Page Statuses Explained

Every article you create in iContentForge moves through a defined lifecycle, represented by a status. Understanding these statuses is key to managing your content pipeline effectively. This guide explains each state, its trigger, what actions you can take, and its visual color indicator.

The Article Status Lifecycle

The typical flow for an article is: Draft → Scheduled → Queued → Generating → Ready → Published. An Error status can occur at various points if something goes wrong.

Detailed Status Breakdown

Draft (Gray)

This is the initial state for any newly created page before it's queued for AI generation.

• Trigger: Manually creating a page or importing a keyword.
• Actions: You can edit the page details (Title, Slug, Target Keyword, etc.) or delete the page. To start the AI writing process, you must Schedule it.
• Visual: A gray badge or indicator.

Scheduled (Blue)

The page is in line to be processed by the AI content generator. It will move to "Queued" based on your project's Drip Feed settings.

• Trigger: Clicking the "Schedule" button on a Draft page.
• Actions: You can still edit basic page details. You can also Unschedule it to return it to Draft status if you change your mind.
• Visual: A blue badge or indicator.

Queued (Yellow)

The page is next in line and will begin generation shortly. This is a transitional state between Scheduled and Generating.

• Trigger: Automatically, when the Drip Feed scheduler picks up a Scheduled page. This happens approximately every 5 minutes.
• Actions: No user actions are available at this stage; the system is preparing to generate.
• Visual: A yellow/orange badge or indicator.

Generating (Purple)

The AI is actively writing the article content. This process can take from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on article length and complexity.

• Trigger: Automatically, after the Queued state.
• Actions: You must wait for generation to complete. You can refresh the page to check for a status update.
• Visual: A purple badge, often with a spinning loader icon.

Ready (Green)

Generation is complete and successful. The article is fully written and available in your iContentForge project, but not yet sent to your connected CMS.

• Trigger: Successful completion of the AI generation process.
• Actions: This is a key review point. You can:
  • Preview the full generated article.
  • Edit the article content directly in the editor.
  • Publish it immediately to your connected CMS.
  • Schedule it for future publishing via the CMS's own scheduler (if supported by the connector).
  • Regenerate the article if you're not satisfied with the output.
• Visual: A green badge or indicator.

Published (Dark Green)

The article has been successfully pushed to your connected Content Management System (e.g., WordPress, Webflow, Shopify).

• Trigger: Clicking "Publish" on a Ready article, or via an automated publishing schedule.
• Actions: You can Unpublish (which typically changes the status in your CMS to "Draft" or trashes it) or View Live to open the public URL of the article.
• Visual: A dark green/blue badge, often with a checkmark icon.

Error (Red)

Something went wrong during generation or publishing.

• Trigger: AI generation failure, network issues, invalid CMS API credentials, or CMS-specific errors during publishing.
• Actions: Click on the error status to see detailed error messages. You can then fix the underlying issue (e.g., update API keys, check CMS health) and Retry the action.
• Visual: A red badge or indicator.

Status Reference Table

Next Steps

• Learn how to create and manage your articles: Creating and Managing Pages
• Set up automatic publishing to your website: CMS Connectors
• Control the pace of your content generation: Using Drip Feed