| name | website-publisher |
| description | Manage your author website — auto-publish books on completion, draft blog posts from your projects, render and deploy with one command |
| triggers | ["publish my site","publish my website","update my website","update my site","deploy my website","deploy my site","render my site","render my website","draft a blog post","write a blog post","blog post about","announce my new book","new release post","behind the scenes post","excerpt post","teaser post","link site to project","register my site","set up my website"] |
| permissions | ["file_write","shell_exec"] |
Website Publisher
The management layer on top of AuthorClaw's static-site builder. Generates
your site, keeps it in sync with your books, drafts blog posts from your
project artifacts, and pushes the rendered site to your host.
This skill is deliberately not a CMS. AuthorClaw is for producing books
— shipping a working site is part of that, but maintaining a fully
interactive web property isn't. Authors who need comments, forms, ESP
integration UIs, or deep analytics should keep using the WordPress /
Squarespace / Ghost they already have.
What it does
1. Sites — register, link, manage
A "site" is a deployable unit (one author or one pen name typically). Each
site has:
- A config (slug, name, tagline, base URL, primary color, social links)
- A list of linked projects (when those projects complete, their
books auto-publish to the site's books list)
- A list of blog posts (drafts + published — drafted by this skill)
- A deploy target (Netlify / Vercel / Cloudflare Pages / rsync /
manual zip / none)
POST /api/sites Create a site
GET /api/sites List all sites + freshness status
PATCH /api/sites/:id Update config / linked projects / deploy target
DELETE /api/sites/:id Remove a site
POST /api/sites/:id/link-project { projectId }
2. Auto-add books on project completion
When a book-production or novel-pipeline project completes AND the
project is linked to one or more sites, the book is auto-added to each
site's books list. Idempotent on slug — re-completing the project updates
the existing entry.
The author still has to render + deploy explicitly — auto-publishing a
brand-new book without review would be too aggressive. The dashboard shows
each site's pendingChanges count so the author knows when a render is
needed.
3. Blog post drafter
Four post types, each pulling different project artifacts into a focused
prompt:
| Type | What it produces |
|---|
release_announcement | New-release post: 500-700 words, conversational, with buy-link CTAs |
behind_the_scenes | Process post: 700-900 words pulling from chapter summaries + user-model + craft-critic flags |
excerpt | Excerpt-with-tease post: lead-in → verbatim scene → tease → CTA |
teaser | Coming-soon post: 350-500 words building anticipation without overselling |
POST /api/blog-posts/draft
{
"postType": "behind_the_scenes",
"projectId": "project-12",
"siteId": "my-pen-name-site", // optional — auto-add to site's queue
"authorAngle": "I want to talk about how I cut chapter 7 four times"
}
Drafts go to pending review. Author edits in the dashboard, then the
post is rendered + deployed with the next publish.
4. Render + deploy
POST /api/sites/:id/render Re-render the static site files
POST /api/sites/:id/deploy Push the rendered files to the host
POST /api/sites/:id/publish Combined: render + deploy in one call
GET /api/site-deploy/doctor Probe which deploy CLIs are installed
Deploy adapters supported (each shells out to the host's CLI; we don't
bundle them):
- netlify —
netlify deploy --prod (requires netlify-cli)
- vercel —
vercel deploy --prod (requires vercel)
- cloudflare-pages —
wrangler pages deploy (requires wrangler)
- rsync — push to your own server via SSH (requires
rsync)
- manual-zip — produces a ZIP file at
workspace/exports/website/
that you upload manually via your host's web UI. The safe default.
Works on every host without auth setup.
- none — render only, no deploy
Tokens are read from process.env at deploy time using a configured
tokenEnvVar name. Tokens are never stored in AuthorClaw config.
What this skill does NOT do
- ❌ Not a CMS (no comments, forms, plugins, themes marketplace)
- ❌ Not an ESP integration (paste your own ConvertKit / MailerLite /
Beehiiv embed code into the site config — already supported)
- ❌ Not an SEO settings panel (we already auto-emit sitemap.xml,
RSS feed, and OG tags from your config)
- ❌ Not multi-tenant (local-first; one author's machine, their sites)
- ❌ Not a scheduling system (a future cron handler can do this; it's
not built in v1)
Recommended workflow
- Set up —
POST /api/sites once. Configure title, baseUrl, social
links, deploy target.
- Link your projects —
POST /api/sites/:id/link-project for each
book project you want featured on the site.
- Write your books — when projects complete, books auto-add to the
site's books list. Author sees
pendingChanges increment.
- Draft blog posts as new releases ship — release announcements,
behind-the-scenes, excerpts, teasers.
- Publish —
POST /api/sites/:id/publish renders + deploys in one
call. Or render and deploy separately for control.
When to NOT use this skill
If you already have a working WordPress / Squarespace / Ghost / Wix site
that fits your workflow, AuthorClaw can still complement it (cover gen,
blog post drafts you paste into your CMS, etc.) — but you don't need this
skill. Use it when you want a clean static site that auto-syncs with your
AuthorClaw projects with minimal hosting cost ($0 on Netlify free tier
for most authors).
