publish-article

name: publish-article description: "Safe single-article deployment to production. File-by-file only (never wildcards/recursion). Pre-deployment checklist, exact file targeting, post-deployment verification, rollback procedure."

Publish Article Skill

Overview

Publish Article handles the safe, controlled deployment of a single approved article to production. This is the moment of truth: the article leaves the newsroom and goes live to readers.

Core principle: File-by-file deployment only. Never recursive, never wildcard operations. Never deploy anything except the exact article being published.

This skill ensures:

• No accidental overwrites of other articles
• No deployment of incomplete/unapproved content
• Atomic operations (article either fully deployed or fully rolled back)
• Verification before/after deployment
• Rollback capability if something goes wrong post-publish

Supported Deployment Platforms

Pre-Deployment Checklist

Before the article is deployed, every item must be approved and completed:

Editorial Gate

• Article approved by final-editor-review (editorial review completed; legal defensibility confirmed)
• Copy review passed (readability, accessibility, SEO metadata verified)
• Fact-check sign-off obtained (all claims verified; sources documented)
• No outstanding comments from editor (all feedback addressed or explicitly rejected)

Technical Gate

• All images present and optimized (<200KB each, 1200×628px minimum for social)
• All links tested and working (no 404s, no typos in URLs)
• Video/audio files uploaded (not embedded from temporary URLs; URLs point to permanent archive)
• Metadata complete:
  • Meta title (50–60 chars)
  • Meta description (155–160 chars)
  • Canonical URL (if reposting)
  • Open Graph tags (og:image, og:title, og:description, og:url)
  • Structured data (NewsArticle JSON-LD)

Compliance Gate

• Attribution complete (byline, publication date, updated date if relevant)
• Corrections/errata process documented (link to corrections page, if applicable)
• Paywall/access level set (free, subscriber-only, metered)
• Comments policy applied (allow/disallow; moderation queue yes/no)
• External links checked (no dead links to external sources)

Backup & Rollback Gate

• Article backed up locally (version control snapshot taken)
• Rollback procedure documented (specific commands/steps for reverting)
• Deployment approver identified (who will execute the deploy? who can approve rollback?)

Pre-Deployment File Integrity Check

Before deployment, verify the article file matches expectations:

HTML/Markup Validation

# Check for broken tags (example: validator.w3.org CLI)
# OR manual check in browser DevTools: Console tab for errors

# File size check (articles shouldn't exceed 2MB)
ls -lh article.html
# Expected output: -rw-r--r-- 1 user group 245K Apr 1 09:15 article.html

# Character encoding check (must be UTF-8)
file -b article.html
# Expected: HTML document, ASCII text

# Line count sanity check
wc -l article.html
# Expected: reasonable number (50–1000 depending on length)

Image Integrity Check

# All images present
grep -o 'src="[^"]*"' article.html | sort | uniq

# Image file sizes (each should be <200KB)
for img in images/*.jpg images/*.png; do ls -lh "$img"; done

Metadata Validation

# Check meta tags present
grep -E '(og:title|og:description|og:image|og:url)' article.html

# Check canonical URL
grep 'canonical' article.html

# Check structured data
grep 'application/ld+json' article.html

Deployment Execution

Step 1: Choose Your Platform

Your newsroom has configured deployment for one (or more) of these platforms. Identify which platform hosts the published article:

GCS (Google Cloud Storage):

# Verify article file exists locally
ls -l article.html

# Set project (if not already set)
gcloud config set project my-newsroom-project

# Deploy SINGLE article (not directory)
gsutil cp article.html gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# Verify deployment (check file exists)
gsutil ls gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

S3 (Amazon Web Services):

# Verify credentials configured
aws sts get-caller-identity

# Deploy SINGLE article
aws s3 cp article.html s3://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# Verify deployment
aws s3 ls s3://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

Static Site (SFTP):

# Connect and deploy SINGLE article (NOT directory)
sftp news@server.com << EOF
cd public_html/articles/
put article.html 2025-04-01-story.html
bye
EOF

# Verify (optional: SSH in and check)
ssh news@server.com "ls -lh /home/news/public_html/articles/2025-04-01-story.html"

Netlify (Git-based):

# Article is already in Git repo at correct path
git add articles/2025-04-01-story.html
git commit -m "Publish article: [headline]"
git push origin main

# Netlify auto-deploys; check deploy log:
# https://app.netlify.com/sites/[site-name]/deploys

WordPress (REST API):

# Create post via REST API
curl -X POST https://newsroom.org/wp-json/wp/v2/posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WP_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "title": "Article Title",
    "content": "<p>Article content here...</p>",
    "status": "publish",
    "featured_media": 123
  }'

# Expected response: HTTP 201 Created + post ID

Step 2: Deployment Safety Checks (CRITICAL)

BEFORE you execute deployment, answer these questions:

• Am I deploying exactly ONE article? (If deploying >1 file, STOP and verify with editor)
• Am I using the exact file path specified? (Copy-paste from pre-deployment checklist; no guessing)
• Am I NOT using wildcards or directories? (e.g., *.html or articles/ NOT allowed; only 2025-04-01-story.html)
• Have I tested the deployment command on a test file first? (If possible, deploy test file to test bucket; verify it works)
• Do I have a rollback command ready? (Documented and tested before deployment)

Red flag: If ANY of the above is "no," STOP. Re-read this section.

Step 3: Execute Deployment

# Log the deployment action (for audit trail)
echo "Deploying article: 2025-04-01-story.html | By: alice@newsroom.org | Time: $(date)" >> deploy.log

# EXECUTE DEPLOYMENT (exact command from pre-deployment checklist)
# Example: GCS
gsutil cp article.html gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# Capture exit code
DEPLOY_STATUS=$?

if [ $DEPLOY_STATUS -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "Deployment successful"
else
  echo "Deployment FAILED (exit code: $DEPLOY_STATUS)"
  exit 1
fi

Post-Deployment Verification

Immediately after deployment, verify the article is live and correct:

Step 1: Verify File Deployed

# GCS
gsutil ls -l gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# S3
aws s3 ls s3://news-bucket/articles/ | grep 2025-04-01-story.html

# Static site (SFTP)
ssh news@server.com "ls -lh /home/news/public_html/articles/2025-04-01-story.html"

Expected output: File exists, size matches original, timestamp is current (within last minute).

Step 2: Verify Article is Accessible

Test from two locations (to verify CDN propagation if applicable):

# Get the article via HTTP (standard browser request)
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://newsroom.org/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# Expected: HTTP 200 (success), NOT 404 (not found) or 503 (error)

# (Optional) Check full response
curl -s https://newsroom.org/articles/2025-04-01-story.html | head -20

Step 3: Verify Content Integrity

# Download article from published URL
curl -s https://newsroom.org/articles/2025-04-01-story.html > published.html

# Compare to original (should be identical or very similar)
diff article.html published.html

# If no differences: success
# If differences: investigate (may be auto-formatting by platform)

Step 4: Verify Metadata

Open the article in a browser and check:

• Headline displays correctly (no encoding errors, special characters)
• Images load (all images visible, no broken image icons)
• Links work (click a few; confirm they open expected pages)
• Byline present (author name, publication date visible)
• Social preview correct (right-click; inspect Open Graph tags; should show correct og:image, og:title)

Step 5: Verify Social Metadata

# Use platform API to check Open Graph tags
# Facebook Sharing Debugger
# https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/

# Twitter Card Validator
# https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator

# OR use curl to check raw tags
curl -s https://newsroom.org/articles/2025-04-01-story.html | grep -E 'og:(title|description|image|url)'

Step 6: Search Engine Indexing (optional, but check after a few hours)

# Google Search Console (manual check; not API-able)
# Go to: https://search.google.com/search-console/
# Inspect URL: https://newsroom.org/articles/2025-04-01-story.html
# Request indexing if not yet crawled

# (Advanced) Manually trigger crawler
curl -X POST 'https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=https://newsroom.org/sitemap.xml'

Rollback Procedure

If post-deployment verification fails, roll back immediately:

Automatic Rollback (if using version control)

# For Git-based deployment (Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages)
# Find the commit that deployed the article
git log --oneline | head -5

# Revert the commit
git revert [commit-hash]
git push origin main

# Netlify/Vercel will auto-redeploy previous version
# Check status: https://app.netlify.com/sites/[site]/deploys

Manual Rollback (GCS/S3)

# Option A: Delete the article (removes it entirely)
gsutil rm gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# Option B: Restore from backup (if versioning enabled)
# GCS
gsutil cp gs://news-bucket/articles-backup/2025-04-01-story.html.bak \
  gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# S3
aws s3 cp s3://news-bucket/articles-backup/2025-04-01-story.html.bak \
  s3://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

Manual Rollback (Static Site / SFTP)

# Option A: Delete from live server
ssh news@server.com "rm /home/news/public_html/articles/2025-04-01-story.html"

# Option B: Restore from backup (pre-deployment snapshot)
scp articles-backup/2025-04-01-story.html.bak news@server.com:/home/news/public_html/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

Manual Rollback (WordPress)

# Get the post ID
POST_ID=$(curl -s 'https://newsroom.org/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?search=Article%20Title&_fields=id' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WP_TOKEN" | jq '.[0].id')

# Delete the post
curl -X DELETE https://newsroom.org/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/$POST_ID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WP_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"force": true}'

Document the Rollback

rollback:
  date: "2025-04-01 10:15 AM"
  reason: "Images failed to load; metadata incomplete"
  by: "alice@newsroom.org"
  command: "gsutil rm gs://news-bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html"
  status: "success"
  next_steps: "Re-deploy after fixing image paths"

Common Mistakes & Red Flags

Deployment Mistakes

Verification Mistakes

Rollback Mistakes

Critical Safety Rules

Rule 1: File-by-File Only

NEVER use:

# WRONG: Recursive deploy
gsutil -m cp articles/* gs://bucket/articles/

# WRONG: Wildcard deploy
aws s3 cp *.html s3://bucket/

# WRONG: Directory deploy
sftp news@server << EOF
  cd public_html
  put -r articles/
EOF

ALWAYS use:

# RIGHT: Single file
gsutil cp articles/2025-04-01-story.html gs://bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# RIGHT: Explicit path
aws s3 cp articles/2025-04-01-story.html s3://bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

Rule 2: Atomic Deployment (All or Nothing)

Either the article is fully deployed and verified, or it's rolled back. No partial/broken states.

# Deploy
gsutil cp article.html gs://bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html

# Verify
curl -s https://newsroom.org/articles/2025-04-01-story.html | grep -q "Article Title"

# If verification fails, rollback immediately
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "Verification failed. Rolling back..."
  gsutil rm gs://bucket/articles/2025-04-01-story.html
  exit 1
fi

echo "Deployment and verification successful"

Rule 3: Editorial Approval Before Deployment

DO NOT DEPLOY until all gates are passed:

• Editorial approved (final-editor-review complete)
• Copy review approved
• Fact-check approved
• Pre-deployment checklist signed off

Deployment Workflow Checklist

Pre-Deployment (30 min before go-live)

• Gather approvals (editorial, copy, fact-check sign-off)
• Run pre-deployment checklist (all items marked complete)
• Verify file integrity (HTML valid, images present, metadata complete)
• Prepare rollback procedure (document exact commands)
• Brief deployment approver (who will authorize? how to reach?)

Deployment (go-live moment)

• Answer safety questions (single file? exact path? no wildcards?)
• Execute deployment command (copy-paste exact command from checklist)
• Document deployment action (log who/what/when)
• Capture exit code (0 = success, non-zero = failure)

Post-Deployment (30 min after go-live)

• Verify file deployed (ls/check confirms file exists)
• Verify HTTP 200 (article loads in browser)
• Content integrity check (diff original vs. published)
• Metadata verification (og:tags, canonical, structured data correct)
• Social preview check (og:image displays correctly)
• Manual spot-check (open in browser; check images, links, byline)

If Something Goes Wrong

• Stop immediately (don't try to patch)
• Roll back (execute pre-prepared rollback command)
• Document issue (what failed? why?)
• Fix offline (correct the problem locally)
• Re-deploy (full deployment + verification cycle again)

Escrow & Collaboration

If article is collaborative (multiple reporters, editors):

1. One person owns deployment (prevent multiple deployments of same article)
2. Deployment approver is editor (signs off on checklist)
3. Deployment executor is tech/manager (actually runs commands)
4. Rollback authority is editor (decides to roll back if issues arise)

Communication protocol:

Reporter Alice: "Article ready for deployment checklist"
Editor Bob: "Approved. Running checklist... ✓ All items complete. Deploying at 9:00 AM."
Tech Manager Carol: "Confirmed. Standing by for verification."
[Deployment at 9:00 AM]
Carol: "Article deployed. Running verification... ✓ All checks pass. Live!"
Bob: "Confirmed. Article is live. Notifying social team."

Escalation

If deployment fails or article has issues post-publication:

1. Editors: Decide whether to roll back or push forward
2. Tech: Executes rollback or deployment fix
3. Communications: Update homepage/social if article is pulled
4. Legal (if needed): Review article for liability if corrections posted