Publication Tracking¶

Crier tracks what content has been published where, enabling you to:

See publication status at a glance
Detect content changes since last publish
Identify what's missing from platforms
Backfill old content to new platforms

The Registry¶

Publications are tracked in .crier/registry.yaml in your project directory.

version: 1
posts:
  "posts/my-article.md":
    title: "My Article"
    checksum: "a1b2c3d4"
    canonical_url: https://myblog.com/my-article
    publications:
      devto:
        id: "12345"
        url: https://dev.to/user/my-article
        published_at: 2025-01-15T10:00:00Z
      bluesky:
        id: "bsky123"
        url: https://bsky.app/profile/user/post/bsky123
        published_at: 2025-01-15T10:05:00Z

Checking Status¶

Single File¶

crier status my-post.md

Shows: - Where the file is published - Publication dates - Whether content has changed since publishing

All Tracked Posts¶

crier status --all

Lists all posts in the registry with their publication platforms.

Automatic Tracking¶

When you publish with Crier, successful publications are automatically recorded:

crier publish my-post.md --to devto --to bluesky
# Registry is updated automatically

Content Change Detection¶

Crier stores a checksum of each file. If you edit a file after publishing, crier status will show it has changed:

⚠ Content has changed since last publication

This helps you know which posts need updating on platforms.

Registry Location¶

The registry is created in .crier/registry.yaml relative to your current directory. You can:

Commit it: Track publication history in version control
Gitignore it: Keep it local only

# .gitignore - if you don't want to track publication history
.crier/