If you published a guideline and found that a different one for the same brand is suddenly back to draft, that is working as designed. A brand can have only one published guideline at a time.
What happens
When you publish a guideline, any other published guideline for the same brand is set back to draft automatically. There is no warning and no confirmation step.
This applies per brand, not per workspace. Two brands can each have their own published guideline at the same time without affecting each other.
Why it works this way
A published guideline is the public, shareable version of a brand's standards. Its link, QR code, and social share all point at one page. Allowing two live guidelines for the same brand would mean two competing public answers to "what are this brand's rules?", so publishing a new one replaces the old.
What is affected when a guideline goes back to draft
The guideline itself is untouched. Nothing is deleted and no content changes. What stops working is everything that depends on being published:
- Its public link stops resolving for anyone you shared it with.
- Its QR code no longer opens the guideline.
- Download PDF and Brand Kit exports are unavailable until it is published again.
Export Image still works, since that is the one export that does not need publishing. See export and download guidelines.
If you shared a guideline link with people outside your team, publishing a different guideline for the same brand breaks that link. Send the new one, or republish the original.
Working with versions
Because publishing swaps which guideline is live, keep drafts as drafts while you work. Publish only when you want that version to be the public one.
To go back to a previous guideline, open it and publish it. The one that is currently live moves to draft, and the swap happens the same way in reverse.