# Smart Digest overview
> Hand a topic to an agent and read one short report that keeps itself current, instead of reading every page that matched.
Smart Digest tracks a topic and keeps one short **report** current. Reach for it when you want a
read on a subject rather than a stream of pages.
If you want every matching page the moment it's crawled, use [Stream](/stream/overview) or its
[dashboard feed](/dashboard/feed). If you already know the URLs and want changes on a schedule, use
[URL Watch](/url-watch/overview). Smart Digest builds on Stream: it runs rules of its own and judges
what they catch, so the report holds only the items worth reading.
Smart Digest is in **beta** and free to use during the beta. A digest draws none of your prepaid
credit and none of your reviewable matches, and the agent's model usage is on Firehose. It's
available on every plan that includes the dashboard — see [Cost](#cost).
## What a digest is
A **digest** is one topic you want tracked: "Acme competitor tracking", "AI model launches", "Tesla
earnings coverage". Its **report** is a board of the items that cleared the bar, each with what
happened, why it matters from your point of view, and what to look at next. An **agent** writes the
rules, sets the bar, and lays out the report.
Three things people track with it: what competitors ship and price, the developments that move a
field, and where a brand is mentioned.
## How it works
1. Describe the topic. The wizard asks two or three questions and composes a **brief** you edit
before anything runs.
2. The agent explores live matches and writes rules on a tap of the digest's own.
3. It writes the judging criteria and the report layout, then publishes the first report.
4. Each refresh judges the digest's new matches against those criteria and merges what it keeps into
the report. A digest refreshes hourly, every 6 or 12 hours, daily, or weekly, at a time you
pick.
5. Chat with the agent to change what's kept, the point of view, or the layout.
## Cost
Smart Digest is free during the beta, and free means three things:
- **No credit.** The agent's exploration and every refresh, scheduled or manual, read the stream on
the digest's own key, which is free. Your prepaid balance stays where it is, and a digest keeps
refreshing at a $0 balance.
- **No matches.** Your plan's monthly reviewable matches stay whole for the feed and the export. A
digest's reads leave the [Usage](https://firehose.com/usage) page as it was.
- **No model tokens.** The agent's model usage is paid by Firehose.
The one thing a digest takes is **a tap**. Each digest owns a tap named `Smart Digest: {title}`, on
the [Taps](https://firehose.com/taps) page, and that tap counts toward your
[plan's](/billing/plans) active-tap limit. At the limit, **New digest** is unavailable and says why;
pause a tap or upgrade the plan to add a digest. A paused tap keeps its rules and holds no slot, so
on the Free plan you can try a digest without deleting the tap you already have. A digest and its tap pause, resume, and delete together —
see [Pause and resume](/smart-digest/reports#pause-and-resume) and
[A digest's tap](/organizations/taps#a-digests-tap).
The tap is otherwise an ordinary tap. If you open its feed in the dashboard, export from it, or
stream with its own `fh_` token, that is you reading matches, and it is metered like any other tap.
## Next steps
Walk the wizard, then watch the agent set the digest up.
Read a report, change its cadence, share it, and get it by email.
Change what's kept, the point of view, and the layout in chat.
The two surfaces to reach for when a summary isn't what you want.