Generating an article

Serpio writes an article only when you ask for one. You start a run, watch it move through its stages, and open the draft when it lands in Articles.

Three ways to start

• From the idea workbench on Home. Select an idea and press Generate article (it reads Use again if that idea already produced a draft). The Generate article form opens with the topic, niche and research already attached. Plan idea saves it for later instead; see saving, scheduling and dismissing ideas.
• From the Site Report. Each content opportunity on the Overview tab has a Use topic button. It opens the same form with that topic filled in.
• From Articles. Press Generate at the top right, or Generate your first article on an empty list. Serpio prefills a suggested topic and tags where it came from: From public research, From your knowledge, Recommended by Serpio, From your brand keywords or Starter topic. Press Suggest again for another.

CONTENT NICHE picks the primary or a secondary focus. TOPIC is what the article is about. Editorial direction · optional unfolds four fields: What should readers learn or do?, Your angle, Outline · one section per line (up to 12 sections) and Call to action. TONE offers Informative, Friendly, Authoritative, Casual and Empathetic. STYLE offers Blog, Editorial, Technical, Concise and Conversational. TARGET LENGTH is 600, 900, 1,200, 1,500 or 1,800 words. Press Generate, or Enter.

Change a suggested topic and Serpio drops the research attached to the original idea and researches your wording fresh. A different topic deserves its own evidence.

What you see while it runs

A job card appears in the Articles grid headed Generating your article, with your topic as its title. Four steps run down the card: Plan, Research, Write and Finish. Above them, Now working on names the current stage.

Not every stage shows on every run. Some finish in under a second and the card moves past them.

Once research is prepared, a Prepared for this article grid shows four counts: Starting sources, Knowledge sources, Link options and Word target. They are counts only; the card never shows passage text, file names or prompts. Below sits Overall progress as a percentage and a note that you can leave the page. If you started from Home, Serpio takes you to Articles with the same card at the top.

Automatic retries and the interrupted state

When the writing service is unavailable, a network error occurs, or the service answers with a temporary status such as 429, 502, 503 or 504, the card switches to Retrying automatically with Next attempt around and a time. Serpio makes up to three attempts per cycle, waiting 30 seconds and then 90 seconds. You do not need to do anything.

If the worker running your job dies, a sweep every two minutes looks for jobs with no activity for 15 minutes and marks them interrupted: "Generation was interrupted. Your topic is saved, and you can retry below." The card header becomes Generation paused and a Retry generation button appears. A retry reuses the saved research snapshot and the original request, so it does not research again and does not charge again. If a retry finds that the article was in fact saved before the crash, the card shows Open article instead.

Permanent failures use the same card. You get a plain explanation, the line "Only completed articles count toward your limit.", a Contact support link, and an Error details disclosure with Reference (the job id), an error code and Attempts. Quote the reference when you write to support; it identifies the exact job. Failed requests stay visible for 30 days under the Needs attention filter.

Credits and the monthly limit

One completed article uses one credit. Credits count per calendar month in UTC and are shared across every site on your account. Failed attempts, automatic retries and manual retries do not use a credit; only a saved draft does. Serpio checks the limit again before a manual retry starts.

When you are out, the You've hit your monthly limit dialog appears with your plan, the count as "used / limit articles this cycle", View plans and Not now, and the date the limit resets. Nothing is queued. See plans and credits.

Where the finished article opens

The card turns green with Draft ready and "Your draft is ready to review", then the real article card takes its place in the grid with a Draft chip, the SEO and GEO bars and a hero image still being created. Click the card to open the article workspace. Articles created from Generate always wait for you to open Publish and choose a destination; see manual and scheduled publishing.