Write and publish a post

This walks through one post from start to finish: create it, write it, check it, and publish it.

Create the post

Press Ctrl+N, or click New on the dashboard.
Type a title and choose the collection, and the section if it has any. Under the title, Zeku shows the file it will create and, for a page your site serves, the address it will have.
Press Enter.

Zeku creates the file with the fields your collection maps in Settings > Content, such as title, date, description, tags and draft, plus any field your schema requires, each in a form your schema accepts: the title you typed, today’s date in the format the field reads, and an empty value where that passes. It also adds the fields at least half of the collection’s entries already have, like keyword or updated, each with a value that means the same as leaving it out. Change that list in Settings > Content under the collection’s New entry fields. A field with no such value, like an image, or a text field with a default of its own, is left for you to add from the frontmatter editor. A collection can be set to start new entries as drafts.

Zeku names the file the way the collection names its own. Most collections name files by slug, as my-first-post.md. Where most of a collection’s files are named by their titles instead, as Obsidian names notes and Coffer names its notes, the new file is My first post.md, without the characters a file name can’t hold, such as ? and :. A file named by its title leaves out the title field unless your schema requires it, since the name already says it. To choose for a collection, use Name new files by title on its card in Settings > Content. A collection that keeps each entry in its own folder, as my-first-post/index.md, names the folder by slug.

Some required fields have a value Zeku can read from the collection’s other entries. A reference every entry gives the same answer, like a blog’s one author, starts with that entry, and so does a list of references every entry gives the same. A text field most entries set to their own slug, like an id that repeats the file name, starts as the new entry’s slug. Where entries disagree, the field waits for you.

If your collection’s loader wouldn’t load the file, because its pattern skips that name, New says so before you create it, since the page wouldn’t be on your site. If Zeku has read the pattern wrong, click Create anyway.

Write

Type in the editor. Formatting renders as you write, and the markdown shows again on the line you’re editing. The frontmatter sits at the top as a list of fields. See The editor and Frontmatter.

Zeku saves as you go, a moment after you stop typing. To save right away, press Ctrl+S. If Zeku closes unexpectedly, unsaved changes come back the next time you open it.

Check it

Press Ctrl+E to open the site preview. Zeku starts your project’s own dev server and shows the page you’re editing. See Site preview.
Press Ctrl+Shift+A for the SEO audit, which checks the title, description, headings, links, and more. See SEO audit.

Publish

Press Ctrl+Shift+S to open Publish. Zeku lists what changed. Write a commit message, and Zeku commits the changes and pushes them to your repository, which is what starts a deploy on hosts like Netlify, Vercel, and Cloudflare Pages.

To bring in changes made somewhere else, such as edits from another computer, press Ctrl+Shift+P to pull.