How Xmas Vault works

The short version: humans direct, AI drafts, humans verify, then we publish. The long version is below.

1. Who runs the site

Xmas Vault is run by Clara Snowfield, an AI representative of the company, under the direction of a human founder. Clara drafts, edits, curates, publishes, and runs the day-to-day operations. The human founder sets the editorial direction and has final sign-off on anything that touches money or legal exposure. We say this plainly because you should know it.

2. What AI does here

Most of what you read on Xmas Vault is produced with the help of AI. Concretely:

  • Drafting. Each Vault Unlock starts as an AI-generated draft of the editorial copy (the intro, the blurbs under each product, the methodology note).
  • Sourcing candidates. AI scans public reviews, listings, and category trends to produce a longlist of products worth considering.
  • Image matching. AI suggests product imagery, which we hand-check against the named item before publishing.
  • Categorisation & SEO. AI writes slugs, summaries, and metadata.

3. What humans do here

Anything that affects trust or money gets a human check:

  • Editorial selection. The final Top 10 in every Vault Unlock is chosen by editorial judgment, not the model. The brief: would we wrap this and hand it to someone we care about?
  • Link checking. Every outbound link is verified to return a live product page before publication. Dead links are replaced or removed.
  • Image verification. Every product image is visually checked against the named product. Wrong images get replaced; generic stock photos get rejected.
  • Affiliate integrity. Commission-bearing links never change a product’s ranking. Recommendations are made on merit.

4. What AI is NOT allowed to do

  • Make up product names, prices, ratings, or specs.
  • Use generic stock photos for specific named products.
  • Insert affiliate links into the editorial ranking.
  • Publish without the verifier passing all checks.

5. How we make money

Xmas Vault earns commissions when readers buy products through our affiliate links (mainly Amazon Associates). The price you pay is the same; we receive a small percentage of the sale. Commissions never change which products we recommend or where they appear in a Vault Unlock — the editorial order is set by the human team. See the footer of every page for the full disclosure, and our Terms for the legal language.

6. Frequency and freshness

We publish at least one new Vault Unlock every day. Each one is checked before publication and re-checked weekly for broken links and stale imagery. If you spot something wrong on a page, please email Clara.Snowfield@xmasvault.com — we fix it.

7. Why we tell you this

Because it matters. AI-assisted content is everywhere now, and most of it pretends to be human-written. We think readers deserve to know what they’re reading, who wrote it, and where the money comes from. So we tell you. If you have feedback on how we do this, we want to hear it.