What needs your approval
Which Coach (Quill) actions run as soon as you ask, which wait for you to confirm or choose on a card, which the Coach never does, and how to approve, decline or undo them.
The Coach only changes your notes or articles when you ask it to. Your request is the approval for that action: there is no extra approve button. Repeating jobs, pushing an edit to a draft already on Substack, and close choices wait for you on a card. The Coach never publishes anything.
Runs when you ask
These run as soon as you ask for them in the chat. The result appears as a status line under the reply, for example Scheduled or Saved, with a list of the notes it touched.
| You ask to | What the Coach does |
|---|---|
| Save notes | Saves them as draft or ready. Ready is not the queue. |
| Change a note's status | Moves notes to draft or ready. |
| Schedule notes | Saves the notes and puts them on your queue, in the next open slots unless you named a time. |
| Make a note evergreen | Turns it into an evergreen note. |
| Tag notes | Adds or removes tags. |
| Edit an article | Saves a new title, subtitle or body in WriteStack. |
| Push an article to Substack | Sends it to Substack as a draft. |
| Remember something | Saves a fact to Memory. |
| Make an image | Makes or edits one image in the reply. |
Notes that are already scheduled, evergreen or published are left as they are, and the status line says Already scheduled, Already evergreen or Already published. A scheduled note only moves back to draft or ready when you name that note and ask.
Scheduling and evergreen need the browser extension and a computer. Without them you see "The WriteStack extension is needed" or "Run this from a computer". How scheduled notes reach Substack is explained in Sync.
Happens on its own
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Reading your notes, posts, stats, queue, Memory and Library | Reading changes nothing. |
| Saving a post the Coach wrote as an article draft in WriteStack | So you can edit it. It is not sent to Substack. See How the Coach writes articles. |
| Saving facts you stated in a chat to Memory | Only while Use memory is on. |
Notes the Coach writes are not saved on their own. Each one is a Note card until you ask the Coach to save or schedule it, or open the card and save it in the note editor.
Waits for you on a card
| Card | When it shows | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Routine card | You ask for something every day or every week | Check When, Timezone, Does and Delivery, then click Confirm. Nothing is saved until you do. |
| Question card | Two or more options are close, for example which newsletter to push to | Pick an option, or type your own under Something else, then send. Or Skip. |
| Push an edited draft | You asked for an edit to an article that is already on Substack | Pick the newsletter to push to, or Don't push yet. |
| Select articles | The Coach couldn't find a post you named | Mark the posts, then confirm. |
Never
- Publish a note or a post.
- Schedule, unschedule or publish an article on Substack.
- Delete a note.
- Change an article's Substack settings (audience, comments, SEO, slug).
Chats started from an AI agent through ask_coach, and routine runs, can only save drafts. They can't schedule, push or publish.
Decline or undo
- Before it runs: don't ask, or tell the Coach to stop. Click Stop to end a reply that is still running.
- On a card: don't click Confirm, choose Don't push yet, or Skip the question.
- After it runs: open the note from the status line and change it in the note editor, or ask the Coach to move it back to draft. Remove a routine under Routines.
- Pushed drafts: a push only creates or updates a Substack draft. Delete or edit it on Substack if you don't want it.
What the Coach can do
What the WriteStack Coach (Quill) knows about your publication, what it can draft, save and schedule for you, and how chats, Memory, Library and Routines work.
Coach limits
How much you can use the WriteStack Coach (Quill) on each plan, when the weekly allowance resets, what happens when it runs out, other message and routine limits, and what the Coach can't do.