new-blog

name	new-blog
description	Scaffold a new post in the nikiforovall.blog Jekyll repo. Copies _posts/_template.md to the right year folder, creates the matching assets folder, and primes the user on the asset/media conventions. Use whenever the user wants to "start a new post", "draft a blog post", "new blog entry", "write up X for the blog", or mentions creating content under nikiforovall.github.io / nikiforovall.blog.

New blog post scaffold

The repo groups everything by year — both _posts/<year>/ and assets/<year>/<slug>/. This skill handles the mechanical setup so the author can jump straight into writing.

Inputs to collect (ask only if missing)

• slug — kebab-case, lowercase, no date prefix. Example: aspire-keycloak-uma.
• title — human-readable post title. Required for frontmatter.
• categories — defaults to [ dotnet ] from the template; ask if the post is clearly about something else (e.g. [ ai ], [ productivity ]).
• tags — comma-separated; defaults if user doesn't specify.

Date is today (use date +%Y-%m-%d). Don't ask.

Steps

1. Compute paths (use today's date — fail loudly if date is unavailable):

   YEAR=$(date +%Y)
   DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
   POST=_posts/$YEAR/$DATE-$SLUG.md
   ASSETS=assets/$YEAR/$SLUG/
   

2. Refuse to overwrite. If POST already exists, stop and tell the user — they probably want to edit it instead.

3. Copy template and fill in title/categories/tags via a single sed/perl invocation (avoid hand-editing line by line):

   cp _posts/_template.md "$POST"
   perl -i -pe 's/^title:\s*$/title: "<TITLE>"/; s/^published:\s*false/published: false/' "$POST"
   

   Leave published: false — the user flips it when ready. Don't pre-fill description/shortinfo; those come last and depend on what's actually written.

4. Create the assets folder and a .gitkeep so it survives git add even when empty:

   mkdir -p "$ASSETS"
   touch "$ASSETS/.gitkeep"
   

5. Open the new post in VS Code (code "$POST") so the user can start writing immediately. If code isn't on PATH, just print the absolute path.

6. Print a one-screen brief covering the asset rules below — the user shouldn't have to look them up.

Asset and media rules (include in the brief)

• Reference paths are absolute, year-prefixed: /assets/<year>/<slug>/<file> — e.g. ![diagram](/assets/2026/aspire-keycloak-uma/arch.png). Never assets/... or ../assets/.... The site uses baseurl: "" with absolute internal links.
• Folder must match the post slug. Drop all per-post images, diagrams, and clips into assets/<year>/<slug>/.
• No raw GIFs. GIFs are 5–10× larger than equivalent H.264 MP4 and tank page weight. Convert with ffmpeg and embed as <video>:

  ffmpeg -i in.gif -movflags +faststart -pix_fmt yuv420p \
    -vf "scale=trunc(iw/2)*2:trunc(ih/2)*2" \
    -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset slow -an out.mp4
  

  <video src="/assets/<year>/<slug>/demo.mp4" autoplay muted loop playsinline controls aria-label="<short description>"></video>
  

  muted is required for autoplay. aria-label should describe what the clip shows, since <video> doesn't take alt.
• Normalize screen-recording MP4s. OBS / ShareX / Game Bar / macOS recordings are typically 50–200 MB, often with audio, HEVC, or non-web pixel formats. Re-encode to baseline H.264 + yuv420p + faststart, drop audio, cap width at 1600 px:

  ffmpeg -i raw.mp4 -movflags +faststart -pix_fmt yuv420p \
    -vf "scale='min(1600,iw)':-2" \
    -c:v libx264 -crf 26 -preset slow -an out.mp4
  

  Why these knobs: +faststart moves the moov atom to the front so the browser can start playback before the download finishes; yuv420p is the only pixel format Safari plays reliably; -an drops audio (most demos don't need it, and audio roughly doubles size); crf 26 is a sweet spot for screen content — raise to 28 if it's still too big, drop to 23 for high-motion. To trim: add -ss <start> -to <end> before -i (fast seek) or after (frame-accurate). Aim for ≤ 5 MB per clip; if it's still huge, the recording probably has dead time at the start/end — trim before re-encoding.
• Recompress PNGs before commit. oxipng -o 4 --strip safe <file> for lossless; pngquant --quality=70-90 --skip-if-larger --strip --force --ext .png <file> for screenshots/banners. Resize banners to ≤ 1600 px wide — the content column isn't wider than that.
• Site-wide assets are off-limits to per-post work. assets/{js,css,ico,media,resources}/ are infrastructure. Don't drop post images there.

Frontmatter notes

The template starts with published: false on purpose — flip it to true only when the post is ready to ship. description and shortinfo feed SEO/listings; fill those in once the body is written so they reflect the actual content.

What this skill explicitly does not do

• Does not write the post body.
• Does not commit or push.
• Does not flip published: true.
• Does not move existing posts between years.

These are author decisions; the skill's job is to remove the setup tax, not to ghost-write.

Example

User: "let's start a new post about aspire + keycloak UMA"

Action:

1. Slug → aspire-keycloak-uma (confirm with user if ambiguous).
2. Today → 2026-05-10, year → 2026.
3. Create _posts/2026/2026-05-10-aspire-keycloak-uma.md from template, set title.
4. Create assets/2026/aspire-keycloak-uma/.gitkeep.
5. code _posts/2026/2026-05-10-aspire-keycloak-uma.md.
6. Print the asset-rules brief.

Total: ~5 seconds, zero typing of paths.