Your first reply

Before your first draft

Fill in your business context and voice first. It takes about ten minutes and it is the difference between a draft you send and a draft you rewrite.

Generating before configuring is the most common first-day mistake. The result is a generic draft, which gives an inaccurate impression of the product.

The sequence

1. Open a real post you could genuinely answer.
2. Scroll so the comments you are responding to are on screen.
3. Click into the comment box. The Reply Pilots button appears beside the composer.
4. Press the button. The panel opens.
5. Pick a style if this reply needs a different register from your default.
6. Pick a length. Short suits most comment threads.
7. Toggle Match the room if the thread reads noticeably more casual or more technical than you.
8. Generate, and read the whole draft.
9. Edit one sentence — usually to add the detail only you would know.
10. Insert. The text goes into the composer.
11. Send it yourself.

Steps 2, 9 and 11 are the ones that matter, and they are the ones people skip.

Why scrolling first matters

The draft is generated from what is rendered on your screen when you press the button. It does not scroll for you, expand replies hidden behind "view more", or open other pages.

So if the comment you are answering is below the fold, the draft cannot know about it. This is also the answer to "why did it repeat what someone already said" — those comments were not on screen.

Scroll so the relevant part of the thread is visible, then press the button. The draft is only as aware as the screen was.

The controls

Style and length are per-reply. Your voice, your business context and your rules are standing settings and apply to every draft — see Styles and length.

The edit that matters

A draft handles structure, register and length. What it cannot supply is the specific thing only you know: the part that usually fails, what it typically costs, the case where the obvious answer is wrong.

That sentence is what makes a reply worth reading. Adding it takes about ten seconds and is the single highest-value habit in using this product.

Nothing is posted

Insertion puts text into the composer. It does not submit it.

There is no auto-reply, no scheduler and no publishing integration anywhere in Reply Pilots, so the final action is always yours. That is a design decision rather than a missing feature — an unreviewed public reply is the one failure with no undo.

If the first draft disappoints