Publish a capsule

A capsule is ready to publish once:

• it has at least three scenes, and every scene has text;
• every scene is animated, and a finale scene has a still;
• you have built a preview. Publishing bakes the frames the preview made, so a capsule that has never been previewed can't be published.

Publishing waits for any scene videos that are still encoding, so the first publish of a long capsule can take a few minutes.

Choose Publish in the step bar. Before you confirm, you can:

• pick the image and title people see when the link is shared;
• edit the end of the link;
• choose what your subscribers receive in the premiere email;
• show or hide the share buttons, and offer the capsule to the Capsules showcase.

The first time you publish from a workspace, you also claim its name. That name is the first part of every link the workspace publishes.

Once it's live, choose Published at the top of the editor to copy the link, share it, or copy the embed code.

https://app.capsules.ink/your-space/your-capsule

• your-space is your workspace's name. your-capsule comes from the title unless you choose it.
• The end of the link uses lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, up to 50 characters. Each one is unique across Capsules, so a taken one is refused.
• Capsules are always served from app.capsules.ink. Serving them from your own domain isn't available yet.

Change visibility in the capsule's settings in the editor. It takes effect without republishing.

Private

Unpublished. The link doesn't open.

Unlisted

Anyone with the link can read and embed it. It stays off your profile and out of search engine sitemaps.

Public

Listed on your profile.

Featured

Public, and offered to the Capsules showcase.

Every published capsule can be read by anyone who has its link. There are no supporter-only capsules yet.

White-label publishing, on plans that include it, removes Capsules branding from the capsule and from its link previews, and doesn't send a premiere email.

Your subscribers hear about a capsule once, on its first publish. You choose what they get:

• Full story: the whole article, with stills, in the email.
• Teaser: a short preview, with a link to read the capsule.
• Off: no email.

It goes out about five minutes after you publish. Unpublish within that time and it isn't sent. Republishing never sends it again. An unlisted capsule still sends it, so choose Off to publish quietly.

Edit the capsule, preview it, then publish again. The link stays the same, so shared links and embeds show the new version without any change on your side. Allow a minute or two for it to reach every reader.

Changing the end of the link when you republish moves the capsule. The old link stops working and isn't redirected, so embeds that use it break.

Set visibility to Private, or unpublish through the API. The link stops opening within a minute or two, and embeds of it show a not-found page. The link stays reserved for this capsule, so publishing again brings it back at the same address, unless you release it through the API.

Use a workspace API key. A key can publish the capsules in its own workspace, if its creator's role allows publishing. In the API a capsule is a story. Its ID is the capsule= value in the editor's address bar.

Publish or republish

curl -X PUT https://api.staging.capsules.ink/api/v2/stories/STORY_ID/publication \
  -H "x-api-key: cap_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "slug": "the-night-shift", "premiereEmailMode": "TEASER" }'

Every field is optional:

• slug: the end of the link. Left out, it comes from the title, or stays as it is on a republish.
• premiereEmailMode: FULL, TEASER or OFF. Read on the first publish only.
• unlisted: true keeps it off your profile.
• showSocialShare: show the share buttons. Defaults to true.
• publicationMode: STANDARD or WHITE_LABEL, on plans that include white-label.

The request returns once the capsule is live. Add the url path to https://app.capsules.ink for the full link:

{
  "url": "/your-space/the-night-shift",
  "slug": "the-night-shift",
  "isRepublish": false,
  "publicationMode": "STANDARD"
}

Check a capsule

curl https://api.staging.capsules.ink/api/v2/stories/STORY_ID/publication \
  -H "x-api-key: cap_your_api_key"

Returns isPublished, slug, url, unlisted, publicationMode and publishedAt.

Unpublish

curl -X DELETE "https://api.staging.capsules.ink/api/v2/stories/STORY_ID/publication?releaseSlug=false" \
  -H "x-api-key: cap_your_api_key"

releaseSlug=true frees the link so another capsule can use it. The API reference has every field and error.

A connected agent can publish when you gave it the publishing permission. It publishes only when you ask, and asks you which premiere email to send first. Try:

• Publish my latest capsule as the-night-shift, with a teaser email.
• Publish it unlisted with no email. I want to check it on my phone first.
• Unpublish the harbour capsule.

• Shared links show the capsule's title, its opening line and the image you picked. Where a short preview clip is ready, apps that play video in link previews show it.
• Public capsules are listed in the sitemap at app.capsules.ink for search engines. Unlisted ones aren't.
• Capsules support oEmbed, so sites that understand it can embed one from its link alone. White-label capsules don't advertise it.