By default, Mato writes a script and generates audio for it without waiting on you. If you would rather read every script before it becomes audio, turn on manual review. This guide covers where that setting lives, what changes once it is on, and what to check before you approve a script.
If manual review is off, everything in this guide still works the same way for scripts you choose to open and approve manually; Mato just does not wait for you before generating audio.
Turn on manual review
Open the podcast and click Advanced in the sidebar. In the Review and automation card, set Scripts to Wait for my review instead of Go straight to audio. With review on, you can read and edit each script before audio is made. Turn on Email me when a script is ready if you want a notification each time a script is waiting on you.
Script review is separate from the publish rule in Distribution. Setting When an episode is ready to Wait for my review holds finished episodes, not scripts: they wait in Episodes, marked In review, until you publish.
Recognize when a script needs review
Once manual review is on, a script generated for this podcast gets the status Ready for review. Open the episode and go to the Script tab to see it.
What to check
Read the intro and outro first. Confirm they set up the topic clearly and do not repeat each other. If the script has sourced claims, turn on Highlight sources under Check it in the inspector's Tools tab to see which lines are grounded in your material, which came from a URL you included, and which came from web search; click any highlighted line to see its source.
Check the segment order and the speaker balance shown in the segment rail. If one host dominates, or the flow feels off, reorder or edit segments before approving.
If anything needs a fix, edit directly in the document, or ask Mato to rewrite a segment or the whole script from the Ask composer. See Edit your episode script for the full editing workflow. Editing and saving a draft does not start audio generation on its own.
Approve the script
Open the inspector's Issues tab and confirm it reads "No issues. The script is ready to approve." Then click Approve and generate audio.
Mato saves your edits as the approved revision, records who approved it and when, and queues an audio generation job. You are returned to the episode overview, where a banner confirms: "Script approved. Audio generation has started for this episode."
While audio is generating, the script becomes read-only. Once it finishes, you can still open the script editor to read it, and you can generate audio again if you make further edits.
Related articles
- Edit your episode script covers the full script editor, including the Ask composer and source highlighting used during review.
- Episode lifecycle states explains how "Ready for review" fits into the episode's overall status.