article

Tools to semi-automate the publication of articles.

Write an article once as a JSON file. Publish it to a primary platform (Substack), then syndicate it to secondary platforms (Medium, Dev.to, Hashnode) — each pointing its canonical URL back to the primary, so you get cross-platform reach without an SEO duplicate-content penalty.

pip install 'article[substack]'
article draft-substack essay.md            # an UNPUBLISHED Substack draft

draft-substack turns a Markdown file into a Substack draft: [^n] footnotes, ![alt](src "caption") captions, $...$ LaTeX and local images (uploaded to Substack) all survive. It never publishes: you review the draft in the Substack editor and press Publish there. Add --dry-run to check and convert without credentials or network.

Markdown to a Substack draft

The essay is a plain .md file. The title is a title: in front matter, or else the # Heading (removed from the body, since Substack shows the title itself) when there is exactly one, or when the first of several opens the file; the slug is derived from the title unless front matter sets slug:. Front matter can also set subtitle, tags and description:

---
subtitle: Why everyone agrees and nobody agrees
tags: [agile, ai]
---
# The Agile Religion

A claim.[^1]

![The tower of Babel](img/babel.jpg "Bruegel, The Tower of Babel (1563)")

[^1]: The footnote text.

Image paths resolve against the Markdown file's directory. Before anything is uploaded, the command refuses (listing every case, with the line) whatever Substack would silently lose:

article draft-substack essay.md --dry-run          # what survives, no credentials needed
article draft-substack essay.md                    # create the draft; prints its edit link
article draft-substack essay.md --tables code      # keep tables as code blocks
article draft-substack essay.md --update           # rewrite the draft the last run created (refuses if you edited it in Substack; --overwrite-edits to replace those edits)
article syndicate-secondary essay.md               # refused until the Substack post is live (--allow-unpublished to override)

The draft's future public URL (<publication>/p/<slug>) is recorded as the canonical URL, so syndicate-secondary can point the other platforms at it.

Substack credentials

Substack has no official write API; this uses the unofficial python-substack client, which talks to undocumented endpoints that can change. Put one of these in .env (never commit it):

• SUBSTACK_COOKIES: the cookie header from a logged-in browser session (developer tools, Network tab, any substack.com request, the cookie request header). The most reliable route, since sign-in by email link or captcha cannot be scripted.
• SUBSTACK_COOKIES_PATH: a JSON file of cookies ({"substack.sid": "...", ...}).
• SUBSTACK_EMAIL and SUBSTACK_PASSWORD, for accounts with a password.

Set SUBSTACK_PUBLICATION_URL (e.g. https://you.substack.com) if your account has more than one publication. The live smoke test (tests/test_substack_live.py) runs only when these are set; it creates one draft and deletes it.

The single source of truth

The Substack public URL captured in phase 1 is the SSOT. It is stored (keyed by article slug) and injected as canonical_url into every secondary platform in phase 2, so each emits <link rel="canonical" href="…"> pointing back at the original.

author.json ──► publish-primary ──► Substack ──► live URL ─┐
                                                           │ stored as canonical_url
                                                           ▼  (pipeline_state.json, by slug)
                          syndicate-secondary ──► Medium / Dev.to / Hashnode
                                                  each canonical → Substack URL

The two phases are deliberately separate commands so you can syndicate later (e.g. +3 days) on your own schedule. Phase 1 creates a Substack draft; publish it in the Substack editor before syndicating.

Two-command flow

# 1. Author once, then publish to the primary (records the canonical URL):
python -m article publish-primary article.json

# 2. Later — syndicate everywhere, injecting the canonical URL for SEO:
python -m article syndicate-secondary article.json

# Subset / machine-readable output:
python -m article syndicate-secondary article.json --platforms medium,dev_to --json-out

After pip install, the article console script is equivalent (article publish-primary article.json).

The article JSON

Instead of a Markdown file, an article can be one JSON file. One standardized file is the single source of truth for content and which platforms to publish to — a platform is published only if it appears under platforms (see examples/article.example.json):

{
  "title": "Designing an SSOT Publishing Pipeline",
  "slug": "ssot-publishing-pipeline",
  "content_markdown": "# Designing an SSOT Publishing Pipeline\n\n…",
  "tags": ["python", "automation", "seo"],
  "platforms": {
    "substack": { "tables": "error" },
    "medium":   { "publish_as_draft": true },
    "dev_to":   { "publish_as_draft": true },
    "hashnode": { "publish_as_draft": true }
  }
}

Configuration

Secrets and settings load from .env (see .env.example) — copy it and fill in what you use:

cp .env.example .env

Every platform is optional; omit a platform's secrets (or its platforms entry) to skip it.

Using it from Python

The CLI is a thin wrapper over the same functions, so everything is callable programmatically:

import asyncio
from article import load_article, publish_primary, syndicate_secondary

art = load_article("article.json")
asyncio.run(publish_primary(art))  # phase 1 → records canonical_url
asyncio.run(syndicate_secondary(art))  # phase 2 → canonical SEO everywhere

Adding a platform

Adapters are registered in an open-closed registry. To add a platform, write one async function satisfying the PublishAdapter protocol and register it — no core changes:

from article import register_adapter, PublishResult
from article.util import require_canonical_url


@register_adapter("my_platform")
async def publish(article, *, canonical_url, config, secrets):
    require_canonical_url("my_platform", canonical_url)  # SSOT is never optional
    # … call the platform's API, injecting canonical_url …
    return PublishResult.success("my_platform", url="…", canonical_url=canonical_url)

Architecture

Status, per platform:

• Substack: real. Creates unpublished drafts through python-substack; never publishes.
• Medium: honest manual step. Its API is closed to new integrations, so the adapter sends nothing and reports a [todo] result: open Medium's Import a story page (https://medium.com/p/import) and paste the published Substack URL, which sets the canonical link.
• Dev.to, Hashnode: still stubs; they build the payload (with the canonical field) but make no network call.