Scout Scheduling

The Content Scout runs on a schedule you define, automatically searching for ideas based on your publication’s topics. You control how often it runs, what time zone it operates in, and what it does with the ideas it finds.

Accessing the schedule

Open your publication’s Settings page and scroll to the schedule section. You’ll see a summary of your current schedule and publish mode. Click Edit to open the full schedule editor.

Publish mode

Before configuring the schedule, choose how the Content Scout should handle the ideas it finds:

• Gather Ideas — The scout finds ideas and adds them to your Ideas page. You decide what to write and when to publish.
• Draft — The scout finds ideas and the AI automatically writes draft posts. You review and decide what to publish.
• Auto Publish — The scout finds ideas, writes posts, and publishes them on your cadence without manual intervention.

You can change the publish mode at any time. When you select Draft or Auto Publish, you’ll also set a posts per week target that tells the system how many drafts or published posts to aim for each week.

Posts-per-week limits depend on your tier:

Tier	Max posts per week
Creator	3
Growth	10
Enterprise	Unlimited

Schedule types

The schedule editor offers three ways to control how often the Content Scout runs:

Daily

The scout runs once per day at a specific hour you choose. This is the default and works well for most publications.

Select the hour from the dropdown — times are displayed in 12-hour format (e.g., “8:00 AM”, “2:00 PM”).

Multiple times per day

The scout runs evenly spaced throughout the day. You choose how many times per day (2 through 6), and the system calculates the intervals automatically.

For example, selecting 3 times per day runs the scout at approximately 12:00 AM, 8:00 AM, and 4:00 PM.

This option is available on the Growth plan and above. Creator plan users will see it listed but grayed out, with a prompt to upgrade.

Every N days

The scout runs at a specific hour, but only every few days instead of daily. You choose both the interval (every 2 to 7 days) and the time of day.

This is a good option if your publication covers a niche where news doesn’t move as quickly and you don’t need daily scouting.

Timezone

All schedule times are based on the timezone you select. Hot Metal supports a curated list of major timezones across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Your browser’s timezone is selected by default.

Next run preview

The schedule editor shows a Next scout preview that displays the exact date and time of the next scheduled run, formatted in your selected timezone. This helps you confirm that your schedule is set up the way you expect.

Run Scout Now

If you don’t want to wait for the next scheduled run, you can trigger the Content Scout manually. Click the Run Scout Now button to start an immediate search for ideas.

The button is only available when your publication has at least one topic. If you haven’t added any topics yet, you’ll see a message prompting you to add one first.

Saving your schedule

After making changes in the schedule editor, click Save Schedule to apply them. If you change your mind, click Cancel to discard your changes and return to the summary view. The publish mode is saved immediately when you change it, but schedule timing changes (timezone, frequency, hour) require clicking Save.