Scans

A scan, called a check in the dashboard, is one run of your prompts against your plan's AI platforms. There are two kinds: the Daily Check and the Full Check. Every metric in the dashboard comes from them. See Concepts: Scans for what each kind covers and what it updates.

When checks run

Checks run on a schedule. Every plan that runs checks (Trial, Starter, Professional, and Agency) gets a Daily Check every day and a Full Check every 7 days. The Overview header shows when the last check ran and when the next one is due. The Free plan does not run checks.

You cannot start a check on demand from the dashboard or the Data API. On-demand checks paid with credits are available through the Console API; see Scan triggering.

Your first check

Your first check starts when you finish onboarding a domain. Until it has produced results, the domain's pages show a first-check screen that tracks its progress through six stages:

1. Reading your website
2. Matching prompts to your market
3. Asking the AI platforms
4. Reading citations and sources
5. Scoring visibility and competitors
6. Writing your executive brief

The screen also tells you when the check is waiting to start, when it is taking longer than expected, and when it has failed. If a new domain's first check fails before any AI platform was asked, a Retry scan button lets an editor, admin, or owner start it again, up to 3 times per hour, as long as the workspace has an active plan or trial. Once a domain has a completed check, the schedule runs every later check.

Following a check in progress

While a check runs, a progress strip appears in the dashboard. View progress opens a panel with the overall percentage, how many answers have been collected, and the stages above, broken down by AI platform. The panel updates live as answers arrive.

Check status

A check is pending (queued and waiting to start), running, completed, failed, or cancelled. A check that is pending or running is cancelled when its domain is deleted or when the workspace's plan or trial ends.

When a check fails

If a check fails, it is retried automatically. If it still does not complete, it is marked failed and your dashboard keeps showing the latest results it has. A check that runs past its time limit is stopped automatically rather than left running. Your next scheduled check runs as usual.

Check history in the API

Every completed check is kept. The Data API lists a domain's checks, returns a single check, and returns the analytics for any past check when you pass its scan_id. See the Scans API reference and the Analytics API reference.