Chapter 07 · Writing articles
Quality checks before you publish
How Serpio reviews each revision against its evidence without letting reviewer outages or editorial warnings interrupt creation or publishing.
Updated Sep 20, 2026 · 4 min read
On this page
Serpio has an independent reviewer read the exact HTML of each revision and compare it with the evidence bundle. The result is tied to a content hash and revision number. It improves the article and records internal diagnostics, but its availability does not decide whether generation or publishing succeeds.
When checks run
- During generation, at the Checking article quality stage. A new draft arrives with its first report attached.
- After every saved edit. Saving creates a new revision and queues a fresh background check without disabling approval, export or publishing.
- When an interrupted check is restarted by the reconciler, described below.
Checks run on Serpio's side and use no article credits. Older articles written before checks existed are left alone until you edit them; the first saved edit opts them in.
The three outcomes
- Pass
- No blocking issue was found in this revision. Approve, export and send are open.
- Needs review
- The reviewer recorded an editorial or factual concern. It remains internal and does not interrupt creation or publishing.
- Blocked
- A deterministic safety rule found private material, a missing body or another condition that cannot be published safely. This is the only quality state that requires action.
Only the current revision counts. A pass on revision 3 says nothing about revision 4.
What blocks, and what to change
| Reason family | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Unsupported | A claim has no passage behind it in the evidence bundle. | Soften it, remove it, or add the source to your knowledge base and generate again. |
| Contradicted | The draft says one thing and an approved source says another. | Correct the sentence to match the evidence. |
| Fabricated | A source, quote or statistic was invented. | Delete it. Do not go looking for a source after the fact. |
| Privacy or private | A private identifier or context-only knowledge surfaced in the text. | Remove it. Check the source's publication permission. |
| Outdated or stale | The evidence is past its review date or marked stale. | Refresh the source, or drop the claim. |
| Unsafe or invalid | The reviewer flagged unsafe content or an invalid element. | Remove or repair the passage. |
| Incomplete or missing title | The draft lacks readable body text or a title. | Finish the draft. |
| Review unavailable | The reviewer timed out or could not run. | Nothing. Serpio keeps the diagnostic internal and continues automatically. |
Citation placement notes are advisory. If the reviewer thinks a link sits on the wrong sentence but the claim is supported elsewhere in the bundle, the article still passes. Style suggestions never block anything.
During generation, editorial findings can trigger an automatic repair or a narrower evidence-backed draft. Once a usable draft exists, review availability never turns that successful generation into a failed request.
How the gate works
Approval, Export, Publish and delivery retries do not wait for a reviewer. Only a confirmed hard safety block tied to the exact saved revision can require action. Reviewer timeouts, incomplete checks, citation placement and editorial findings stay internal.
Automatic scheduled delivery uses the same rule. A reviewer outage does not hold the draft. A delivery always uses its frozen approved revision; if you edit before delivery starts, Serpio asks you to publish the current revision rather than sending different content. See manual and scheduled publishing.
Interrupted checks and re-running
A running check holds a renewable lease. If the worker dies, the reconciler queues it again. Repeated interruptions remain internal and never turn the article or its publication into a customer-facing failure.
To re-run checks yourself, save an edit. Any change, even a corrected space, creates a new revision and a fresh check. There is no separate button in the workspace for this today.
Common questions
Do checks slow down publishing?
No. Checks run in the background. Reviewer timeouts, citation notes and editorial warnings do not delay approval, export or publishing.
Why did approval say the article changed?
Two edits raced. The draft you approved is not the one saved. Reload the page and approve the current revision once its check passes.
Does a passing report expire?
Not with time. Only a saved edit invalidates it, because the edit creates a new revision.
Related guides
Evidence and citations
Where the facts in a draft come from, how the Public sources and Knowledge used panels work, what gets redacted, and what to do when the evidence looks thin.
Read guideNo invented links or facts: how the quality gate works
Every Serpio article links only to real indexed pages and records the evidence behind its claims. How link picking, evidence bundles, quality review, and approval fit together.
Read guideManual and scheduled publishing
How manually generated articles differ from scheduler-created articles, and how each destination controls scheduled delivery.
Read guide