Direct X publishing, smarter hero images, and less repetitive content

Three things shipped here. First, Ballad can now publish directly to X: once you connect a voice's own X account under Settings › Voices & schedule, Ballad posts on its behalf — single posts, threads, and image posts — rather than only handing you a draft to post yourself. Second, collections now default to typographic brand hero images built from your palette and logo instead of AI-generated photos, with a distinct share card for previews and an art card on the article page. Third, drafts stop repeating themselves — Ballad tracks how your recent essays and posts opened and steers new ones toward a different move before they reach you.

Connecting X and publishing directly

Each voice can now connect its own X account from Settings › Voices & schedule, so it posts under its own identity instead of a shared one. Once connected, Ballad publishes directly to X on that voice's behalf — single posts, threads, image posts — rather than just preparing drafts for you to hand-post. Failed threads can be retried safely; retries pick up where they left off without creating duplicate posts. And whether Ballad posted directly or you pasted in a link, X performance — impressions, likes, reposts, replies, bookmarks — now flows into Signals, costed using X's published pricing.

Hero images, openers, and other changes

New default hero images are typographic now, not AI photos: built from your brand's palette and logo, so nothing on the page reads as generated. Each article gets a share card with the title for previews and a title-less art card built from one of six abstract compositions, and the review screen finally shows you the actual art hero readers will see, not a placeholder. If your brand's changed since a collection was set up, open the collection dialog and re-render every AI-generated opening image at once — the live site updates automatically once it's done.

A few smaller fixes worth knowing about. Ballad now tracks how your last several essays and posts opened and pushes new drafts toward a different opening move, so it stops rewriting the same hook. 'Publish immediately' now means immediately, not at the next scheduled check. Inbox cards show one of three voice states — in voice, needs a check, or not checked — plus an Agent label. Drafts that point readers to sign up now name your current offer in plain terms; blog essays stay insight-only. And each voice's give:ask balance is now set per voice, with the Loop plan card listing which collections it writes into and its cadence and ask rhythm.