> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.shipstar.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# FAQ

> Frequently asked questions about Shipstar

Have a question that isn't answered here? Reach out to us at [support@shipstar.ai](mailto:support@shipstar.ai).

***

## General

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What is Shipstar?">
    Shipstar is automated product marketing for engineers and agents. It connects to your GitHub repositories, analyzes your commits, and generates polished marketing content — changelogs, blog posts, social media threads, knowledge base articles, release notes emails, and more.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What content types does Shipstar generate?">
    Shipstar generates 10 types of content:

    | Type | Format |
    | - | - |
    | Daily Product Update | Markdown |
    | Weekly Product Update | Markdown |
    | Feature Blog | Markdown |
    | Blog Post | Markdown |
    | LinkedIn Post | Text |
    | Twitter Thread | Text |
    | Feature Page | JSON |
    | KB Articles | JSON |
    | Public Changelog | JSON |
    | Release Notes Email | JSON |
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does the AI decide what to include?">
    Shipstar uses Claude to analyze your commits. The AI is prompted to focus on user-facing changes and filter out internal noise like dependency bumps, CI/CD changes, refactors, and code cleanup. The output reads as if written by your team — it never mentions AI or tools. You can steer what it includes and who it writes for with [content guidelines](/guides/content-guidelines).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I customize the tone or audience of generated content?">
    Yes. In the dashboard, Settings → Content guidelines lets you pick a technical depth — **Technical** (developers; API names, config keys, migration notes), **Business** (plain-language outcomes, no code identifiers), or **Mixed** — and write free-text guidelines such as "Call users 'members', never 'customers'" or "Do announce docs-site changes". Changes to your own marketing site, docs hosting, CI and internal tooling are already left out by default, so you only need to write what the writer can't infer. These apply to every content type. You can override them for a single run when you regenerate a draft, on a schedule, or by passing `audience` / `instructions` to any generation tool or endpoint.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I edit the generated content?">
    Yes. All generated content can be reviewed and edited in the dashboard or via the API before publishing. Use the `PATCH /sources/content/{content_id}` endpoint to update content programmatically.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## GitHub Integration

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Which Git providers are supported?">
    Currently, Shipstar supports GitHub. Install the Shipstar GitHub App on your organization or personal account, pick the repositories on GitHub, then select which of them to track in Sources.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Does Shipstar work with private repositories?">
    Yes. The repositories you grant on the GitHub App install screen — public or private — can be tracked. Shipstar's permissions are read-only: repository metadata and contents (used for commit history).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I track multiple repositories?">
    Yes. You can track as many repositories as you like. When generating content, Shipstar aggregates commits from all active tracked repos into a single piece of content.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What date range does Shipstar use?">
    By default, Shipstar analyzes the last 7 days of commits. You can specify a custom date range with the `start_date` and `end_date` parameters when triggering content generation.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Publishing & Distribution

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How do I publish content?">
    Use the publish endpoint: `POST /content/{content_id}/publish`. This generates a unique public URL where the content is accessible without authentication. You can also unpublish at any time.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Do published pages have RSS feeds?">
    Yes. Published changelogs and blog posts automatically include RSS feeds at `/feed` appended to the public URL. There's also a combined feed for all blog posts at `/api/v1/blogs/feed`.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I publish to Slack?">
    Yes. Shipstar can push any content type directly to a connected Slack channel.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I publish KB articles to Intercom?">
    Yes. Shipstar integrates with Intercom to sync generated knowledge base articles directly to your help center.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I publish help articles to Featurebase?">
    Yes. Connect Featurebase under Destinations with an organization API key (no OAuth), pick a default collection, and generate the Featurebase Articles content type. Each run drafts a set of articles you review in the dashboard; approving it creates the articles in your Featurebase help center — live, or as Featurebase drafts if you prefer a second review there. A schedule can send its articles to a different collection.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Scheduling

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Can I automate content generation?">
    Yes. Shipstar supports calendar events that trigger content generation on a schedule. Set up recurring events — for example, a weekly changelog every Friday or a monthly blog post on the 1st.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What recurrence patterns are supported?">
    Events follow the RFC 5545 RRULE standard, so you can configure daily, weekly, monthly, or custom recurrence patterns.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## API & Authentication

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How do I get an API key?">
    1. Sign up at [app.shipstar.ai](https://app.shipstar.ai)
    2. Navigate to the Dashboard
    3. Click **API Keys** in the sidebar
    4. Create a new API key and copy it

    See the [Quickstart guide](/quickstart) for detailed instructions.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does authentication work?">
    The API uses Bearer token authentication. Include your API key in the `Authorization` header:

    ```
    Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
    ```

    Public content endpoints (changelogs, blogs, KB articles accessed by slug) don't require authentication.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is content generation synchronous?">
    No. Content generation runs asynchronously. When you trigger a generation request, you receive a `content_id` and `status: "pending"`. Poll the content endpoint to check when it's complete. The status transitions from `pending` → `processing` → `completed` (or `failed`).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What are the usage limits?">
    Usage is metered in monthly **credits**, consumed only by content generation
    (API reads and publishing are free). Free includes 1,000 credits and 1 project;
    Solo includes 50,000 credits and up to 3 projects; Team pools 50,000 credits per
    seat with unlimited projects. Each generation costs 25–100 credits depending on
    the content type — see [Plans & Credits](/plans-and-credits) for the full table.
    Your current usage is shown in the dashboard sidebar and under **Account → Plan**.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Privacy & Data

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What data does Shipstar access?">
    Shipstar accesses commit metadata (message, author, date, SHA) from your tracked GitHub repositories. It does not access file contents, pull request discussions, or issues — only commit messages.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is my data shared with third parties?">
    Generated content and your repository data are only accessible via authenticated API requests using your API key. Published content is accessible at its public URL by design.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I disconnect my GitHub account?">
    Yes. **Disconnect** on the Sources page unlinks the installation from your project and removes its tracked repositories. To revoke Shipstar's access to the organization entirely, uninstall (or suspend) the app from GitHub — Settings → Installed GitHub Apps → Shipstar; Shipstar picks that up automatically.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Still have questions?

<Card title="Contact Support" icon="envelope" href="mailto:support@shipstar.ai">
  Reach out to the Shipstar team and we'll get back to you
</Card>


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