publish-substack-article_skill

Overview

This skill publishes Markdown articles to Substack by converting Markdown to HTML and pasting the HTML into Substack's WYSIWYG editor as a draft. It automates content insertion while never triggering the publish flow, leaving final review and publishing to the user. The skill handles table conversion to images, title/subtitle extraction, and works with Chrome DevTools or Playwright MCP tools.

How this skill works

The skill reads a Markdown file, strips frontmatter, and converts the body to HTML using Python's markdown library (with tables and fenced_code extensions). It copies HTML to the system clipboard and pastes into Substack's Tiptap editor using a keyboard paste command so formatting is preserved. Markdown tables are detected, rendered as styled HTML screenshots, and uploaded as images at the correct positions after the main paste.

When to use it

• You want to move a local Markdown article to Substack as a draft for manual review.
• The article contains code blocks, headings, links, images, or lists that must retain formatting.
• You need automated handling of Markdown-to-HTML conversion and clipboard paste to Substack.
• The article includes Markdown tables that must appear as images on Substack.
• You prefer an automated draft creation flow but want to review before publishing.

Best practices

• Always log into Substack before running the automation; the skill will prompt if not logged in.
• Use the provided clipboard HTML paste method — do not use fill/text insertion tools.
• Convert Markdown tables to images during pre-processing to avoid collapsed table text.
• Preserve the original Markdown file; the skill reads but never modifies source files.
• Do not click or automate the 'Continue' publish button; drafts must be published manually.

Example use cases

• Publish a blog post written in Markdown to your Substack publication as a draft.
• Migrate multiple local articles to Substack while preserving rich formatting and code blocks.
• Prepare an article with complex tables by converting tables to images and placing them in draft.
• Automate repetitive draft creation while leaving final copyediting and publishing to an editor.