Review your site before you publish it
Ask your agent to look at its own output as an art director, not as the coder who just wrote it. Two passes change everything.
On this page
TL;DR
Before publishing, have your agent score its own work on eight axes from 0 to 3: typography, composition, hierarchy, motion, copy, anti-template, images and the accessibility floor. Anything below threshold, and especially anti-template or the floor, means fix that one point and re-score. Two or three passes, no more.
Stop coding and look at it
An assistant that has just written a page is the worst possible judge of it. It is still in the state of mind of someone solving the problem, and everything it produced looks like the answer. The single most effective instruction you can give is to stop, change role, and look at the result as an art director would.
This is a loop, not a formality: score, find the weakest point, fix that one point, score again. It is what separates a serious result from a first draft, and it costs two messages.
Eight axes, scored 0 to 3
| Axis | What a 3 looks like |
|---|---|
| Typography | Controlled tracking, a real line length, weights that mean something |
| Composition | One strong move, not stacked centered sections |
| Hierarchy | The eye lands where it should first, then second |
| Motion | Sober and purposeful, or absent. Never a christmas tree |
| Copy | Specific and telegraphic, not generic slogans |
| Anti-template | Could not be mistaken for a template or for AI output |
| Images | Real, at scale, worked. Not thumbnails, not stock |
| Floor | Works at 360px, keyboard focus visible, AA contrast, SEO in place |
The rule
Any axis below its threshold means it does not publish yet. Anti-template and the floor are stricter than the others: anything under 3 on those two stops the publish outright, because a template-looking site fails at its job and an inaccessible one fails some of its visitors entirely.
Fix the one weakest point, re-check, re-score. Two or three passes at most. If it still fails after that, the problem is not polish: the direction itself is weak, and the honest move is to step back and redo the art direction rather than sand down a bad base.
What a failing score actually looks like
It is worth knowing the shapes, because they are easy to recognise once named and almost invisible before.
- A centered hero with three identical cards under it
- Generic icons standing in for ideas
- A paragraph running the full width of the screen with no line-length limit
- A big title with default letter-spacing, the quietest tell there is
- A 2 MB hero image
- "Your satisfaction is our priority"
Each of those is one axis under threshold. None of them ships.
The safety net
Reviewing before publishing is the right habit, and it is not a one-way door if you skip it. Every publish creates a new immutable version and none of them are ever lost. If a version is wrong, ask your agent to roll back and the previous one is live again instantly.
Two practical numbers worth knowing while you iterate: a site carries a capital of 150 publications, and no more than 20 in any single hour. That is generous for a human working in passes and deliberately tight for an agent stuck in a retry loop. The docs spell out what counts as a publish.
And if you would rather never publish a draft at all, the staging option gives the site a second address: publishing then prepares the version there, production does not move, and one sentence puts it online when you decide.
If a page keeps failing the same axis after two passes, the problem is usually upstream: either the direction, or the brief it came from. Going back to the first guide beats a third round of polish.
Say this
Before you publish, stop and review your own work as an art director. Score typography, composition, hierarchy, motion, copy, anti-template, images and the accessibility floor from 0 to 3. Fix the weakest point, re-score, and tell me the scores before publishing.
Frequently asked
How do I check an AI-built website before publishing it?
Ask the assistant to change role and review its own output as an art director, scoring eight axes from 0 to 3: typography, composition, hierarchy, motion, copy, anti-template, images and the accessibility floor. Fix the weakest point, re-score, publish when nothing is below threshold.
What if I publish something wrong?
Every publish is a new immutable version and earlier ones are kept. Ask your agent to roll back and the previous version is live again instantly. There is nothing to restore from a backup.
Can I preview a site before it goes live?
By default publishing puts the site online, which is the point of SayLive. The staging option adds a second address where a version waits for your review, and one sentence promotes it to production when you are happy.