I write this blog in Markdown. Each post is a file in a GitHub repository, and pushing the file is what publishes it. WordPress still serves the site, but I do not write in its editor.<\/p>\n
This is the third post about how this blog is built. The earlier ones cover running WordPress at \/blog on a Laravel site<\/a> and sharing posts on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n A post file looks like this:<\/p>\n I went with a private repo. In a public one, every unfinished draft and every old revision is visible from the moment it is pushed. A private repo can be made public later; the reverse does not un-publish anything.<\/p>\n I also kept posts in their own repo, away from the blog’s code. The code repo has a release branch and runs Composer on every deploy, which is too much ceremony for fixing a typo.<\/p>\n The server has its own clone of the posts repo and pulls it with a read-only deploy key.<\/p>\n The command is a plain function registered with Front matter.<\/strong> WordPress has no YAML parser and I did not want one for six keys. A few lines of regex read How it works<\/h2>\n
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posts\/some-slug.md<\/code> and push to main<\/code>.<\/li>\n---\ntitle: My first post\ndate: 2026-10-20 09:00\nexcerpt: One or two sentences shown in listings and on LinkedIn.\ncategories: [WordPress]\ntags: [composer, deployment]\n---<\/span>\n\nThe post body in Markdown.<\/code><\/pre>\nThe rules I settled on<\/h2>\n
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posts\/my-first-post.md<\/code> becomes \/blog\/my-first-post\/<\/code>.<\/li>\ndate<\/code> schedules the post.<\/strong> Pushing a file never has to mean publishing it now. I write several posts in one sitting and give each a date.<\/li>\ndate<\/code> publishes straight away.<\/strong> This is also how a typo fix reaches a live post.<\/li>\nstatus: draft<\/code> holds a post back<\/strong> whatever its date.<\/li>\nPublic or private repo<\/h2>\n
The workflow<\/h2>\n
name:<\/span> Publish<\/span> posts<\/span>\n\non:<\/span>\n push:<\/span>\n branches:<\/span> [<\/span> \"main\"<\/span> ]<\/span>\n paths:<\/span> [<\/span> \"posts\/**\"<\/span> ]<\/span>\n workflow_dispatch:<\/span>\n\njobs:<\/span>\n publish:<\/span>\n runs-on:<\/span> ubuntu-latest<\/span>\n steps:<\/span>\n -<\/span> name:<\/span> Sync<\/span> posts<\/span> to<\/span> WordPress<\/span>\n uses:<\/span> appleboy\/ssh-action@v1.2.0<\/span>\n with:<\/span>\n host:<\/span> ${{<\/span> secrets.SSH_HOST<\/span> }}<\/span>\n username:<\/span> ${{<\/span> secrets.SSH_USERNAME<\/span> }}<\/span>\n key:<\/span> ${{<\/span> secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY<\/span> }}<\/span>\n port:<\/span> ${{<\/span> secrets.SSH_PORT<\/span> }}<\/span>\n script:<\/span> |\n set -e\n cd ~\/blog_posts\n git pull origin main\n wp --path=~\/blog_wp myblog sync-posts ~\/blog_posts\/posts<\/span><\/code><\/pre>\nThe sync command<\/h2>\n
WP_CLI::add_command()<\/code>. These are the parts worth explaining.<\/p>\nkey: value<\/code> pairs, and turn [a, b]<\/code> into a list:<\/p>\nif<\/span> ( preg_match( '\/\\A---\\R(.*?)\\R---(?:\\R(.*))?\\z\/s'<\/span>, $text, $parts ) ) {\n $text = isset<\/span>( $parts[2<\/span>] ) ? $parts[2<\/span>] : ''<\/span>;\n\n foreach<\/span> ( preg_split( '\/\\R\/'<\/span>, $parts[1<\/span>] ) as<\/span> $line ) {\n if<\/span> ( preg_match( '\/^([a-z_]+):\\s*(.*)$\/'<\/span>, $line, $pair ) ) {\n $meta[ $pair[1<\/span>] ] = trim( $pair[2<\/span>] ); \/\/ lists are split on commas here<\/span>\n }\n }\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n