blog-scripts

Small, dependency-free Python scripts for running a WordPress blog from local markdown, with cross-posting to dev.to. Everything uses the Python 3 standard library, so there is nothing to install.

The workflow these support:

1. Write a post as markdown with YAML front matter.
2. publish_post.py pushes it to WordPress as a draft via the REST API.
3. Finalize and publish in wp-admin (images, formatting tweaks, scheduling).
4. fetch_posts.py pulls the published posts back down as markdown, so the local directory stays an archive of what is actually live.
5. to_devto.py converts the live post into dev.to-ready markdown with a canonical_url pointing back to the original.

The scripts operate on the current working directory, so run them from your blog directory:

blog/
  .env          WordPress credentials (never committed)
  drafts/       work in progress, and generated .devto.md files
  published/    markdown archive of live posts

Setup

Create a .env in your blog directory (only needed for publish_post.py):

WP_URL=https://your-site.com
WP_USER=your-username
WP_APP_PASSWORD=xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

WP_APP_PASSWORD is a WordPress application password (wp-admin, Users, Profile, Application Passwords), not your login password.

publish_post.py

Converts a markdown file to HTML and creates a WordPress draft. Reads title, slug, excerpt, categories, and tags from the front matter, creating any categories or tags that do not exist yet. Always creates a draft, never publishes directly.

python3 path/to/publish_post.py drafts/my-post.md

fetch_posts.py

Fetches every published post from the WordPress REST API and writes each to published/<date>-<slug>.md with front matter (title, slug, date, url, categories, tags, excerpt) and the body converted to markdown.

python3 path/to/fetch_posts.py https://your-site.com

to_devto.py

Converts a live post into dev.to-ready markdown. It fetches the rendered page rather than reusing local markdown, because the live post is the source of truth once you have edited in wp-admin.

python3 path/to/to_devto.py https://your-site.com/my-post/ --tags ruby,rails

It converts headings, lists, images, blockquotes, and code blocks (fenced, with language detection), rewrites images to full-resolution WordPress URLs, normalizes curly quotes and dashes to plain ASCII, and writes drafts/<slug>.devto.md with front matter:

• published: false, so pasting into dev.to never publishes by accident
• canonical_url pointing at the original post, so your site keeps the SEO credit
• title, description, and cover image pulled from the page's meta tags

The result is also copied to the clipboard (macOS pbcopy) for pasting into the dev.to editor.

Caveats

• The markdown/HTML conversion is regex-based and intentionally simple. It covers common WordPress blocks; tables, nested lists, and embeds are not handled.
• to_devto.py locates the post body via the theme's entry-content class, which works with standard WordPress themes but may need adjusting for heavily customized ones.