• Drafts keep failing the gate. The report names the check that failed. Thin drafts usually mean the topic was too narrow; no internal links usually means the site has little to link to yet. If the check named is the lint, the report quotes the sentence it objected to and says why — that is the one failure you can read rather than measure.
• The lint is refusing writing I am happy with. Move the strictness down to lenient, which stops a draft only on obvious filler, or move one number with the draftforge_quality_thresholds filter instead of taking a whole preset. If the objection is a phrase you use on purpose, replace the list through draftforge/slop_phrases.
• An author cannot see the Queue tab. The screen needs publish_posts. A Contributor does not have it, and that is deliberate — the queue carries every draft on the site, its cost and its report.
• A draft is stuck in “pending review”. Somebody with draftforge_review_drafts — an Administrator or an Editor by default — has to answer it. The scheduled run will not publish past it, on purpose.
• The schedule is not running. wp-cron only fires on traffic. Check the last-run summary on the Schedule tab, and that the licence is active — an unlicensed site skips the tick.
• The autopilot has stopped publishing but is still drafting. That is one of the two brakes doing its job. Either the weekly cap has been reached (three new posts by default in the last rolling seven days), or the checkpoint has engaged and is waiting for a confirmation on the Schedule tab. Refreshes and drafting continue in both cases; the Schedule tab says which one it is.
• A post was published I did not expect. Three things can do this and they have different switches. Hands-off publishing of whatever passes the gate is a Pro capability, off by default — turn it off in Draft Forge > Schedule. A single post going live on its own date was scheduled for that date on the Calendar tab; open it there and press Unschedule. And a reviewer pressing Approve & publish publishes immediately, which is what that button is for.
• Credits ran out mid-run. The run stops and says so. Nothing is published half-written; the topic goes back to pending.
• Everything is refused and the wallet has credits in it. That is the monthly credit ceiling, which the operator set on Draft Forge > Settings, not the wallet. The Credits tab shows the month against it. 0 means no ceiling; the add-on cannot move the number either way.
• The brand-voice analysis is refused. A site with nothing published has nothing to read. Publish a few posts first; the analysis takes up to five, yours before the site’s.