Nature Precedings functioned as a permanent, citable archive for pre-publication research and preliminary findings.

It provided a rapid way to share preliminary findings, disseminate emerging results, solicit community feedback, and claim priority over discoveries.

[1] Nature Precedings supported the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH, version 2).

Submitted documents were not reviewed by editors or experts, and "genuine contributions from qualified scientists"[1] were accepted for immediate posting.

Opportunity for non-anonymous, informal peer review was available through a commenting system on the Nature Precedings website.