Publish Integrations

Summary#

Publish Integrations is the screen where content publishing will be connected. It lists the six supported platforms and the setup state of each one. Publishing is not enabled yet: pressing Connect returns a notice rather than starting a connection, and no content can be pushed from this screen today.

Purpose#

Moving a finished piece into a CMS by hand is where good work goes wrong. Formatting breaks, links get lost, and review and publish are often the same button, so a half-checked draft can go public by accident.

This screen exists to make the eventual path safe by design and to tell you, right now and without guesswork, exactly what is connected and what still needs setup. Its carrying rule — visible in the badge at the top and in the result panel — is that a push always creates a draft, never a live post. Publishing stays a decision you make in your own editor.

Overview#

Opening the view loads the current publishing status and renders one card per platform. Each card shows the platform name, a state badge, a note explaining what that platform needs, and a Connect button.

The system is fail-closed. Publishing is reported as disabled, the default push status is draft, and no customer CMS credentials are stored anywhere. Two of the badges reflect real environment state:

• The three OAuth platforms — LinkedIn, Webflow and Shopify — show Ready to connect once an administrator has registered the corresponding OAuth application, and Needs admin setup until then.
• The three key-based platforms — WordPress, Medium and Ghost — currently show Not enabled in every environment, because per-user credential storage has not been built.

Pressing Connect on any card posts to the publishing endpoint, which deliberately refuses and returns the message shown as a toast: Publishing is not enabled yet. Once your admin finishes connecting a platform, drafts are pushed as unpublished (never live).

This is the long-form publishing path. It is not the same as social posting: the Social Dashboard does publish live to connected social channels today. See Social Dashboard.

Benefits#

• One place to see which publishing platforms are wired up and which are not.
• A draft-only rule that is enforced in the system, not left to the user.
• No CMS password is ever handed over or stored; the intended paths are a revocable key you generate, or an OAuth approval you give on the platform itself.
• Clear per-platform notes that name the exact credential each one will need, so an administrator can prepare in advance.

Use Cases#

• Readiness check. Before planning a publishing workflow, open this screen to see which platforms your workspace could connect and which need an administrator first.
• Administrator prep. The per-platform notes name the credential type, so an admin knows whether the next step is an OAuth app or a per-user key.
• Setting expectations with a client. Confirm in one screen that nothing can be published to their site from Metric Vault without their own approval.
• Choosing the right route today. If you need to publish now, this screen tells you to use the social channels or your own CMS instead of waiting.

Requirements#

• A signed-in Metric Vault account.
• No plan requirement, no credits and no connected integration.
• To move any platform beyond Needs admin setup, an administrator must register the OAuth application for that platform in the environment.

Permissions#

There is no plan gate and no team-role gate on this screen. Every signed-in user sees the same six cards and the same states.

The badges are environment-wide, not per-user, so every member of your workspace sees the same setup state.

Cost#

0 credits. The screen makes no provider call and runs no tool. Loading it, re-loading it and pressing Connect all cost nothing and are not counted against your monthly allowance. See How credits work for how metered tools differ.

Navigation Path#

Dashboard → Write & Optimize → Publish Integrations

The sidebar entry carries a BETA badge.

Inputs#

There are no input fields on this screen. It loads automatically when you open it.

Step-by-Step Guide#

1. Open Dashboard → Write & Optimize → Publish Integrations.
2. Wait for Checking publishing connections… to resolve.
3. Read the state badge on the header: it reads Setup pending while publishing is disabled.
4. Scan the six platform cards and note which read Ready to connect and which read Needs admin setup or Not enabled.
5. Read the note under any platform you care about; it names the credential that platform will require.
6. If you press Connect, expect the not-enabled notice. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent to the platform.
7. To publish today, use your CMS directly, or use Social Dashboard for social channels.

Reading the Results#

The header. The panel is titled Publishing connections, with a meta line reading 6 platforms · drafts only, and a state badge on the right: Enabled if publishing has been switched on for the environment, or Setup pending while it has not. Today it reads Setup pending.

The safety notice. Directly beneath the header, a highlighted line states that publishing is scaffolded and fail-closed, that every push is created as a draft and never live, and that connecting a platform activates only once an administrator completes its OAuth or credential setup. This is the single most important sentence on the screen — it is why pressing Connect does nothing rather than half-connecting.

The section header reads Platforms, with a count on the right of how many have credentials configured. Zero is a normal reading in an environment where no OAuth applications have been registered.

The six platform cards. Each has a name, a state badge, a note and a Connect button.

How to read a badge. Ready to connect means the environment has credentials registered for that platform's OAuth application — it does not mean you can publish yet, because the push path itself is still disabled. Needs admin setup means the OAuth application has not been registered. Not enabled means that platform's per-user credential path has not been built.

What to do about it. If a platform you need reads Needs admin setup, that is an administrator task, not something you can resolve from this screen. If it reads Not enabled, no action will change it yet. Either way, the actionable route today is publishing from your own CMS, and using the Editorial Calendar to track what has shipped.

Examples#

Screenshots#

 and CONNECT LATER badges and the intro paragraph)

Tips#

• Check this screen before promising a client an automated publishing workflow.
• If you administer the workspace, register the OAuth applications first; that is what flips the three OAuth cards to Ready to connect.
• Use Editorial Workflow & Calendar to track pieces through Scheduled and Published while you publish manually.
• For short-form distribution that does work today, use the composer on Social Dashboard.

Best Practices#

• Treat the draft-only rule as the design principle it is: even once publishing is switched on, review inside your own editor before making anything public.
• Prefer per-platform keys and OAuth over sharing a real CMS login, including with tools other than Metric Vault.
• Keep the credential type in mind when planning: WordPress needs an Application Password, Medium an integration token, Ghost an Admin API key.
• Revisit this screen after any administrator change; the badges are the fastest way to confirm the setup landed.

Common Mistakes#

• Expecting Connect to open a login window. It does not. It returns the not-enabled notice.
• Reading Ready to connect as "connected". It reports environment credentials only; publishing is still disabled.
• Confusing this with social publishing. Social channels are connected and published from the Social Dashboard, and those posts do go live.
• Asking support to enable it per account. The state is environment-wide, not per user or per plan.
• Assuming a draft was created. Nothing is sent to any platform from this screen today.

Limitations#

• Publishing is disabled. No content can be pushed to any platform from this screen.
• Six platforms are listed: WordPress, Medium, Ghost, LinkedIn, Webflow and Shopify. There is no way to add another.
• WordPress, Medium and Ghost cannot reach a connected state at all yet, because per-user credential storage has not been built.
• No customer CMS credentials are stored, by design.
• There is no content picker, no push history and no per-post status on this screen.
• The default push status is fixed at draft and is not configurable.

Troubleshooting#

FAQs#

Can this publish something live by accident? No. Publishing is disabled outright, and the design fixes every future push to create an unpublished draft. Making a post public is always an action you take in your own editor.

Do I have to hand over my CMS password? No, and you will not have to later either. The planned routes are a limited, revocable key that you generate — an Application Password, an integration token, an Admin API key — or an OAuth approval you give on the platform itself.

Which platforms will be supported? Six: WordPress, Medium, Ghost, LinkedIn, Webflow and Shopify.

A platform says "Needs admin setup". What does that mean? The OAuth application for that platform has not been registered in your environment. It is an administrator task; nothing you can do from this screen changes it.

Does any of this cost credits? No. The screen makes no provider call and is not metered.

How is this different from the Social Dashboard? The Social Dashboard connects social accounts and publishes short posts to them for real, today. Publish Integrations is the long-form path to a CMS, and it is not switched on yet.

When will it be enabled? No date is published. The honest position is that the platform list, the safety model and the status screen exist, and the connection and push paths do not.