State Management

Understanding how content moves through different states is key to building reliable integrations with Publive.

State diagram

Valid state transitions

From	To	Notes
`Draft`	`Approval Pending`	Submit for review
`Draft`	`Published`	Direct publish (if permissions allow)
`Draft`	`Scheduled`	Requires `scheduled_at` datetime
`Approval Pending`	`Published`	Approved by checker
`Approval Pending`	`Draft`	Rejected by checker
`Published`	`Draft`	Unpublish content
`Scheduled`	`Draft`	Cancel scheduled publish
`Scheduled`	`Published`	Auto-triggered at `scheduled_at` time

Backdated publishing

To retroactively set a publication date for migrated or historical content, override the timestamp using custom_published_at. See Migration Guides for details.

Checking post status

Use the CMS API to check current status:

curl -X GET \
  'https://cms.thepublive.com/publisher/<PUBLISHER_ID>/post/<POST_ID>/' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic <BASE64_AUTH_TOKEN>'

The response includes:

{
  "id": 50123,
  "title": "My Article",
  "status": "Published",
  "published_at": "2026-02-01T09:00:00Z",
  "created_at": "2026-01-28T14:00:00Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-02-01T09:00:00Z",
  "approver": {"id": 5, "name": "Editor"},
  "source": "HeadlessCMS"
}

Access control

The access_type field in meta_data controls content visibility:

Value	Description
`Free`	Publicly accessible to all readers
`Paid`	Behind paywall, requires subscription

# Set content as paid/premium
curl -X PATCH \
  'https://cms.thepublive.com/publisher/<PUBLISHER_ID>/post/<POST_ID>/' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic <BASE64_AUTH_TOKEN>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"meta_data": {"access_type": "Paid"}}'

Last modified on July 21, 2026

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State diagram

Valid state transitions

Backdated publishing

Checking post status

Access control

​State diagram

​Valid state transitions

​Backdated publishing

​Checking post status

​Access control

State diagram

Valid state transitions

Backdated publishing

Checking post status

Access control