How to Back Up Hashnode to GitHub Automatically (with GitHub Actions)
EJ Jung
✍️ Why I wrote this
I created my Hashnode blog about six months ago and recently started posting again.
In the past, I used GitHub Pages with github.io for blogging — which meant maintaining a GitHub repo, writing or updating .md files manually, then committing and pushing them. It was a bit tedious, but I liked that it helped me track both blog posts and GitHub activity at the same time.
That made me wonder: Is there a way to commit to GitHub automatically when publishing on Hashnode? Turns out — yes, there is!
This post is a walkthrough of how I set up GitHub Actions to automatically back up my Hashnode blog, organize posts into folders, and rename those unreadable .md filenames.
🧞♂️ What I want
Automatically commit to GitHub whenever I publish a Hashnode post
Organize posts into folders by series/topic
Rename .md files to readable filenames instead of UUIDs
✅ Step 1 – Connect Hashnode to GitHub
1.1. Create a GitHub Repository
Create a new GitHub repository that will store your backed-up Hashnode posts.
It can be public or private — but I recommend public if you’re using it as a writing portfolio.
1.2. Enable GitHub Integration in Hashnode
Go to:
Hashnode Dashboard → GitHub → GitHub Integration → Install Hashnode App → Install & Authorize
⚠️ Do not select “All repositories.”
Choose only the specific repository you created for this sync.
After install & authorizing, you will see the drafts, articles and the status of backed up.
Click “Back up all articles” to backup.
Congratulation! 🎉
You have Successfully sync your Hashnode with Github!
Once installed and configured, your published posts will be backed up as .md files to your GitHub repository.
✅ Step 2 – Auto-Organize with GitHub Actions
I wanted to automatically organize my posts into folders based on topic, like this:
hashnode-blog/
├── python-basics/
│ └── print-formatting.md
├── coding-test/
│ ├── sorting-algorithms-1.md
│ └── essential-libraries.md
2.1. Check GitHub Action Permissions
Go to:
Github project (you made in Step 1) Settings -> Actions -> General -> Workflow permissions → Make sure Read and write permissions are enabled.
⚠️ Without this, you’ll get an error like:
remote: Permission to [your-repo].git denied to github-actions[bot]
fatal: unable to access [...]: 403
2.2. GitHub Actions Workflow
Create a file at:
.github/workflows/organize-posts.yml
name: Organize Blog Posts by Slug
on:
push:
paths:
- "*.md"
jobs:
organize:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Set up Python
uses: actions/setup-python@v4
with:
python-version: '3.10'
- name: Install Python YAML parser
run: pip install pyyaml
- name: Organize files into series folders
run: |
import os, yaml, shutil
for filename in os.listdir("."):
if filename.endswith(".md"):
with open(filename, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
lines = f.readlines()
if lines[0].strip() == "---":
frontmatter = []
for line in lines[1:]:
if line.strip() == "---":
break
frontmatter.append(line)
meta = yaml.safe_load("".join(frontmatter))
series = meta.get("series")
if series:
os.makedirs(series, exist_ok=True)
dest = os.path.join(series, filename)
shutil.move(filename, dest)
shell: python
- name: Commit changes
run: |
git config user.name "github-actions"
git config user.email "github-actions@github.com"
git add .
git commit -m "Organized posts by series" || echo "No changes to commit"
git pull --rebase origin main
git push
You can check in the “Actions Tab” to see the action is properly registered. Once the workflow is added, you’ll see it running in the Actions tab whenever you push .md files to the repo.
2.3. Testing the Workflow
To test it, I restored a deleted post and triggered a new backup.
Then I checked if the workflow succeeded and if the posts were organized into folders.
Everything worked! 🎉
The file is now categorized automatically when you publish a new post.
✅ Step 3 – Renaming Files to Slug
But there’s one problem left. By default, Hashnode backups use a random UID for filenames. This makes it hard to manage or find specific posts.
To fix that, let’s change the workflow to rename the files based on the post’s slug.
slug = meta.get("slug", "")
new_filename = f"{slug}.md"
os.rename(filename, new_filename)
Here’s the complete updated YAML file with file renaming and folder categorization logic.
name: Organize Blog Posts by Slug
on:
push:
paths:
- "*.md"
jobs:
organize:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Set up Python
uses: actions/setup-python@v4
with:
python-version: '3.10'
- name: Install PyYAML
run: pip install pyyaml
- name: Organize by slug keyword
run: |
import os, yaml, shutil
SLUG_KEYWORDS = {
"coding-test": "coding-test",
"python-basics": "python-basics"
}
for filename in os.listdir("."):
if filename.endswith(".md"):
with open(filename, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
lines = f.readlines()
if lines[0].strip() == "---":
frontmatter = []
for line in lines[1:]:
if line.strip() == "---":
break
frontmatter.append(line)
meta = yaml.safe_load("".join(frontmatter))
slug = meta.get("slug", "")
# rename file to slug
new_filename = f"{slug}.md"
os.rename(filename, new_filename)
# Then, use new_filename from this point forward
matched = False
for keyword, folder in SLUG_KEYWORDS.items():
if keyword in slug:
os.makedirs(folder, exist_ok=True)
shutil.move(new_filename, os.path.join(folder, new_filename)) # ← updated here
matched = True
print(f"Moved {new_filename} to {folder}/")
break
if not matched:
print(f"No matching slug keyword found for: {new_filename}")
shell: python
- name: Commit organized files
run: |
git config user.name "github-actions"
git config user.email "github-actions@github.com"
git add .
git commit -m "Organized posts by slug keywords" || echo "No changes"
git pull --rebase origin main
git push
I synced again in Hashnode and then checked if it was successful.
Sync complete! 🎉
Your blog posts are now cleanly organized and version-controlled.
✨ Conclusion
Setting up this backup and organization workflow might seem like overkill at first — but once it’s working, it feels magical.
Every time I hit “Publish” on Hashnode, I know:
My content is safe on GitHub
Posts are categorized in folders
Filenames are readable and meaningful
My GitHub contribution graph is getting greener 🌱
This setup is perfect for anyone building a writing habit or maintaining a clean, version-controlled tech blog.
Want to see how everything works behind the scenes?
Check out the full repo here:
🔗 jinjungs/hashnode-blog
Enjoyed this post or have suggestions to make it better?
Leave a comment — I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading! 🙌
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