Introduction
In Lighthouse, content can have four different states: new, bookmarked, archived, and dismissed.
They are shown in the respective pages:
newis shown in the inboxbookmarkedis shown in the libraryarchivedis shown in the archivedismissedis also shown in the archive, but has to be enabled
The inbox is the place where new content lands. It is designed for fast and easy content curation, to bookmark the interesting items and dismiss the rest.
The library is the primary reading place. Content stays in the library until it is archived. It is also possible to create views to organize the content in the library.
The archive is where archived and dismissed content lands. By following the workflow, archived content is a clean archive of everything you've read. And by enabling the "show dismissed items" option, all content from all sources is shown.
Workflow
Lighthouse separates content curation (inbox) from content consumption (library).
The primary focus of the inbox is to find interesting content among everything that was published. It should be used for going through new content and deciding if it is relevant.
The best way to use the inbox is to scroll down, bookmark interesting content, and upon arriving at the end, use the "dismiss all" button to remove the rest.
The primary focus of the library is content consumption (e.g. reading articles), show curated content, and organize content via views.
It is designed that way because often it is not possible to read everything right away. Sometimes articles are read weeks or months after they were published. Separating inbox and library makes it easier to stay on top of new content and at the same time have an overview of bookmarked content.
When to use dismiss state
The dismiss state should be used for content that is of no interest at all. If it is generally interesting, but the summary or a quick scan is enough to get the main points, it's still better to archive instead of dismissing it.
The difference in archive and dismissed states is the basis for the bookmark ratio of content subscriptions, which helps with finding sources that publish little interesting content, and can therefore be unsubscribed.