# Draft content vs personalized variants, how do preview and public tokens interact?

Asked by tomasag on 2025-09-17. Tags: storyblok, preview, visual-editor.

Our frontend switches between the Storyblok preview token and the public token
depending on whether we're inside the Visual Editor, standard draft/published
setup. Now that some blocks are connected to Croct slots I'm confused about how
the two systems interact. If an editor changes a block in draft, does that draft
version show up in the Croct previews too? And inside the Visual Editor iframe,
which variant renders? Feels like there are two preview systems layered on top
of each other and I can't picture it

## 2 answers

### Answer from Maya Lindgren (2025-09-18)

The key thing to internalize is the division of labor: Croct resolves which
variant a visitor should get, but the content itself still flows through your
Storyblok delivery setup. So the draft/published distinction follows whatever
token your frontend is using at that moment, same as before.

Inside the Visual Editor iframe you are on the preview token, and the block
renders as the editable Storyblok default, since your Storyblok content is the
fallback for the slot. Draft edits show up there immediately like they always
did.

For checking a specific variant against a specific audience, that is what
Croct preview links are for. You generate them from the experience or
experiment editor and they are valid for 24 hours. Whether that preview shows
draft or published Storyblok data depends, again, on which token the
environment you open it on is running.

#### Reply from tomasag (2025-09-18)

ok so the trick is they are orthogonal, token decides draft vs published,
Croct decides which variant. that untangles it, thanks

### Answer from pj_frontend (2025-09-19)

Small practical tip on top of Maya's answer: we keep a staging environment
permanently on the preview token and generate Croct preview links against
that. Stakeholders then see draft copy and the personalized variant in one
link, which is usually what they actually want when reviewing. Just remember
the staging domain has to be in your trusted origins or the preview link
won't activate.