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Documentation / Getting Started

Running your first check

A governance check observes the public surface of a Site, assesses each of the eight artefacts and stores the results as an immutable Run.

Automatic checks

Verification includes one automatic first-check opportunity across the eight artefacts: the six fixed text files, Cookies & Consent and Sitemaps. Check the status shown in Flowpane; Waiting to start or Needs attention does not promise a completion time. You can run a check manually. Further automatic checks depend on your plan. See Check scheduling.

Manual checks

Editors and Admins can start a check at any time:

  • Run all checks in the Site header runs every artefact for that Site.
  • The play button on a row in the Sites list, or Run checks in the bulk bar after selecting several Sites, does the same for one or many Sites.
  • The play icon on an individual artefact card runs only that artefact.

What happens during a check

For each artefact, Flowpane:

  1. Fetches the resource from your site, for example https://yoursite.com/robots.txt, identifying itself as Flowpane.
  2. Parses the content according to the relevant specification.
  3. Records Issues, Warnings, Recommendations and Information using the shared finding contract, where that artefact uses it.
  4. Computes the artefact-specific score when the evidence allows.
  5. Stores an immutable Result under the parent Run and recomputes the Site score.

A run normally takes well under a minute. Sitemap runs that include a Deep Scan crawl take longer.

Viewing results

When the run completes, the Site header score, the artefact tabs and the Sites list all update. Open an artefact tab to see its findings and, for the six fixed text files, the Workbench where you can prepare a Proposed draft. Drafts are stored in Flowpane and do not change the observed result or the score; only a later public check does. See Workstation overview.

Cookies & Consent is evidence-only and has no editor. Sitemaps opens the specialised Sitemap Workbench with its own scan, crawl, editor and deployment lifecycle. See Sitemaps & Crawl.