Highlight Images

Automates the image workflow for the ### Highlight section of draft.md.

There are three human review gates — do not skip them:

1. Before downloading: confirm all three candidate image URLs with the editor
2. Before pushing: confirm the resized images in the local image repo look good
3. Before editing draft.md: confirm the final embed URLs

Prerequisites

• rweekly-image repo cloned at /Users/sam/Documents/01-projects/rweekly-image
• scripts/img_raw/ directory exists (create if not: mkdir -p scripts/img_raw)
• rweekly.tools R package installed

Steps

Step 1: Get issue week and highlight links

Read draft.md:

• Extract issue week from title: front matter (e.g. R Weekly 2026-W25 → W25)
• Extract all three links from the ### Highlight section (lines matching + [Title](URL))

The image repo target dir will be 2026/{WEEK} (e.g. 2026/W25).

Step 2: For each highlight link, find a good image

For each of the three highlight articles:

1. Fetch the article URL with WebFetch. Ask: "What is the main representative image on this page? Give me the full absolute image URL (prefer PNG, JPG, or WebP — avoid icons/logos/avatars/favicons). If there are multiple, pick the one most representative of the article content."
2. OG image fallback: If the article body only has SVGs, generated plots, or no good raster image, check the page's og:image / twitter:image meta tags:

   curl -s "{URL}" | grep -i 'og:image\|twitter:image'
   

3. SVG fallback: If the best available image is an SVG (common with knitr/R Markdown posts), note it — it will need conversion in Step 4. raw.githubusercontent.com serves SVG as text/plain, so SVGs cannot be embedded directly via ![]().
4. No image found: If neither article body, OG tags, nor SVG yield a candidate, say so and ask the editor to supply a URL or skip the embed for that highlight.
5. If WebFetch fails entirely, try Jina: curl https://r.jina.ai/{URL} and scan for image URLs.
6. Pick a short kebab-case slug for each filename (e.g. history-posit-agents, three-dots-readable, ulam-prime-spiral).

---

⏸ GATE 1 — Confirm image candidates with the editor

Present a summary of all three candidates before downloading anything:

Proposed images:
1. [Article title]
   URL: {image-url}
   Slug: {slug}

2. [Article title]
   URL: {image-url}
   Slug: {slug}

3. [Article title]
   URL: {image-url}
   Slug: {slug}

Do these look good, or would you like to swap any out?

Wait for explicit confirmation before proceeding. The editor may supply a different URL — use whatever they provide.

---

Step 3: Download images to img_raw

For each confirmed image:

curl -L -o "scripts/img_raw/{slug}.{ext}" "{image-url}"

Save with the original file extension (.png, .jpg, .webp, .svg).

If an image is an SVG, convert it to PNG using R magick immediately after download:

Rscript -e '
library(magick)
img <- image_read("scripts/img_raw/{slug}.svg")
img_resized <- image_resize(img, "600x")
image_write(img_resized, "scripts/img_raw/{slug}-chart.png", format="png")
cat("done\n")
'

Use {slug}-chart.png as the file going forward. (System ImageMagick has rsvg support even without the R rsvg package.)

Verify all files are present and non-empty:

ls -lh scripts/img_raw/

If any download fails (404, empty file), stop and ask the editor for an alternative.

Step 4: Resize images with upload_image() — push=FALSE

Run upload_image() for each image with push = FALSE — this resizes and copies to the local image repo but does NOT push to GitHub yet:

Rscript -e '
library(rweekly.tools)
upload_image(
  file = "scripts/img_raw/{slug}.{ext}",
  caption = "",
  width = "600",
  issue = "2026/{WEEK}",
  image_repo = "/Users/sam/Documents/01-projects/rweekly-image",
  push = FALSE
)
cat("done\n")
'

Note: upload_image() appends _600 to the filename (e.g. ulam-prime-spiral.png → ulam-prime-spiral_600.png).

Run all three sequentially. Then list the result:

ls -lh /Users/sam/Documents/01-projects/rweekly-image/2026/{WEEK}/

---

⏸ GATE 2 — Confirm resized images before pushing to GitHub

Tell the editor:

Resized images are ready in /Users/sam/Documents/01-projects/rweekly-image/2026/{WEEK}/:
  {slug}_600.{ext}  ({size})
  {slug}_600.{ext}  ({size})
  {slug}_600.{ext}  ({size})

Please review the files (open them locally if you'd like).
Ready to push to the rweekly/image GitHub repo?

Wait for the editor to confirm before pushing.

---

Step 5: Push to GitHub

Once the editor confirms, push the image repo:

cd /Users/sam/Documents/01-projects/rweekly-image && git add 2026/{WEEK}/ && git commit -m "Add W{WEEK} highlight images" && git push

Check for errors. If push fails due to auth, let the editor know they should push manually from the image repo.

---

⏸ GATE 3 — Confirm embed URLs before editing draft.md

Show the editor the three embed lines that will be inserted, noting which section each goes into:

Ready to insert into draft.md (in each link's original section, not in ### Highlight):

[Insights] ![A brief and biased history of...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rweekly/image/master/2026/{WEEK}/{slug1}_600.{ext})
[Tutorials] ![Three small dots for...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rweekly/image/master/2026/{WEEK}/{slug2}_600.{ext})
[Gist & Cookbook] ![Little useless-useful...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rweekly/image/master/2026/{WEEK}/{slug3}_600.{ext})

OK to insert?

Wait for confirmation.

---

Step 6: Insert image embeds into draft.md

Image embeds go in each link's original section (e.g. Insights, Tutorials, Gist & Cookbook) — NOT in the ### Highlight section. The Highlight section contains only the bare links.

For each highlight link, find its duplicate in the original section and insert the image embed immediately after that line:

+ [Title](article-url)
![Title](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rweekly/image/master/2026/{WEEK}/{slug}_600.{ext})

Use the Edit tool. Image alt text should match the link title exactly.

Step 7: Verify

Read back the ### Highlight section of draft.md to confirm all three embeds are in place and correctly formatted.

Notes

• Highlight links are copies — they stay in both ### Highlight and their original section. Image embeds go only under the original-section copy — never under the ### Highlight copy, which stays bare links only.
• Image filenames: short, lowercase, kebab-case slugs — no dates or issue numbers.
• upload_image() always appends _600 to the resized output filename.
• scripts/img_raw/ is gitignored — safe to use as temporary staging.
• If upload_image() is unavailable, fall back to: cp scripts/img_raw/{slug}.png /Users/sam/Documents/01-projects/rweekly-image/2026/{WEEK}/ then push manually.