Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first thing you see when you sign in to Hot Metal. It gives you an at-a-glance overview of your publications, recent content ideas, and active writing sessions — everything you need to pick up right where you left off.

Dashboard layout

Your Dashboard is organized into several sections, each designed to surface what matters most.

Getting Started checklist

If you’re new to Hot Metal, you’ll see the Getting Started checklist at the top of the Dashboard. This is a step-by-step guide that walks you through setting up your first publication, generating ideas, and publishing your first post. A progress bar tracks how far along you are.

Once you’ve finished the checklist (or dismissed it), it’s replaced by Quick Actions — a set of shortcut buttons that let you jump straight into common tasks.

For full details on the checklist, see Onboarding Checklist.

Quick Actions

After the Getting Started checklist is dismissed, the top of the Dashboard shows Quick Actions — large, clickable cards for the things you’ll do most often:

• Start Writing — Opens a new AI writing session. If you have multiple publications, you’ll pick which one to write for.
• Get New Ideas — Triggers the Content Scout to find fresh content ideas for your publication. If you have multiple publications, you’ll choose which one to search for.
• Create Writing Style — Takes you to the Styles page to define a custom writing voice. This action appears until you’ve created your first custom style.

Publications

The Publications section displays cards for each of your publications. Click any card to jump into that publication’s management page, where you can view its posts, topics, and settings.

A View all link takes you to the full Publications page.

Latest Ideas

The Latest Ideas section shows your most recent content ideas from the Content Scout. Each idea displays:

• The idea title
• Which publication it belongs to
• How recently it was created
• A status badge (such as new, reviewed, or promoted)

Click any idea to view its full details. Use the View all link to browse all your ideas on the Ideas page.

Active Writing Sessions

The Active Sessions section lists your in-progress writing sessions. Each session card shows:

• The session title (or “Untitled session” if you haven’t named it yet)
• When it was last updated
• The current draft version number (for example, v2, v3)

Click any session card to jump back into the writing experience. The View all link takes you to the Writing page where you can see all sessions.

Navigating from the Dashboard

Every section on the Dashboard includes a View all link that takes you to the corresponding full page. You can also use the sidebar navigation at any time to move between Dashboard, Publications, Ideas, Writing, Styles, and Settings.

The Dashboard is always just a click away from the sidebar when you want to return to your overview.