Members and community

A room of your own.
Inside your site.

A circle is a named group of members with no price and no end date. Lock a post for a circle, and only the people in it read past the excerpt. You, your agent or your own app decide who is in.

Early accessThis guide uses a feature in early access. PixelGlass turns it on for a publication on request while it is new.

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Say it to your agent

Make a circle called Founding members, and lock my lounge posts for it.

  • list_circles
  • create_circle
  • update_circle
  • add_to_circle

Two ways to do it.

By hand

In the admin

  1. Open Audience, press Circles, then New circle.
  2. Give it a Name and a Description. Under Join page, put the address where a reader learns how to get in. Save.
  3. Open a member's page. Under Circles, choose the circle and press Add. For many people, tick them on Audience and use Circle in the bar.
  4. Open a post's settings drawer. Under Who can read, choose Circles and tick the circle.
  5. A reader outside sees the title, the cover and the excerpt, then Learn how to join, which opens the join page.

With your agent

In Claude, ChatGPT or your editor

Make a circle called Founding members, with our lifetime offer page as its join page.

Put ana@example.com and leo@example.com in Founding members.

Make “Studio notes, March” readable by the Founding members circle only.

Take sam@example.com out of the Cohort 3 circle.

The tools it calls

  • list_circles
  • create_circle
  • update_circle
  • add_to_circle
  • remove_from_circle
  • list_posts
  • update_post_settings

For example

  • A course, cohort by cohort

    A writing teacher makes a circle for each cohort. The lesson posts for Cohort 3 open only to Cohort 3, and the circle stays after the course ends.

  • Notes for clients

    A consultant keeps a Clients circle. Briefings are for that circle, and the join page is her contact page.

  • Founders, kept in step by an app

    A fitness app sells lifetime plans in its own checkout. Each night its code puts new lifetime buyers in the Founders circle on the PixelGlass site.

Questions, answered

What is a circle on PixelGlass?
A named group of members with no price. A post can be for one or more circles, and a member in any of them reads it whole.
How is a circle different from a tier?
A tier is what a member pays for through PixelGlass. A circle is a group a member belongs to, with no price. A member can be on a tier and in many circles at once.
What does a reader outside the circle see?
The title, the cover and the excerpt, then a Learn how to join link when the circle has a join page. A circle is never sold on the site.
Can my own app decide who is in a circle?
Yes. With a staff key, your app finds the circle by its slug and puts members in or takes them out through the admin's JSON, one at a time or many at once.
Can I delete a circle that posts are for?
No. PixelGlass names the posts that are for it, so you change who can read them first.
Who can manage circles?
Admins and the owner, on the screen or through an agent they connect.

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