wiki/content/blog/how-to-publish.md

title, description, date, slug, published, tags, readTime

title	description	date	slug	published	tags	readTime
How to Publish a Blog Post	A quick guide to writing and publishing markdown blog posts using Cursor after your blog is set up.	2025-01-17	how-to-publish	true	tutorial markdown cursor publishing	3 min read

How to Publish a Blog Post

Your blog is set up. Now you want to publish. This guide walks through writing a markdown post and syncing it to your live site using Cursor.

Create a New Post

In Cursor, create a new file in content/blog/:

content/blog/my-new-post.md

The filename can be anything. The URL comes from the slug field in the frontmatter.

Add Frontmatter

Every post starts with frontmatter between triple dashes:

---
title: "Your Post Title"
description: "A one-sentence summary for SEO and social sharing"
date: "2025-01-17"
slug: "your-post-url"
published: true
tags: ["tag1", "tag2"]
readTime: "5 min read"
---

Field	Required	What It Does
title	Yes	Displays as the post heading
description	Yes	Shows in search results and sharing
date	Yes	Publication date (YYYY-MM-DD)
slug	Yes	Becomes the URL path
published	Yes	Set true to show, false to hide
tags	Yes	Topic labels for the post
readTime	No	Estimated reading time
image	No	Open Graph image for social sharing

Write Your Content

Below the frontmatter, write your post in markdown:

# Your Post Title

Opening paragraph goes here.

## First Section

Content for the first section.

### Subheading

More details here.

- Bullet point one
- Bullet point two

## Code Example

\`\`\`typescript
const greeting = "Hello, world";
console.log(greeting);
\`\`\`

## Conclusion

Wrap up your thoughts.

Sync to Convex

Open Cursor's terminal and run:

npm run sync

This reads all markdown files in content/blog/, parses the frontmatter, and uploads them to your Convex database.

You should see output like:

Syncing posts to Convex...
Synced: my-new-post
Done! Synced 1 post(s).

Your post is now live. No rebuild. No redeploy. The site updates in real time.

Publish to Production

If you have separate dev and prod Convex deployments, sync to production.

First-time setup: Create .env.production.local in your project root:

VITE_CONVEX_URL=https://your-prod-deployment.convex.cloud

Get your production URL from the Convex Dashboard by selecting your project and switching to the Production deployment.

Sync to production:

npm run sync:prod

Environment Files

File	Purpose
.env.local	Dev deployment (created by npx convex dev)
.env.production.local	Prod deployment (create manually)

Both files are gitignored.

Quick Workflow in Cursor

Here is the full workflow:

1. Create file: content/blog/my-post.md
2. Add frontmatter: Title, description, date, slug, published, tags
3. Write content: Markdown with headings, lists, code blocks
4. Sync: Run npm run sync in terminal
5. View: Open your site and navigate to /your-slug

Tips

Draft posts: Set published: false to save a post without showing it on the site.

Update existing posts: Edit the markdown file and run npm run sync again. Changes appear instantly.

Delete posts: Remove the markdown file from content/blog/ and run sync. The post will be removed from the database.

Unique slugs: Each post needs a unique slug. The sync will fail if two posts share the same slug.

Date format: Use YYYY-MM-DD format for the date field.

Adding Images

Place images in public/images/ and reference them in your post:

![Screenshot of the dashboard](/images/dashboard.png)

For the Open Graph image (social sharing), add to frontmatter:

image: "/images/my-post-og.png"

Checking Your Post

After syncing, verify your post:

1. Open your local dev server: http://localhost:5173
2. Your post should appear in the post list
3. Click through to check formatting
4. Test code blocks and images render correctly

Adding Static Pages

You can also create static pages like About, Projects, or Contact. These appear as navigation links in the top right.

1. Create a file in content/pages/:

content/pages/about.md

2. Add frontmatter:

---
title: "About"
slug: "about"
published: true
order: 1
---

Your page content here...

3. Run npm run sync

The page will appear in the navigation. Use order to control the display sequence (lower numbers appear first).

Summary

Publishing is three steps:

1. Write markdown in content/blog/ or content/pages/
2. Run npm run sync
3. Done

The Convex database updates immediately. Your site reflects changes in real time. No waiting for builds or deployments.