Pwd9000 Ml Blog Devto Blog Devto

New Blog Post: Scaffold, Draft, and Validate

Create new DEV.to articles with correct structure, front matter, cover art, and house style. Also validates existing posts for consistency issues.

When to Use

• Creating a brand-new blog post from scratch
• Generating a cover image for any post
• Validating an existing post for front matter, links, footer, or style issues
• Fixing inconsistencies in an existing article

Step 1: Gather Inputs

Ask the user for the following (infer sensible defaults where possible):

If the user already provided these in their message, skip the interview and proceed.

Step 2: Create Folder Structure

posts/<year>/<slug>/
├── <slug>.md
└── assets/
    └── main.png   (generated in Step 3)

• The Markdown filename must match the folder slug exactly (dash-cased).
• Create the assets/ subfolder even if cover generation is deferred.

Step 3: Generate Cover Image

Run the cover image generator:

python scripts/cover_creative.py --title "<Title>" --subtitle "<Subtitle>" --output "posts/<year>/<slug>/assets/main.png"

• Output must be assets/main.png at 1000×420 pixels.
• Default behaviour is weighted random style selection to keep covers varied and creative.
• Optional: set a specific style when requested with --style mesh-gradient|blueprint|duotone-noise|sunset-waves|minimal-paper|neon-grid|aurora-mist|retro-terminal|geometric-collage.
• Optional: set --seed <number> for repeatable output during refinement.
• If Python or Pillow is unavailable, create the assets/ folder and note the cover must be added manually.

Step 4: Populate the Markdown File

Use Blog-template/BlogTemplate.md as the skeleton. Apply these mandatory rules:

Front Matter

---
title: '<Title>'
published: false
description: '<Description, max 150 chars>'
tags: '<tag1, tag2, tag3, tag4>'
cover_image: 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Pwd9000-ML/blog-devto/main/posts/<year>/<slug>/assets/main.png'
canonical_url: null
id: null
series: <Series or null>
date: '<ISO 8601 timestamp>'
---

Rules:

• description must be ≤150 characters. Count before writing. If it exceeds 150, shorten it.
• tags max 4 tags, comma-separated, single-quoted.
• cover_image must use the format https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Pwd9000-ML/blog-devto/main/posts/.... Never use refs/heads/main variant.
• published must be false for new posts.
• id must be null for new posts.
• date must be ISO 8601 format: 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ'.
• All string values should be single-quoted.

Content Style

• Use British English spelling throughout (e.g. colour, organisation, summarise, behaviour).
• Do not use emdashes (—). Use a full stop or comma instead.
• First ## heading is the article title as rendered by DEV.to.
• Use ## for major sections, ### for subsections.
• Separate major sections with --- horizontal rules only when it improves readability.
• Reference images via raw GitHub CDN: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Pwd9000-ML/blog-devto/main/posts/<year>/<slug>/assets/<file>.
• Place runnable code samples in a code/ subfolder when practical, and link with relative paths.
• When referencing facts or external information, use verifiable online sources.

Footer (Mandatory, Exact Block)

Every post must end with this exact footer:

### _Author_

{% user pwd9000 %}

Like, share, follow me on: :octopus: [GitHub](https://github.com/Pwd9000-ML) | :penguin: [X](https://x.com/pwd9000) | :space_invader: [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-pwd9000/)

Date: DD-MM-YYYY

• LinkedIn URL must be https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-pwd9000/ (single trailing slash, no double slashes).
• Date format is DD-MM-YYYY (day-month-year).

Step 5: Run Quality Checks

After creating or editing a post, validate:

5a. Front Matter Validation

• description is ≤150 characters
• tags has at most 4 tags
• cover_image uses raw.githubusercontent.com/Pwd9000-ML/blog-devto/main/posts/... (not refs/heads/main)
• cover_image points to a file that exists in assets/
• date is valid ISO 8601
• All string values are single-quoted
• published: false for drafts

5b. Footer Validation

• Footer block matches the exact template above
• LinkedIn URL is /in/marcel-pwd9000/ (not /in/marcel-l-61b0a96b/, not double //)
• Date line is present with DD-MM-YYYY format

5c. Content Validation

• No emdashes (—) in text
• British English spelling used (check common words: colour, organisation, summarise, licence, behaviour, analyse, customise)
• All image references use valid raw GitHub CDN URLs
• No broken relative links
• Markdown filename matches folder slug (dash-cased)

5d. Formatting

Run Prettier to ensure consistent formatting:

yarn prettier:write

If the post uses <!-- embedme --> directives, sync them:

yarn embedme:write

Step 6: Summary

After completing all steps, provide:

1. The full path to the new post
2. Any validation issues found and fixed
3. Reminder that the cover image is at assets/main.png (or note if generation was skipped)
4. Reminder to set published: true and push to main when ready to publish

Audit Mode

When asked to validate or audit an existing post (rather than create a new one), skip Steps 1-4 and run Step 5 against the specified post. Report all issues found, grouped by category, with specific line numbers and suggested fixes.

For bulk auditing across multiple posts, check each post and produce a summary table:

Reference: Existing Series Names

Use these exact strings when assigning a series to maintain grouping on DEV.to:

• GitHub Copilot
• Terraform ERRORS!

Check existing posts in the same topic area before creating a new series name.

Source: Pwd9000-ML/blog-devto — distributed by TomeVault.