Publishing & Visibility
How release status and release date control when your music appears in the API
Releases have two statuses: Draft and Published. Together with the release date, these control when your music is visible through the Songkeeper API.
Publishing Requirements
Before a release can be set to Published, it must have:
- A title
- A release date
- At least one primary artist
If any of these are missing, Songkeeper will show an error when you try to publish.
Release Date Gating
Setting a release to Published doesn't immediately make it visible in the API. The Songkeeper API only returns releases that are both published and past their release date.
This means you can:
- Publish early to finalize metadata ahead of time. The release won't appear in the API until the release date arrives.
- Schedule releases by setting a future release date and publishing immediately. It will go live automatically on that date.
- Pull a release by switching it back to Draft at any time. This removes it from the API immediately, regardless of the release date.
Internal vs external visibility
You can always see all your releases in Songkeeper regardless of status or date. The status and date gating only applies to the public REST API that external services consume.
Typical Workflow
- Create a release in Draft and fill in all the metadata, tracks, and artwork.
- Set the release date to your planned launch day.
- Switch to Published when everything is finalized. The release is now “locked in” but not yet visible externally.
- On the release date, the API automatically starts returning the release.