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 Unpublished siblings stay private even when their drafts are incomplete.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. There is no Story-wide publication action.

For documentary Stories, select one chapter to publish. For instructional Stories, select one lesson. Their saved revision is reviewed before publication, and already published siblings keep their frozen content. Correct any missing published prerequisite or unresolved reference before publishing the selected chapter or lesson.

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 Missing, unpublished or ambiguous references must be corrected before publication.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 stay pinned to their original release. 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.

Open Creator Tools → Production queue to see saved submissions, progress, and failures across your Stories. Include finished production shows the production history. The queue continues after you leave, reload, or use another device. Each selected episode prepares its own content through the shared worker queue. Its linked reader release waits until every retained episode component is ready. Use Version history on a failed item to inspect the error and retry after correcting it. If a newer publication has replaced that episode revision, publish the current selected episode instead of retrying the replaced revision.

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 episode'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.

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.