Devto

Dev.to

Publish markdown to Dev.to through the Forem API. Authenticated as magnusrodseth (user id 3803258).

The key lives in 1Password at op://Private/Dev.to API Key/credential on the personal account (my.1password.eu). Never read it into a variable that gets printed, never paste it into a URL, never echo it. scripts/devto.sh resolves it per call and keeps it out of stdout.

The two rules that matter

Draft first, always. published defaults to false. Create the draft, hand the user the edit URL, let them read it rendered in Dev.to's own editor. Publishing is a separate command.

Publishing is close to irreversible. The Forem API has no DELETE endpoint. Once published, an article mints a public URL that gets crawled, cached and syndicated within minutes. unpublish hides it from the site but does not undo distribution. Treat publish as outward-facing: confirm explicitly with the user before running it, every time, even if they authorized a publish earlier in the session.

Commands

S=~/.claude/skills/devto/scripts/devto.sh

bash $S whoami                              # verify auth
bash $S list [published|unpublished|all]    # your articles, id + title + state
bash $S get <id>                            # one article as JSON

bash $S draft <file.md> [--title T] [--tags "a,b,c"] [--description D] [--canonical URL]
bash $S update <id> <file.md> [same flags]
bash $S publish <id>                        # GATED: confirm with the user first
bash $S unpublish <id>                      # hide a published article

draft and update read the markdown file, strip any YAML frontmatter (see below), and send it as body_markdown. Both print the article id and both URLs on success.

The frontmatter trap

Forem parses YAML frontmatter inside body_markdown and lets it override the JSON fields. Vault notes and blog posts almost always carry frontmatter with type:, created:, tags:, related: and other keys Forem does not understand, which produces a mangled post or a 422.

scripts/devto.sh strips a leading --- block before sending. That is the correct default. If the user genuinely wants Forem-style frontmatter to drive the metadata, pass --keep-frontmatter and make sure the block contains only keys Forem accepts (title, published, tags, series, cover_image, canonical_url, description).

When publishing a vault note, the publishable text is usually only the part below a --- separator partway down the file. Read the file and confirm what the article actually starts at rather than assuming the whole file is the post.

Field rules

• tags on write is a comma-separated string, max 4 tags, lowercase alphanumeric only. On read the same data comes back as tag_list, an array. Do not send an array.
• title is required on create unless frontmatter supplies it.
• description is the social and SEO snippet. Keep it under about 150 characters.
• canonical_url points at the original when cross-posting, so the source keeps the SEO credit.
• series groups posts; a new string starts a new series.
• main_image is the cover image URL.

Responses

201 created, 200 updated, 401 bad or missing key, 422 unprocessable (usually a bad tag, a duplicate title, or frontmatter Forem could not parse). On 422 the body names the field, so print it rather than guessing.

Full schema, error shapes and less common fields: REFERENCE.md

Sponsored or client work

Dev.to requires disclosure on paid or sponsored posts. If the article is sponsored, confirm the disclosure is in the body before creating the draft, not after. An undisclosed sponsored post risks the account.