────
  □ Finalize master + alt-mix references
  □ Lock cover art + canvas video
  □ Confirm distribution timeline
  □ Brief any collaborators on release-week deliverables

━ PLANNING (day -45 to -22) ───────────────────────────────────
  □ Build Patchline Smart Link (pre-save + storefront wired in)
  □ Assemble curator research list for dreampop-adjacent pitching
  □ Draft Spotify editorial pitch — submission window opens day -28

━ PRE-RELEASE (day -21 to -8) ─────────────────────────────────
  □ Submit Spotify editorial pitch via S4A
  □ Submit Apple Music for Artists editorial
  □ Pre-save go-live
  □ Prepare fan-email copy
  □ Personal DMs to the 8 priority curators
  □ Teaser content drop (Patchline media kit)

━ ANNOUNCEMENT (day -7 to -1) ─────────────────────────────────
  □ Release-week social posts (3 platforms — drafts in Aria)
  □ Fan-email final send
  □ Storefront banner swap

━ RELEASE (day 0 to +7) ───────────────────────────────────────
  □ Release-day post (Aria has the drafts)
  □ TikTok teaser drop
  □ First-week DM follow-ups to curators who added
  □ Storefront launch

━ POST-RELEASE (day +8 to +42) ────────────────────────────────
  □ TikTok ad test — $50, dreampop cluster
  □ Follow-up pitch to curators who didn't add (Aria drafts)
  □ Week 2 performance review
  □ Post-mortem: streams vs forecast
  □ Hand momentum to next release

Each item is an actionable, dated task. Some tasks include inline Patchline actions, such as opening a pitch link, smart link, media kit, drop link, or store link flow.

Prerequisites

An artist profile in your roster.
A track in your catalog with an AI-readable description. The campaign is significantly better when Aria can ground the sonic positioning.
Starter+ for Aria-generated campaigns. Free tier sees a manual project scaffold.
(Optional) Connectors for the external tools you want to involve in your workflow.
(Optional) A smart link plan if you want release tasks to point to a fan-facing link.

How it works

The Projects UI calls Aria with the intake (artist, format, distribution path, title, date, goal, promo tier).
Aria builds a graph query with your situation: artist stage, format, channels, runway bucket, goal.
The campaign planner matches your situation to Patchline’s release phases, runway buckets, task templates, and supported link surfaces.
Aria fuses that campaign structure with your catalog and artist context.
The campaign generator selects tasks across the six phases, rewrites each one for your release, assigns a date in the right phase window, and links the relevant Patchline surface (smart link, pitch link, media kit, etc.).
The campaign is persisted as a project. You can edit tasks, mark them complete, and add your own tasks as the release gets real.

The MCP tools for programmatic access:

Examples

Example 1 — Generate a fresh campaign

Aria: Built. "Late Bloom" — uptempo pop, bright and hopeful.
Campaign profile: developing artist, standard runway (8.5 weeks),
self-releasing, growth goal.

Closest roster comp: your "Mira — November" release (hit 8.2k streams
in week 1).

Generated 42 tasks across 6 phases. Standout choices:
  - Editorial submission window starts day -28 (graph rule: emerging
    pop should not miss the 4-week pre-release cutoff)
  - DM list expanded to 11 curators (added pop-leaning curators your
    last release missed)
  - Day +14 includes a TikTok ad test ($50 budget) — graph signal:
    bright pop in this listener bracket converts well on TikTok
    paid

Commit as project? [Yes / Edit first]

Example 2 — Add your own tasks

Aria: Added to the Release phase:

  - Host release-week listening party
  - Owner: Artist
  - Due: release week
  - Notes: bring your own invite list, guest plan, and creative angle.

Your campaign is the blueprint. Your taste, relationships, and timing
are what make it work.

Example 3 — Roster-level view

Aria: 4 active campaigns:
  1. Mira / "Sleeper" — pre-release phase (release 7/15). 6 open
     tasks. ⚠️ 2 overdue.
  2. Tessa / "Long Way (acoustic)" — release phase (released 7/8).
     3 tasks.
  3. Mira / "Late Bloom" — pre-release phase (release 7/29). On track.
  4. Run Hot / EP rollout — planning phase (release 8/15). Just
     started.

Highest priority: the 2 overdue tasks for Mira/Sleeper. Want me to
walk them?

Pricing

Plans, AI credits, and limits live on the pricing page — we keep them there so they’re always current.

Profiles — the artist anchor for every project
Catalog upload — the track anchor for every project
AI-discoverable tracks — the sonic grounding Aria uses
Smart links — fan-facing release links
Connectors — external tools in your workflow
Audience — the listener data Aria fuses with graph context

FAQ

Where does the music-business knowledge graph come from?

Patchline builds the release-planning system behind Aria: phases, runway buckets, task templates, and Patchline-native campaign surfaces. The public docs describe what it does, not the internal data recipe.

Can I edit the campaign after Aria generates it?

Yes. Use the generated campaign as the blueprint, then bring your own judgment. Add your own tasks, rename tasks, change dates, change owners, add descriptions, and mark work complete.

What if my release is in 3 weeks, not 8?

The campaign planner has runway-aware quotas. A 3-week release lands in the urgent bucket — Aria builds a small pre-prod, a focused pre-release, and weights heavily on post-release recovery. You give it the date, it picks the right shape.

Can multiple people work on the same project?

Multi-user project workflows are available for Enterprise customers. For standard tiers, treat the project as owned by the signed-in workspace owner.

Does Aria actually submit to Spotify editorial?

No. Spotify for Artists doesn’t have a public submission API. Aria drafts the pitch, reminds you when the window opens, and deep-links you to S4A; you submit there. Same pattern for Apple Music for Artists.

What if I miss a deadline?

Ask Aria “what’s overdue” — it flags the misses and suggests recovery actions from the graph. If you miss an editorial window, Aria proposes alternative paths (direct DMs, curator marketplaces, earned-media angles) ranked by what works for your stage.

What makes the plan specific to me?

Aria uses your artist, release format, release date, goal, catalog context, and available Patchline surfaces to shape the campaign.

What's the difference between a Project and a release?

A Project is the campaign — the planning, the tasks, the timeline, the assets. A release is what happens on release day. One Project produces one release (single, EP, or album). Your Project lives on past release day; it holds the post-release momentum-capture phase.

​What a Project is

​What Aria builds

​Aria chooses the right runway at generation time

​How Aria grounds the blueprint

​What’s in a generated task

​Where it lives

​Quick start

​When to use it

​What a campaign looks like

​Prerequisites

​How it works

​Examples

​Example 1 — Generate a fresh campaign

​Example 2 — Add your own tasks

​Example 3 — Roster-level view

​Pricing

​Related features

​FAQ