Chapter 07 · Writing articles
A tour of the article workspace
What each part of the article page does: the editor, the side panels, the status pill, autosave, and the Preview, Export and Publish actions.
Updated Sep 19, 2026 · 5 min read
Every article opens in its own workspace under /articles/. The page is one wide editor with a column of panels beside it. On narrower screens the panels stack underneath. Nothing is hidden behind tabs; if a panel is collapsed, click its title to open it.
The top bar
The bar stays pinned as you scroll. From left to right: Back to Articles, the status pill, a Brand Book applied chip when the draft was written with Brand Book guidance (hover to see the revision, click to open the Brand Book), the save indicator, Preview, Export and Publish. Once an article has been sent somewhere the last button reads Publish to more platforms.
There is no Save button. Changes save on their own about a second after you stop typing. The indicator cycles through Saving, Saved and, if the request fails, Save failed with a Retry link. If you try to leave with unsaved changes, the page asks "Your latest changes have not finished saving. Leave anyway?"
| Status pill | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Generated or edited and not yet approved. Checks may still be running. |
| Ready to publish | Approved. A content snapshot is frozen and destinations can receive it. |
| Publishing | A delivery is in flight. |
| Sent | At least one destination confirmed the current revision. |
| Archived | Set aside. It stays in the list under the Archived filter. |
| Needs attention | Something failed and the article needs a look. |
The same words label the filters on the Articles page. The Recent articles panel on Home uses shorter forms such as Approved and Failed for the same states.
The editor
The title sits at the top as a large text field. Under it, the summary box ("Add a concise summary for readers and CMS excerpts") holds two or three sentences that destinations use as the excerpt and that the hero image prompt starts from. The body is a rich text area with a small toolbar: Bold, Italic, H2, H3, Text (back to a paragraph), Bullet list, Numbered list and Add link. Add link asks you to paste a web address and accepts only http or https.
Pasted HTML is cleaned on the way in, so formatting from another editor arrives without scripts or styling. Every saved change creates a new revision of the article and re-runs quality checks. If the article was already approved, a saved edit returns it to Draft.
The side panels
- Public sources and Knowledge used
- The evidence behind the draft, with a count in each title. They appear only when evidence was recorded. See evidence and citations.
- Featured image
- The hero image, its generation state and the Image alt text field. While the image is being made the panel says publishing will be available when it finishes. See hero images.
- Search appearance
- SEO title, SEO description with a live character count out of 160, Slug (lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens only) and Keywords and tags, comma separated.
- Links and scores
- Two bars, SEO and AI search, then every link in the body labelled Internal or External with its anchor text. See SEO and GEO scores and internal links.
- Publishing checklist
- Five readiness ticks: Title, SEO description, Slug, Featured image and Image alt text. It is advice, not a gate. An amber item does not stop you publishing.
- Publishing history
- One card per export or delivery, newest first, with a state label such as Exported, Draft saved, Live, Created, Waiting for hero image or Publishing failed, plus links like View live article or Open draft. A manual export card asks Published it manually? so you can Add live URL.
Preview, Export and Publish
Preview opens the article the way a reader sees it: hero image, title, summary and body, without the editor chrome. Export opens the Export article dialog with four primary methods (Copy formatted, Markdown, HTML, Content package), an Advanced and developer formats section, and a platform guide on the right for pasting into tools that are not connected. See guided exports.
Publish opens the Publish article dialog listing your connected platforms with their destination result (Save as draft, Publish live, or create on the platform). Select at least one platform and press Publish to approve the current draft and queue those deliveries in one step. Manually generated articles never select destinations implicitly; see manual and scheduled publishing. Publishing waits for the hero image to finish or fail.
Common questions
Why is Publish greyed out?
Either the hero image is still generating or a save is in progress. Hover the button for the reason. Publish returns as soon as the image is ready or has failed.
Can I edit an article after it was sent?
Yes. The edit creates a new revision, moves the status back to Draft and re-runs checks. Earlier deliveries stay in Publishing history; sending the new revision is a fresh publish.
Where are the quality check results?
The workspace does not list them as a panel. You meet them when you approve, export or publish: a revision that has not passed is refused with a message saying checks are still needed.
Related guides
Generating an article
The three ways to start a draft, what each progress stage means, how automatic retries and the interrupted state work, and where the finished article opens.
Read guideSEO and GEO scores explained
What the two article scores measure, the exact rules behind the SEO score, what the GEO score looks at, the colour bands, and what neither score can tell you.
Read guideHow publishing works in Serpio
Approve an article, choose where it goes, and Serpio creates it there once. The two settings every connection has, the five native destinations, the plan gate, and where to see results.
Read guide