How Often Should You Re-Process Your Content for AI?

“Process once and forget” is wrong. Content evolves: you edit posts, you change pricing, you correct facts, the spec around licensing tightens, AIOX itself ships improvements. So how often should you re-process your archive? Here’s the practical answer.

The default — re-process on save

Auto-mode (which is on by default) re-processes a post whenever WordPress fires save_post. Edit a post, hit Update, the Capsule re-generates within ~5 seconds. This handles the most common case (you fixed a typo, added a paragraph, updated a stat) without any operator action.

You can turn auto-mode off and switch to manual if you want to batch edits. Most operators leave it on.

When to manually re-process the whole archive

Two scenarios:

1. A change in your licensing posture

If you change your Content Licensing config (e.g. switch from “indexing-only” to “indexing-and-citation” for a specific bot), existing Capsules still carry the OLD license field. A bulk re-process updates them all. Takes ~20-40 minutes for a 500-post archive.

2. A new AIOX version that improves Capsule output

Roughly once per quarter we ship a Capsule format upgrade — better intent inference, an additional Schema.org type supported, richer audience signals. When this happens, the dashboard prompts you with a one-click “re-process to take advantage of v1.X improvements” button. The decision is yours; old Capsules stay valid until you re-process.

Time-based re-processing schedule

For most operators, a sensible cadence:

• Weekly: re-process any posts touched (handled automatically by auto-mode).
• Monthly: re-process the top-10 trafficked posts (in case content drift / dependency drift has crept in).
• Quarterly: full archive re-process if a Capsule format upgrade has shipped, or after a major licensing config change.
• Annually: full archive re-process regardless, to pick up any accumulated improvements you might have missed.

Cost of re-processing

Each re-process costs the same as the original (1,200-1,800 tokens for a typical post). The Pro plan ($29/month, 500k tokens) covers an annual full re-process of an ~350-post archive without buying a token pack. Heavier sites use packs for the bulk runs.

What re-processing doesn’t change

• The URL stays the same. The Capsule ID stays the same. The Capsule is just versioned — old version archived, new version current.
• Downstream AI systems pick up the new version on their next fetch. No coordination needed.
• If you’ve added custom per-post schema overrides (via the Schema Generator’s override panel), those overrides survive re-processing.

When NOT to re-process

• You haven’t changed the post content, the licensing config, or AIOX version. Nothing would change.
• You’re mid-investigation in AI Forensics — wait until the investigation completes so your “before” and “after” measurements are clean.
• You’re at <15% of your token budget for the month and have other planned operations. Save the budget for those.