Understanding Frontmatter

Writing & Content

Every post starts with a frontmatter block between two --- lines. It's a simple list of key: value pairs that the editor manages for you.

The fields

  • title (required) - shown in the <title> tag and as the heading.
  • slug (required) - the URL segment. Lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only.
  • date (required) - the publish date, YYYY-MM-DD. Drives ordering.
  • updated - last meaningful edit; the admin sets this for you on save.
  • category (required) - the single category this post belongs to.
  • description (required) - the meta description, around 150 characters.
  • image / image_alt - an optional hero image and its alt text.
  • draft - true hides the post from the public, sitemap, and feed.
  • hero - true features the post large at the top of the homepage.
  • featured - true adds it to the homepage featured row.

You rarely type this by hand

The post editor turns these into normal form fields - a title box, a category dropdown, a date picker, and toggles - and writes the frontmatter for you. Knowing what's underneath just helps when you edit files directly over SFTP.