Channels and kits

A channel is one show: a name, a niche, a look, a voice, a schedule and the accounts it posts to. Every channel has a kit of its own — the renderer that draws every one of its episodes — so the channel looks like itself from the first episode to the hundredth. This page explains how a channel comes to be, what its kit is and how it is built, and every setting you can change on the channel page.

What a channel is#

A channel starts in one of four ways:

What the draft writes#

Drafting takes about a minute and writes the channel's identity, which you see in the Identity card:

• a name and proposed handles for YouTube, Facebook and Instagram — proposals only: the mark drawn on your episodes is the connected YouTube account's real handle, or the channel's name until one is connected, never a handle nobody has claimed;
• a tone of voice, a tagline and a one-line description;
• a palette of brand colours (shown as swatches under the Identity card);
• settings — at least eight distinct places or stages its episodes are set in, which episodes rotate through so no two look alike (the Identity card shows "N places episodes rotate through");
• first topics and a call to action.

The channel takes the language of its project, the time zone of your workspace, three posting times (09:00, 15:00 and 21:00) and YouTube, Facebook and Instagram as its platforms. Its schedule starts off: nothing is posted until you turn it on.

A channel's states#

The coloured chip beside the channel's name, and the steps under it (Identity → Kit → Brand → First episode → Live), say where it stands:

The kit#

The kit is the channel's own renderer: code that draws real-time 3D and 2D scenes on a GPU, frame by frame. Every episode of the channel is built from it, so its look, its camera language and its quality carry from one episode to the next. A kit holds:

How a kit is built#

1. On the channel page, the Renderer kit card shows Build the kit and its price.
2. Press it. The job is queued for a GPU box; the card says Building… and a new channel's chip turns to Building kit.
3. An agent on the box reads the house episode rules and studies, as its pattern, the proven format's kit closest to your subject — space, the natural world, abstract patterns, the body and science diagrams, places, history or illusions, and machines for anything else. Then it builds the engine in layers — shapes, lighting, colour grade, on-screen text — rendering stills and looking at each one, round after round, until every setting renders well.
4. The build is checked when it comes home: the engine, the settings (at least eight), the template, the gallery, the manual and a reference episode must all be there.
5. When it passes, the first stills of the gallery appear in the channel's Look section, the channel moves to Branding, and its first topics are planned if it has fewer than five waiting.

A build usually takes 45 to 120 minutes. You can leave the page: the job runs on its own, and Activity shows its log. What every kit must do, whatever the subject:

• show consequences on familiar things, at human scale — a hand, a door, a car, a person for scale;
• keep the camera travelling — no static frame for more than about 3 s;
• bring something new every 5 to 8 seconds, building to a payoff, in a full, living frame;
• explain with graphics, not words — arrows, scale bars, counters, side-by-side comparisons;
• stay safe to watch — the engine itself caps how fast anything large may flash;
• draw everything from code — no footage, photographs, sampled sound, downloaded fonts or anything from the network.

Channels started from a proven format#

A format channel does not wait for a kit build. Its kit is a copy of the format's, renamed for your channel and given a colour look of its own — a shift of hue where the subject allows it (never for anatomy, oceans, history or colour illusions, which need their true colours), a split-tone and an accent from your palette — so no two channels look alike. Each new episode brings the template up to the format's latest version wherever your channel never changed it. The Renderer kit card says "Started from the … format" and offers Improve the kit if you want an agent to tailor it further.

Improving a kit later#

Once a kit is built, the card offers Improve the kit. It runs the kit agent again on the kit you have: it reads what is there, fixes what is wrong and finishes what is missing — it never starts over. It is priced like a build. After improving a kit, render the brand plates again so they match it: Rebuild on the channel page's Brand suite card, or Render the plates again on the brand suite's page.

The channel page#

Open a channel from Channels (every channel of the workspace that is not archived) or from its project. The page holds everything about it:

The channel page also carries the cards of the growth tools — monetization, profit, the media kit, breakouts, the Pinterest board, link-in-bio, the hook lab, the coach, the outlier radar, retention and comment themes. Each has its own page in these docs.

Settings#

Schedule & generation is where a channel's daily rhythm is set. Editors, admins and owners change it; viewers see a summary. Press Save schedule to keep your changes.

How generation works, in practice: while the channel is Ready or Live, its kit is built and its project is active, it makes one episode at a time until it has Keep ready episodes waiting, and never more than New episodes a day in one day (days are counted in Central European time). A channel with nothing connected still makes its daily episodes, so it launches with a stock. For how slots, approvals and posting work, see Schedules and autopilot.

Credits and plans#

• A kit build runs on a GPU with an agent. Because it happens once a channel, it is priced at the lower setup rate, closer to what it costs us. The Renderer kit card shows what it reserves and what such builds typically cost; the typical figure for each plan is in the pricing page's "What things cost" table, as "A channel kit". You are charged what the build really used, and the rest of the reservation comes back.
• A build that fails on our side costs nothing. A build you cancel pays for what it used until it stopped.
• A format channel needs no kit build: drafting its identity is one small job.
• Every plan has a channel limit. Archived channels do not count against it. When you reach it, the app says "Your plan includes N channels. Archive one or upgrade to add more." See Pricing.
• Spending caps stop paid work before it starts: the channel's own cap (owners and admins set it on the channel page) and the workspace's (Settings → Billing). See Billing, invoices and caps.

Changing a channel later#

Almost everything about a channel can change after it is made, and every change applies to episodes made from then on — episodes already made keep their voice, their captions and their ending.

The name, the drafted handles, the tone of voice, the palette, the settings list and the language are fixed when the channel is drafted; the app has no rename. A channel in another language is a twin, not an edit.

Pausing, archiving and deleting#

• Pause (top right of the channel page, editors and up) stops all generation and posting. Resume brings it back to Ready with its schedule off: turn Post automatically on these slots on again when you want it to post.
• Archive channel (in Danger zone, a two-press button) stops generation and posting for good and frees the channel's place in your plan. Its episodes stay in your library, and it still opens from its project's page, but it leaves the Channels list and the app has no button to bring it back. Pause a channel you may want again; archive one you are done with.
• Deleting a single channel is not offered: archive it. Deleting the whole workspace (its owner only) is explained in Your account and sign-in.

Troubleshooting#

• Generate is greyed out, "Needs the kit first." Build the kit, then generate.
• "The kit is not finished … Run the build again — it keeps what is already there." Something was missing when the build came home. Press Build the kit again: the agent carries on from what exists. A build that fails this way is not charged.
• The channel makes nothing by itself. Check, in order: New episodes a day is above 0; the channel is not paused; its project is not paused or archived; Keep ready is not already reached; the channel's or the workspace's spending cap is not reached; you have credits.
• "Your plan includes N channels." Archive a channel you no longer need, or upgrade in Settings → Billing.

Related#

• Brand suites — the pictures and words each platform needs
• Episodes — what the kit makes, end to end
• Proven formats and Niche research — where channels come from
• Schedules and autopilot — posting on the channel's slots
• Credits and plans — how jobs are priced and charged