Pipeline phases
What the phase badges mean — collecting, clustering, synthesizing, review, published.
Every story HermesAI tracks moves through a small set of phases. The phase badge tells you where the story is right now.
The five phases
Collecting
HermesAI is fetching source coverage. The story exists as a candidate; not enough yet to cluster confidently.
Clustering
Multiple sources cover the same event. HermesAI is grouping their reporting into a single cluster.
Synthesizing
Cluster identified. HermesAI is drafting the localised article — headline, body, attribution.
Review
Draft is ready and submitted for editorial review (or auto-routed because it's sensitive).
Published
A reviewer approved the draft. Available for delivery into your CMS.
What each phase means in practice
The story is in the feed but the cluster is thin — maybe one source, maybe a few that haven't been confirmed as covering the same event. Confidence is typically low.
What you can do: read the source coverage. Don't expect a polished draft yet. If you want to file ahead, use compose with the partial cluster.
HermesAI sees overlapping coverage and is grouping the reporting. The cluster is firming up. Confidence is starting to settle.
What you can do: if you want to file fast, click in and read what's there. Compose can run on a clustering story; the draft will reflect the cluster's current state.
Cluster is identified. HermesAI is generating the localised article. You may see a placeholder draft briefly.
What you can do: wait for the draft (usually under 90 seconds) or run compose manually to control the format.
Draft submitted to editorial review. Visible in the editorial board.
What you can do: if you're a reviewer, open from the board. If you submitted it, you can still view but only the reviewer should edit.
Reviewer approved. Available for delivery — WordPress one-click, webhook, copy-paste.
What you can do: deliver to your CMS, or if your plan includes it, let webhook delivery do it automatically.
Allowed transitions
Collecting → Clustering → Synthesizing → Review → Published
↓
Rejected
↓
(back to Review on resubmit)- Phases up to Synthesizing are HermesAI's internal pipeline; you don't act on them directly except by reading the feed.
- Review is where the editorial flow takes over.
- Published is the terminal state for the editorial flow. From there, delivery handles the rest.
Published is one-way
A published story cannot be moved back to review. If a correction is needed, treat it as a new revision rather than reverting.
How long each phase takes
Rough latencies (varies with source feed health):
Prop
Type
What you don't do here
You don't manually advance a story from Collecting to Clustering, or Clustering to Synthesizing. Those are pipeline transitions. The editorially meaningful actions are:
- Submit a draft (Synthesizing → Review).
- Approve, reject, or annotate in review (Review → Published or Rejected).
- Resubmit after rejection (Rejected → Review).