Creator publication, versions, and backups

Publish one linked episode

For fiction Stories, Story → Publish opens an episode chooser. Select the episode, or open Publish from its Timeline. Publication creates an immutable revision of that episode's draft, including its referenced cast, locations, voices, and reviewed artwork. Sibling episodes retain their existing revisions without being recompiled or having their speech regenerated. Unpublished siblings stay private even when their drafts are incomplete. Publication releases only the selected episode. Fiction publication remains scoped to that episode.

For documentary Stories, select one chapter to publish. Its saved revision is reviewed before publication, and already published sibling chapters retain their frozen content. Correct any missing published prerequisite or unresolved reference before publishing that chapter.

The episode's saved Starting state also includes its starting location and referenced characters, even when they do not appear in its scenes. Real location and character references in that state are included; prose, fact values, flags and item names do not select other private entities merely by matching an ID. Publishing the episode leaves its siblings' saved starting states and published bindings unchanged.

Character goals and development conditions can refer to events in an already published sibling. Those references retain the exact published event even when its private draft has unfinished edits. Missing, unpublished or ambiguous references must be corrected before publication. Linking a reference does not mark that event completed in a new reader session.

Comedy checks use the current authored season ledger and character engines. Correct the named setup, payoff, or cast inconsistency before publishing the selected episode; the other episode drafts stay private.

Published episodes remain linked by season and episode position. Adding an episode extends the available sequence. The episode's Versions page shows its own revisions and current revision; publishing a sibling does not add a revision to that history. Story history records the linked reading order and exact episode revisions. Existing sessions keep their original release identity as history. Readers can play only the current release; Start over opens current production, and older saves cannot resume. You can queue multiple reviewed episodes while production is running, including episodes from different Stories. Each accepted submission freezes its selected draft and retains the episode revisions from the latest accepted release, including a release still awaiting production. Later draft edits do not change work already queued. Publishing the same episode again replaces its older pending production with the newly reviewed draft. You can queue another selected episode while an earlier production runs, retries, or has failed. Production reuses unchanged script and media dependencies; a small edit does not regenerate the entire episode.

You can continue another episode's review while the publication activity tracker is visible. Scroll to the next-step buttons when needed; earlier production can keep running.

Publish an instructional

Use the Story header Publish action to open Summary → Lint → Diff → Changelog → Confirm directly for the complete saved instructional. Review every saved lesson and its curriculum, including evidence, practice, resources and assessments. The same Story publication service freezes the complete reviewed curriculum into an immutable version and queues its production. Later edits remain in the draft. On the next publication, saved changes and intentional removals are reviewed across the complete instructional; earlier frozen versions remain unchanged.

The review and final confirmation use the curriculum revision that was checked. A newer edit requires a fresh review. A Quick fix saves through the finding's canonical owner, reads back the result and reruns the check before it reports success.

Follow production

Open Creator Tools → Production queue to follow submitted releases across your Stories. The summary shows Running now, Needs attention, and Queued work. Select a count to filter the list, search Story titles, or select a Story. Running work appears first; Show attempt history lists all attempts newest first. Search controls collapse on phones.

Episode items identify their episode revision separately from the Story release. Open episode and Review episode keep that episode selected. Instructional items follow the same production lifecycle for the complete frozen instructional. Release details opens the exact release's production details. A ready release offers Preview Published to play that exact version, and the release readers are currently served offers Share, which copies the reader's Story page link. A failed item shows its recorded error directly. Speech failures identify the affected scene, beat, speaker and line when available, with the speech-service reason and the next action. Expand View failure details for timestamps, progress and the attempt ID. Retry production, when available, retries the same frozen submission; it does not publish new draft edits. Review and submit the current episode or complete instructional again when authored content needs changing. Replaced submissions are identified in history and cannot be retried from the queue.

The counter beside the production status shows its internal passes, such as 2 / 3. The page total counts submitted jobs; one submission can retry automatically several times. During recovery, an earlier error is grouped under Previous in the details rather than shown as the current failure. That history remains available after a successful retry. An exhausted production still shows its final failure directly.

Use Cancel production to stop queued, running or waiting work. Confirm the action; work already underway may take a moment to stop. Use Remove from queue to clear a failed attempt from current work. Its outcome and error remain in attempt history. Both actions preserve your draft and published versions. Later submissions that depend on a cancelled episode can still require that episode to be produced. Only collaborators with release permission can cancel or remove work.

Attempt outcome and playback readiness are separate: a failed old attempt remains failed even when a later attempt makes its release ready. A waiting production names its missing episode dependencies. The queue continues after navigation, reload or use of another device. Refresh failures preserve the last confirmed items and show an error with the last successful check time. Playback preparation does not certify completed artwork, sound design, runtime or quality review.

Publish lint results

Publish lint separates blocking errors from warnings and names the affected story area when it can. Every blocking finding must be corrected before publication. Review warnings in context and record the workflow's explicit acceptance only when the authored result is intentional. The assistant cannot waive a finding, mark a warning reviewed, or invent a missing value. After editing the draft, run lint again so the confirmation uses the current result.

If an episode's Starting state is missing or malformed, its selected publication review shows a blocking finding with a link to that episode's Starting state editor. Correct and save the state, then run the review again. Publication remains blocked until the finding is resolved; the separate Starting state preview checks its references and opening conditions.

What changed since the last publish

For an episode publication, lint and change review compare the selected draft against that episode’s current published revision. Sound-cue changes also appear in that review before publication freezes them. Inspect added, removed, and modified characters, locations, events, and branches, along with the displayed risk reasons. A high change count is not automatically an error, and “no meaningful changes” does not replace lint; the two checks answer different questions. On a first publication there is no earlier version to compare.

Publication changelog

Write a short changelog title that tells readers or collaborators what materially changed, then use notes for useful detail. The title is required by the publishing workflow; it is not a place to hide unresolved warnings or claim a fix that is not in the draft. The changelog is recorded with the publication trail, so review it together with the exact draft being confirmed.

Confirm publication

Before confirming, check the lint status, accepted warnings, change summary, and changelog shown in the final step. Publication creates a new immutable reader-visible snapshot; it does not edit an older version in place. Wait for the current publication's validation review before confirming; other queued productions can still be running. Do not retry a failed attempt until its recorded outcome is visible. Later authoring remains a draft until another successful publication.

Publishing and story versions

Publication creates an immutable reader-visible version from the validated draft. Later edits stay in the draft until another version is published. Existing reader sessions remain tied to their authorized version unless the product explicitly offers an upgrade path.

On the Story's Versions page, open Diff Viewer and choose the versions or draft to compare. Beat rows show changed instructions, scripts, and performance details with added and removed markers. Removing one of several identical beats still shows that removed occurrence. Use the preview links to play either side of the comparison, or Preview at Event to start the selected version at its first changed scene. The comparison's risk reasons stay visible alongside the changes.

For an instructional, History compares the complete frozen curriculum with another version or the current draft. Added, changed and removed lessons, modules, outcomes, resources, exercises, assessments, claims and sources appear in the same comparison. Its Preview links read the exact frozen instructional version.

Event completion effects show the items being added or removed and changes between characters, with the previous and new values. Clearing an effect remains visible in the comparison. Raw JSON shows the complete previous and new completion-effect objects, including item quantities and relationship changes.

Unpublishing and unavailable content

Availability can change through creator action, moderation, or platform policy. Removing public availability does not rewrite completed transcripts or grant access to a replacement draft. For a moderation decision or disputed restriction, use human support rather than trying to republish through a stale link.

Backups and restore

Creator backups export the supported owned authoring data. Restore validates the package and ownership before changing a draft; it is not a way to overwrite published snapshots, import another creator's work, or bypass current schema and safety requirements. Keep an original backup until the restored draft has been reviewed.