Baton Rouge DSA website

This is the source for brdsa.org. If you want to submit a post or fix some text, everything you need is on this page. If you want to work on the site itself, see HACKING.md.

Submitting a post

Markdown files under src/lib/posts are served as their own pages under /blog/[slug]. There are a few ways to get a post published:

Method	Best for
Email contact@brdsa.org	Anyone. Send your text and a maintainer will handle publishing
GitHub issue (post submission template)	If you have a GitHub account but don't want to deal with files or branches
GitHub web editor	If you're comfortable with GitHub and want to submit a pull request directly
Local development	If you want to preview changes before submitting (see HACKING.md)

You do not need to install anything to write for the site. The GitHub web editor is fine for posts, typo fixes, and link changes.

Filename convention

Name your file YYYY-MM-DD-your-title.md, for example 2026-04-15-may-day-march.md. The full filename without .md becomes the URL slug, so that example is served at /blog/2026-04-15-may-day-march. Sort order in the post listing comes from the date frontmatter field, not the filename.

Adding a post via the GitHub web editor

1. Go to src/lib/posts/ in the repository.
2. Click Add file → Create new file.
3. Name the file following the convention above.
4. Paste in frontmatter (see below) followed by your post body in Markdown.
5. Scroll down to Commit changes, select Create a new branch, give the branch a name like post/may-day-march, and click Propose changes.
6. Open the pull request. A maintainer will review and merge it.

If your post has an image, read Images in a post before you commit.

Frontmatter reference

Every post starts with a YAML frontmatter block between --- lines. title is the only required field; the rest are optional but recommended.

Field	Required	Description
title	Yes	Displayed as the page heading and in post listings
date	Recommended	ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD), controls sort order in /blog
description	Recommended	1-2 sentences shown in post listings and social/SEO previews
author	Recommended	Display name(s)
imageUrl	Optional	Filename only, e.g. my-photo.jpg. File must be in src/lib/images/
imageDescription	Required if imageUrl is set	Alt text. Describe what is in the image for screen readers
hidden	Optional	Set to true to hide the post from /blog, useful for drafts
slug	Optional	Override the URL slug. Defaults to the full filename without .md
tags	Optional	Array of tags, e.g. ["labor", "housing"]

Complete example

---
title: May Day March 2026
date: 2026-05-01
description: Join us on the streets for International Workers Day. Details inside.
imageUrl: may-day-2026.jpg
imageDescription: A crowd marching with red DSA flags on a sunny street
author: Jane D.
---

Join us this May Day as we take to the streets to seize the means of production and distribution...

Writing the post body

Images in a post

There are two ways to include an image, and they use different folders.

Header image, set with the imageUrl frontmatter field. Put the file in src/lib/images/ and use only the filename:

imageUrl: may-day-2026.jpg
imageDescription: A crowd marching with red DSA flags on a sunny street

These get resized and converted to modern formats automatically.

Inline images in the post body. Put the file in static/images/ and reference it with a root-relative path:

![A crowd marching with red flags](/images/may-day-2026.jpg)

Inline images are served as plain files with no processing. This folder is separate from the header image folder on purpose; see Images in HACKING.md for why.

To upload either kind through the GitHub web editor, navigate to the folder, click Add file → Upload files, then reference the file as shown above.

Submitting a recipe

Recipes work like posts. Markdown files under src/lib/posts/recipes are served as a FITE cookbook at /fite/recipes. Recipes support the post frontmatter fields plus a few of their own:

---
title: Jay's Red Beans And Rice
source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FLn0jF6KJLsfWypjEu3w81kdl8Nu7P61HTMqpZvliyE/edit?usp=drive_link
difficulty: easy
cookTime: 3.5-4 hrs
description: Jay's tried and true red beans and rice.
feeds: 50
---

Working on the site itself

Adding pages, changing styles, and anything touching the build is covered in HACKING.md.

Original NTC site template

Here's a link to the NTC template we used to use:

https://github.com/dsa-ntc/dsa-chapter-website.github.io