# Write your first post Source: https://docs.agentblog.dev/first-post Summary: Scaffold a post file, have your coding agent draft it in the format AI search engines can use, and check it before you publish. A post is one MDX file in `content/blog/`. You create the file, your agent writes the body, and `agentblog audit` tells you whether it is ready. This page walks through all three. ### Create the file [#create-the-file] ```bash npx agentblog@latest new "Do AI crawlers run JavaScript?" --author you --category ai-search ``` That writes `content/blog/do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript.mdx` with complete frontmatter, today's date with a UTC offset, and `draft: true`. It does not write the post. `new` does not read `agentblog.config.ts`, so without those two flags it writes the placeholders `author: your-name` and `category: general`. Neither names a real record, and `draft: true` does not save you: drafts are validated like every other post, so the next build fails with `unknown author slug`. Both values must exist in `content/authors.json` and `content/categories.json`. The file name is the slug. `do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript.mdx` is served at `/blog/do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript`. Rename the file to change the URL. ### Ask your agent to write it [#ask-your-agent-to-write-it] ```text Write the post at content/blog/do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript.mdx. Follow the write-blog-post skill. ``` Your coding agent picks up the `write-blog-post` skill that AgentBlog installed into `.claude/skills/`, reads your existing posts to match your voice and link into them, and drafts the body in the format described below. Two rules are in that skill's always-loaded context rather than in a file it might not read: never invent a statistic, a quotation, or a source, and never use an em dash. Both are checked again by `agentblog audit`. You are still the editor. Read the draft, fix what is wrong, and cut what is padding. ### Check it before publishing [#check-it-before-publishing] ```bash npx agentblog@latest audit do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript ``` Every check reports pass or fail with the value it actually found, and the command never reports success on a failure. Run it until it is clean, then set `draft: false` and commit. ## What goes in the frontmatter [#what-goes-in-the-frontmatter] Here is the top of a real post. Every field below `tags` is optional, and the ones you skip cost you specific things rather than breaking the build. ```yaml title="content/blog/do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript.mdx" --- title: Do AI Crawlers Run JavaScript? description: A description between 50 and 160 characters, because that is what fits in a search result. answerCapsule: >- Forty to sixty words that answer the title directly, with no links and no hedging. This is the paragraph an assistant lifts when it quotes you. datePublished: 2026-08-06T09:00:00Z dateModified: 2026-08-06T09:00:00Z author: editorial category: ai-search tags: - AI crawlers - GPTBot relatedPosts: - what-makes-an-ai-engine-cite-your-post citations: - name: The rise of the AI crawler url: https://vercel.com/blog/the-rise-of-the-ai-crawler author: Vercel and MERJ datePublished: 2024-12-17 kind: industry faq: - question: Do AI crawlers execute JavaScript? answer: >- No. Answer in two or three sentences, complete on its own. draft: true --- ``` The full field list, with the rules on each one, is in the [post frontmatter reference](/reference/post-frontmatter). Three of these are worth understanding on the first post: **`answerCapsule`** is the direct answer that renders under the H1. It is the most valuable field in the file, because a retrieval system lifts a chunk of your page and quotes it, and this paragraph is written to be that chunk. **`author` and `category`** are references, not free text. Each must name a record in `content/authors.json` or `content/categories.json`. A typo is a build failure, which is the correct outcome: a post attributed to nobody has no credibility signal at all. **`datePublished` and `dateModified`** must carry a UTC offset, and the type system refuses a timestamp without one. Google falls back to Googlebot's timezone when the offset is missing, which quietly shifts every published date. ## How the body is structured [#how-the-body-is-structured] The two example posts that shipped with your install are the specification. When your agent writes post fifty, it imitates them, so it is worth reading one before you delete them. | Element | Why it is there | | ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Question-shaped H2 headings | People and assistants both ask questions. A heading that matches the question is easier to retrieve | | A direct answer under each | 40 to 60 words, no links, complete on its own, so it survives being lifted out of the page | | Sections of 150 to 300 words | Long enough to stand alone as a chunk, short enough to be about one thing | | Real tables | A comparison written as prose cannot be extracted. A table can | | Named entities, not pronouns | "GPTBot" retrieves. "It" does not | | Citations in frontmatter | They render as a source list and become part of the structured data | | Internal links | A post nothing links to is a post search engines treat as unimportant | The reasoning behind each of those, with the strength of the evidence attached, is in [the GEO playbook](/concepts/geo-playbook). ## Components you can use in the body [#components-you-can-use-in-the-body] Beyond ordinary Markdown, posts can use a small set of components that the install writes into `components/mdx/`. ```mdx A boxed aside for something that costs money to get wrong. ``` The FAQ section is not a component you write. It renders from the `faq:` block in your frontmatter, and only when there are entries, so the structured data never describes questions the page does not show. The full list with props is in the [MDX components reference](/reference/mdx-components). ## Publish it [#publish-it] Setting `draft: false` and deploying is enough for the post to appear. To have search engines find it the same day rather than the next crawl, see [publishing and pinging](/deploy#tell-search-engines-about-a-new-post).