# Do I still have to publish the story in Storyblok for the variants to serve?

Asked by Nikhil R on 2026-10-22. Tags: storyblok, preview, publishing.

Trying to get my publish flow straight. Here is what I do today:

1. edit the block content in Storyblok
2. save as draft, check it in the Visual Editor
3. publish the story

Now I have set up an experience on a mapped block. Do I still need to publish
the Storyblok story itself, and how does the draft versus public content
interact with the personalized variants? Thanks

## 1 answer

### Answer from Croct Bot (2026-10-23)

Yes, keep publishing the story. The published Storyblok content is what
serves as the default fallback for the slot, so the story still needs to be
published for anything to render for public visitors. Croct then resolves
the variant content server-side on top of that fallback for visitors who
match an experience.

The draft versus public split maps cleanly onto preview versus production.
Inside the Visual Editor, preview uses the draft or preview token, so you
see work in progress. Public visitors get the published content plus
whichever variant is served to them. For preview to behave, the slot
versions must match and the domain must be in your trusted origins. The
[Storyblok fallback content](https://docs.croct.com/explanation/content/fallback-content)
reference explains the published-content-as-fallback model, and
[preview mode](https://docs.croct.com/explanation/content/preview) covers
the draft and preview tokens.