Medium Article Writing Framework

A structured framework for writing, publishing, and promoting Medium articles with consistent quality and process. Built as an Obsidian vault with Dataview-powered dashboards for tracking article pipeline and performance.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

1. Open this folder as a vault in Obsidian
2. Install the Dataview community plugin
3. Enable Dataview in Obsidian settings

Create a new article

./scripts/new-article.sh 2026-03-your-topic-slug

This scaffolds the full article directory with:

• index.md with YAML frontmatter (powers Dataview dashboards)
• [[wikilinks]] connecting to shared resources and related articles
• metrics-log.md for post-publish engagement tracking
• Templates for planning, outlining, drafting, and promoting

Write your article

1. Plan — Edit plan.md (audience, angle, differentiators)
2. Research — Add sources and notes to research/
3. Outline — Structure sections in outline.md
4. Draft — Write iteratively following shared/templates/draft-versions-guide.md (v1 -> v2 -> v3 -> v4)
5. Visuals — Add screenshots and diagrams to visuals/
6. Publish — Follow shared/publishing-checklist.md
7. Promote — Customize posts in promotion/social-media-posts.md
8. Track — Update frontmatter metrics, log data in metrics-log.md

Track everything

• Open _dashboard.md in Obsidian for pipeline overview, performance metrics, and tag-based views
• Open _promotion-tracker.md for per-platform promotion status

Project Structure

├── _dashboard.md              # Dataview dashboard (pipeline, performance, tags)
├── _promotion-tracker.md      # Dataview promotion status per platform
├── shared/                    # Reusable across all articles
│   ├── style-guide.md         # Writing best practices
│   ├── author-bio.md          # Bio versions and links
│   ├── publishing-checklist.md
│   ├── templates/
│   │   ├── article-plan.md
│   │   ├── article-outline.md
│   │   ├── social-media-posts.md
│   │   ├── preview-image-guide.md
│   │   ├── insights-data.md        # Data & metrics template
│   │   ├── metrics-log.md          # Post-publish tracking template
│   │   └── draft-versions-guide.md # Draft version progression guide
│   ├── research/              # Shared research references
│   └── assets/                # Preview image HTML templates
│
├── articles/                  # One folder per article
│   └── YYYY-MM-topic-slug/
│       ├── index.md           # YAML frontmatter + status (powers Dataview)
│       ├── plan.md            # Audience and angle
│       ├── outline.md         # Section structure
│       ├── metrics-log.md     # Post-publish engagement tracking
│       ├── research/          # Sources and notes
│       ├── insights/          # Metrics and data
│       ├── drafts/            # Draft versions (v1 -> v2 -> v3 -> v4)
│       ├── visuals/           # Screenshots and diagrams
│       └── promotion/         # Social media posts
│
└── scripts/
    └── new-article.sh         # Article scaffolding (Obsidian-compatible)

Obsidian Features

Dataview Dashboards

Dashboard	What It Shows
_dashboard.md	Pipeline overview, published performance, articles by tag, monthly output, totals
_promotion-tracker.md	Per-platform promotion status, completion rate, unpromoted articles

YAML Frontmatter

Every article's index.md has structured frontmatter that Dataview queries:

status: idea | planning | researching | outlining | drafting | reviewing | published
tags: [ai, claude-code, saas]
audience: [developers, founders]
views: 0          # update after publishing
claps: 0
linkedin-posted: false  # flip to true as you promote

Wikilinks

All article files cross-reference each other and shared resources with [[wikilinks]]. Use Obsidian's graph view to visualize relationships between articles, research, and templates.

Shared Resources

Resource	Description
Style Guide	Writing best practices distilled from article analysis
Author Bio	Short/long bio versions, links, hashtags
Publishing Checklist	Pre-publish, formatting, SEO, promotion steps
Draft Versions Guide	What each draft version focuses on (v1-v4)
Insights Data Template	Template for article data & metrics
Preview Image Guide	Creating 1200x630px social preview images

Articles

Article	Status
Building a Production SaaS with Claude Code	Draft complete

Naming Convention

Articles follow YYYY-MM-topic-slug format for chronological sorting and readability.