Automating My Newsletter Workflow: One Markdown File for Hugo and Buttondown
I’ve been working toward a goal for years: a single place to write, and as many automated outputs as possible. I don’t want to copy and paste, re-format, or duplicate my writing. The same Markdown file that powers a blog post should also power a newsletter, an archive, or whatever else I decide to publish.
That philosophy led me to a new Shortcut I built for my Buttondown newsletter. With it, I can take the exact same Markdown file I use for my Hugo-based site’s Newsletter Archive page, and publish it straight to Buttondown in one step. No duplication, no reformatting, and no breaking my Markdown-first workflow.
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A Dual-Purpose Draft
Every newsletter draft I write starts as a Markdown file in my Hugo project. It includes the standard YAML front matter — title, date, tags — so it can live side-by-side with my blog posts and generate an archive page on my site.
At the bottom, I’ve also standardized on a Hugo shortcode that handles things like subscribe links and callouts.
The front matter makes it valid Hugo content, but Buttondown doesn’t need that metadata. Likewise, the shortcode at the bottom is great for my archive page but doesn’t belong in an email. The Shortcut’s job is to strip out those bits and isolate the actual content.
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Regex to the Rescue
To solve that, I leaned on regular expressions. The Shortcut matches everything after the closing — of the YAML front matter and before the buttons-list shortcode.
The pattern looks like this:
\A---[\n\s\S]*?---\s*([\n\s\S]*?)\s*\{\{\s*buttons-list\s*\}\}
The captured group becomes the newsletter body. Meanwhile, the Shortcut takes the filename of the Markdown draft and uses it as the subject line. That way, one file works for both Hugo (which uses the front matter) and Buttondown (which only needs subject + body but I hope one day it supports front matter).
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Publishing via Buttondown’s API
The final step is an API call. The Shortcut uses the Get Contents of URL action, configured with:
- Endpoint: https://api.buttondown.com/v1/emails
- Headers: Authorization token (pulled from a secure Shortcut)
- Body: JSON with subject, body, and status
I set status to about_to_send, which creates the email in Buttondown ready for review. If I’m confident, I can flip this to sent and fire it off instantly.
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Why This Matters
The beauty of this setup is that I never have to write the same thing twice. My Hugo site automatically builds out a Newsletter Archive page from the Markdown file, while this Shortcut takes that same file and pushes it to Buttondown.
Plain text is the source of truth, Hugo and Buttondown are just outputs.
This also gives me flexibility: if I ever change services, or if I want to generate a PDF archive, I don’t need to rewrite anything. I’ve already got everything in a neutral, Markdown-first format that can be re-used anywhere.
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Why This Works So Well
Like many of my favorite automations, this Shortcut doesn’t feel flashy — it feels inevitable. Once you decide everything should start as Markdown, the next step is making sure the publishing side bends around your workflow, not the other way around.
Shortcuts, Buttondown, and Hugo all line up perfectly here. It’s one file, two destinations, and zero overhead. And that’s exactly the kind of automation that keeps me writing and publishing more often.
Publish Newsletter to Buttondown