---
title: "What Autopilot is"
description: "The scheduler and executor that runs the content pipeline for a Project, and the two gates that decide what it may do."
updated: "2026-08-28"
verifiedAgainst:
  - apps/web/lib/autopilot-settings.ts
  - apps/web/app/app/settings/autopilot/page.tsx
  - packages/shared/src/free-grant.ts
  - packages/shared/src/autopilot-full-publication.ts
  - packages/shared/src/autopilot.ts
  - packages/shared/src/autopilot-planner.ts
---

Autopilot runs the pipeline on a cadence you set, so a Project produces articles
without anyone opening the workspace.

It is not a separate content engine. It runs the same research, drafting, image
and linking work you get from generating a post by hand, on a schedule, within
limits, and it stops wherever a gate tells it to.

## What a run does

<Steps>
  <Step title="Decide what to work on">
    Select approved Topics according to the Project's topic selection mode, in
    the shares its Content Directions describe.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Reserve the allowance">
    Take the posts and images it is about to use from the Project's allowance, so
    two runs cannot spend the same quota twice. That allowance is the billing
    period's on a paid Project, and the one-time lifetime grant on a Free one.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Produce drafts">
    Research against the Knowledge Engine, write, place images, propose internal
    links, and set metadata.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Stop at the gate">
    Take each post as far as its Content Direction's approval policy allows, and
    no further.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Schedule and publish">
    In Full mode, and only where the Direction permits, take the post to a
    publication slot and publish it.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## The two gates

This is the part worth internalising, because it explains every "why did nothing
happen" and every "why did that publish".

<PropertyList>
  <Property name="Activation">
    Autopilot does nothing for a Project until an owner or admin activates it.
    Creating a Project does not activate it, and finishing setup does not either.
    Editors can change most Autopilot settings; activating it, and changing
    whether it may replenish its own Topics, are limited to owners and admins.
  </Property>
  <Property name="Direction approval policy">
    Every post has to satisfy its Content Direction's policy, `auto` or `review`,
    in both automation modes. The exception is a consent: setting up Full mode
    offers to publish flagged posts without waiting for a person, and that box
    starts off. Only once you tick it, confirm the exact set it names and save
    does a `review` lane stop waiting. See
    [Assisted and Full](/autopilot/modes).
  </Property>
</PropertyList>

<Callout variant="note">
  Both gates are per Project. Turning Autopilot on for one Project says nothing
  about any other Project in the workspace.
</Callout>

## Where to go next

<CardGrid>
  <Card title="Assisted and Full" href="/autopilot/modes">
    The two automation modes, and exactly what each will do unattended.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Configuration" href="/autopilot/configuration">
    Cadence, days, times, limits and topic supply.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Safety boundaries" href="/autopilot/boundaries">
    What Autopilot will never do, whatever it is configured to do.
  </Card>
  <Card title="When a run stalls" href="/autopilot/troubleshooting">
    The checks, in the order worth making them.
  </Card>
</CardGrid>