Alfred Workflows for Quartz Publishing

Alfred Workflows for Quartz Publishing

Automate your Quartz publishing workflow with Alfred. Preview, publish, and stop with single keywords.

What You’ll Build

Three Alfred workflows for your Quartz site:

Keyword	Action
preview	Build and serve site locally at localhost:8080
publish	Commit changes and push to GitHub
stoppreview	Stop the preview server

Prerequisites

• Alfred with Powerpack — alfredapp.com
• Node.js 18+ — node --version should show v18 or higher
• Git — git --version
• Quartz — Already set up with your content

The Publish Script

Create scripts/publish.sh in your Quartz project:

#!/bin/bash
set -e

QUARTZ_DIR="$HOME/Developer/mementropy-quartz"
LOG_FILE="/tmp/quartz-publish.log"

cd "$QUARTZ_DIR" || exit 1

echo "=== Publish started at $(date) ===" > "$LOG_FILE"

# Build the site
echo "Building site..." | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"
npx quartz build >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1

# Stage and commit
git add -A >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1

if git diff --cached --quiet; then
    echo "No changes to commit" | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"
    exit 0
fi

TIMESTAMP=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
git commit -m "Publish content - $TIMESTAMP" >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1

# Push
echo "Pushing to GitHub..." | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"
git push origin main >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1

echo "Published successfully" | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"

Make it executable:

chmod +x scripts/publish.sh

Alfred Workflow Setup

Preview Workflow

1. Alfred Preferences → Workflows → + → Blank Workflow
2. Add Keyword: preview
3. Add Run Script:

#!/bin/bash
QUARTZ_DIR="$HOME/Developer/mementropy-quartz"
PID_FILE="/tmp/quartz-preview.pid"

if [ -f "$PID_FILE" ] && kill -0 $(cat "$PID_FILE") 2>/dev/null; then
    echo "Preview already running"
    open "http://localhost:8080"
    exit 0
fi

cd "$QUARTZ_DIR" || exit 1
npx quartz build --serve &
echo $! > "$PID_FILE"
sleep 3
open "http://localhost:8080"
echo "Preview started at localhost:8080"

4. Add Post Notification → Connect all components

Publish Workflow

Same process with keyword publish and script:

#!/bin/bash
cd "$HOME/Developer/mementropy-quartz" || exit 1
output=$(./scripts/publish.sh 2>&1)
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Published successfully"
else
    echo "Publish failed - check log"
fi

Stop Preview Workflow

Keyword stoppreview:

#!/bin/bash
PID_FILE="/tmp/quartz-preview.pid"
if [ -f "$PID_FILE" ]; then
    kill $(cat "$PID_FILE") 2>/dev/null
    rm "$PID_FILE"
fi
pkill -f "quartz build --serve" 2>/dev/null
echo "Preview stopped"

Testing

1. Type preview in Alfred → Site opens at localhost:8080
2. Make a change to content
3. Type publish → Check GitHub Actions
4. Type stoppreview → Server stops

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See also: Remote Publishing for iPhone/iPad control