CPDH.guide — Publishing Checklist

Copy this checklist for every article. Work top to bottom.

BEFORE YOU START

• Copy template.md into _posts/
• Name the file: YYYY-MM-DD-short-title-slug.md
  • Example: 2026-05-26-deckbuilding-fundamentals.md
  • Use today’s date, all lowercase, hyphens not spaces, no special characters

FRONT MATTER

• title: — compelling, specific, clickable. No clickbait, no ALL CAPS.
• date: — today’s date in YYYY-MM-DD format

• [ ] creator: — one of: guide

  pdhpod

  jalapenos

• author: — key from _data/authors.yml, or "First Last" for guest authors
• categories: — exactly ONE from:
  • Game Guides
  • Deck Tech
  • Videos
  • Community
  • Tournament Reports
  • Events
• front_page: — true or false
  • true = eligible for homepage (reserve for strong, original content)
  • false = articles page only
• hidden: — false (only set true for drafts not ready to publish)
• archive_only: — false (set true for things like event recaps you want archived but not in the main feed)
• gnews: — true or false
  • true = will auto-post to Reddit, Discord, and Google News via RSS
  • false = site only
• header.overlay_image: — wide banner image (1200×630px or larger)
• header.teaser: — 16:9 thumbnail image (same image is fine)
• excerpt: — 1–2 plain sentences. No markdown, no quotes. Shows on homepage and in feeds.

IMAGES

• All images uploaded to assets/images/
• File names: lowercase, no spaces (use hyphens): my-image.jpg not My Image.jpg
• Referenced with a leading slash: /assets/images/my-image.jpg
• Images in the article body sized appropriately:

  <img src="/assets/images/name.jpg" alt="Description" style="width: 50%; display: block; margin: 0 auto;">
  

ARTICLE BODY

• Opening paragraph is strong — hooks the reader immediately
• No “In this article, we will…” openers
• Section headings use ## (H2)
• YouTube embeds use the iframe from YouTube’s Share → Embed button
• Blockquotes use > for pull quotes
• `

` is at the bottom of the content

• `

` is the very last line

FINAL CHECKS

• Spell check the title and excerpt
• Read the excerpt aloud — does it make sense on its own?
• Check that the teaser image looks good at 16:9 (not weirdly cropped)

PUBLISHING

git add .
git commit -m "Add: [article title here]"
git push

• Wait 1–3 minutes for GitHub Pages to rebuild
• Visit cpdh.guide and confirm the article is live
• Check the homepage if front_page: true — confirm it appears correctly
• If gnews: true — confirm it appears in https://cpdh.guide/gnews.xml

FOR SUBMITTED CONTENT (PDHpod / Jalapenos)

When you receive a Formspree submission email:

• Create a new file in _posts/ using template.md
• Fill in front matter from the email fields
• Paste the article body
• Set creator: to pdhpod or jalapenos as appropriate
• Add `

` and `

` at the bottom

• Review for quality and formatting
• Publish using the steps above