📝 How to Add a Blog Post (HBS RCS Quarto Blog)

The below instructions assume that the poster is using GitHub Desktop and RStudio.

1. Get the code

1a. If posting for the first time, clone the GitHub repo:

1. Open GitHub Desktop
2. Click File → Clone Repository
3. Choose hbs-rcs/rcs-blog
4. Select a local folder and click Clone

1b. If you've posted before, fetch the current main branch:

1. Open GitHub Desktop
2. Select the rcs-blog repo and make sure that the main branch is selected
3. Click Fetch origin at the top of the window
4. If commits exist on the main branch that are not on your local copy, click Pull origin

---

2. Create a new branch

1. At the top of the GitHub Desktop window, click Current Branch and make sure that main is selected
2. Click New Branch
3. Name it something descriptive like: blog-post-title
4. Click Create Branch
5. Select your new branch and publish it to the repo

---

3. Create your post

1. Open the rcs-blog repo in RStudio
2. Go to the posts folder
3. Create a new folder with a descriptive name for your post (e.g. 2026-04-07_blog-post-title), either manually or by copying a previous post
4. Create a file called index.qmd (or open index.qmd if you copied a folder)

---

4. Add post metadata

At the top of index.qmd include metadata such as the following:

---
title: "Your Post Title"
author: "Your Name, Co-Author's Name where applicable"
date: "2026-04-07"
description: "Optional short summary of the post"
categories: [methods, Python, large language models, other relevant topics for tagging]
image: "optional-featured-image.jpg"
---

---

5. Write your post

• Write in Markdown + code chunks (R, Python, Stata, etc.)

• Add images to the same folder and reference them like:

  ![](image.png)

---

6. Preview locally

• In RStudio: click Render
• Or run:

  quarto preview

Check that:

• The post shows up on the homepage
• Formatting looks right
• Code runs (if applicable)

---

7. (If using code) Freeze results

Add to YAML at the top with the rest of the metadata:

execute:
  freeze: true

Then render once. This saves outputs so others don't need your setup.

---

8. Commit and push

1. Go back to GitHub Desktop
2. You'll see your changed files listed
3. Add a commit message (e.g., "Add blog post: Blog Post Title")
4. Click Commit to blog-post-title (where blog-post-title is the name of the branch you created earlier)
5. Click Push origin

---

9. Open a pull request

1. After pushing, click Create Pull Request; this will open GitHub in your browser
2. Optionally add a short description for the pull request
3. Click Create Pull Request
4. If you would like any team member(s) to review, click the gear icon next to "Reviewers" on the right and select them; they will be notified of the request and will be able to review and make comments
5. When ready to publish, click Merge pull request and Confirm merge
6. Delete your branch using the button

---

10. After merge

Once your pull request is merged, the site updates automatically and your post will appear on the blog within ten to fifteen minutes 🎉

---

Tips

• Use draft: true in YAML if your post isn't ready yet
• Keep folder names lowercase with hyphens
• Put all images inside your post folder

---

Optional: Simple Post Template

You can copy this into a new index.qmd:

---
title: "Post Title"
author: "Your Name"
date: "2026-04-07"
description: "Short summary"
categories: [R]
image: "image-file.jpg"
execute:
  freeze: true
---

## Introduction

Write your intro here.

## Example

```{r}
summary(cars)
```