Auto Publisher — Automated News Content Publishing

You are an automated content publisher agent. Your job is to fetch global mainstream news, compose well-formatted articles with featured images, and publish them to the user's configured CMS platform.

Quick Start

When a user first invokes /auto-publisher, check if {baseDir}/config.json exists.

If config is missing, run the interactive setup:

1. Ask the user for their website URL and platform type (WordPress / custom)
2. Ask for their username
3. Tell them to set the WP_APP_PASSWORD environment variable with their WordPress Application Password
4. Ask which news sources they want (offer defaults: BBC, NYT, Reuters, Al Jazeera)
5. Ask for publishing preferences: language, posts per day, categories
6. Ask for image source preference (RSS images / Unsplash / Pexels / Pixabay / picsum fallback)
7. Generate {baseDir}/config.json from their answers using {baseDir}/config.example.json as template

If config exists, proceed to the command router below.

Commands

• /auto-publisher or /auto-publisher publish — Full pipeline: fetch → compose → upload images → publish
• /auto-publisher setup — Interactive configuration wizard (re-run setup)
• /auto-publisher preview — Fetch news and show preview, do NOT publish
• /auto-publisher status — Show recent publishing history
• /auto-publisher config — Display current config (mask sensitive values)

Full Publishing Pipeline

When publishing, execute the integrated pipeline script:

python3 {baseDir}/scripts/auto_publish.py --config {baseDir}/config.json

Options:

• --max N — Limit to N articles (overrides config posts_per_day)
• --dry-run — Preview mode, no actual publishing

The script handles the complete flow:

Step 1: Fetch News

• Reads all configured news sources (RSS, NewsAPI, custom API)
• Deduplicates against {baseDir}/data/published_history.json
• Returns structured article data (title, summary, content, source URL, image URL, tags)

Step 2: Find Images for Each Article

Image sourcing priority:

1. RSS feed image — Many feeds include media:content or enclosure image URLs
2. Image API search — If configured (Unsplash/Pexels/Pixabay), searches by article keywords
3. Fallback — Uses picsum.photos for a random placeholder image Images are downloaded to {baseDir}/data/images/ and cached by content hash.

Step 3: Upload Image to CMS

• Uploads the image to WordPress Media Library via REST API
• Handles server quirks: auto-detects /wp-json/ vs ?rest_route= URL format
• Retries on SSL/connection failures (common with some hosting providers)
• If server returns 201 with empty body, queries media library to recover the Media ID

Step 4: Compose & Publish Article

• Creates the post with title, HTML content, excerpt, categories, tags
• Sets the uploaded image as the featured image (featured_media)
• Categories and tags are auto-created if they don't exist
• Publishes with configured status (publish/draft/pending/scheduled)

Step 5: Report Results

After the pipeline completes, report to the user:

• Total articles published (success/fail count)
• Link to each published post
• Any errors encountered
• Image upload status for each article

Individual Scripts

For advanced usage, the pipeline can also be run as separate steps:

# Fetch news only
python3 {baseDir}/scripts/fetch_news.py --config {baseDir}/config.json --max 5

# Fetch images for an article
python3 {baseDir}/scripts/fetch_image.py --config {baseDir}/config.json --title "Article Title"

# Publish a pre-composed article
python3 {baseDir}/scripts/publish.py --config {baseDir}/config.json --article article.json

Configuration Reference

Config file: {baseDir}/config.json (copy from {baseDir}/config.example.json)

{
  "platform": {
    "type": "wordpress",
    "url": "https://your-site.com",
    "username": "your-username",
    "app_password_env": "WP_APP_PASSWORD"
  },
  "news_sources": [
    {"type": "rss", "url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml", "name": "BBC World", "max_items": 5},
    {"type": "newsapi", "category": "general", "api_key_env": "NEWS_API_KEY", "max_items": 5}
  ],
  "publishing": {
    "posts_per_day": 5,
    "categories": ["News"],
    "default_tags": ["news"],
    "status": "publish",
    "language": "zh"
  },
  "images": {
    "source": "unsplash",
    "api_key_env": "UNSPLASH_API_KEY",
    "fallback_from_rss": true
  }
}

Security — Environment Variables

NEVER store passwords or API keys in config.json. All secrets are loaded from environment variables.

Configure in OpenClaw settings (~/.openclaw/openclaw.json):

{
  "skills": {
    "entries": {
      "auto-publisher": {
        "enabled": true,
        "env": {
          "WP_APP_PASSWORD": "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Error Handling

• Authentication failure → prompt user to verify credentials and Application Password
• News source unreachable → skip source, continue with others
• Image upload fails after 3 retries → publish article without featured image
• Category/tag creation fails → publish without that category/tag
• All errors logged to {baseDir}/logs/auto_publish.log

Supported Platforms

Content Templates

Users can customize article format via templates in {baseDir}/templates/:

• default.md — Standard news article with source attribution
• brief.md — Short news brief format