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📝 Quick Start

Swift Axis is a guided-reading news site: short stories that lead into each other, with an Android app for reading on the go and a Studio for writing. This page will guide you through how Swift Axis works, which part of this guide is for you, and a few things that are good to know before you begin.

How Swift Axis works​

Stories belong to a topic. A topic is a starting point: you open it, read the opening story, and then choose where to go next. Each story can offer up to three choices at the end, so two readers can take different routes through the same topic.

A topic is one of two kinds:

  • Thread: stories joined by choices. There is a main path, optional side paths, links across to stories elsewhere on the site (crossroads) and endings. Each ending you reach earns a gem on the topic's belt.
  • Series: dated entries, newest first, such as a daily report. Readers move between entries by previous day and next day, and no choices are needed.

Alongside stories there are Briefs, short posts of a few sentences, which scroll across the top of the website in The Wire.

New words are explained in the glossary.

Which part of the guide is for you​

📖 Readers​

You read Swift Axis on the website or in the Android app. You need no account and nothing to set up.

Reading Swift Axis

Paths, choices, maps, gems, search and preferences on the website and in the app.

Help

Frequently asked questions about cost, accounts, the app and privacy.

✍️ Writers​

You plan topics and write stories in the Studio. The Studio is open to the site owner only for now, so these sections also prepare future writers for when it opens up.

Writing: Core Mechanics

How topics, threads, choices, crossroads, series, endings and gems fit together.

Writing in Studio

Your first story in 15 minutes, the editor, images, writers and tags.

Publishing

Drafts, scheduling, rebuilds and publishing a whole thread.

Best Practice

Designing good threads, voice, AI personas and a pre-publish checklist.

⚙️ The site owner​

You run the site: its settings, reader accounts, pages, access tokens and AI agents.

Running the Site (Owner)

Settings, reader accounts, pages and navigation, export and import, access tokens.

Connect Your AI Agents

Let Claude Desktop, Cursor or Claude Code draft and manage stories over MCP.

Good to know​

Summary
  • Readers need no account. A reader account is optional and only syncs your place between devices.
  • A story must belong to a topic before it can be published.
  • The public site is rebuilt a few minutes after the last change, so new stories do not appear instantly.
  • The Android app has no analytics or ads, and the website does not store your search terms.

The privacy policy is the final word on what Swift Axis collects. You can read it at /page/privacy-policy on swift-axis.com.