I’ve written a bash function and a VSCode snippet to create a new Jekyll post.

Bash Function

You could put this function in your .bashrc or .zshrc file. For Fig users, you could add it to your Functions under Dotfiles.

# Jekyll Post Creator Alias.
function jpc() {
  # The title of the post.
  title=$1
  # The categories of the post, space separated.
  categories=$2

  # The file name with date and title.
  file="$(date +%Y-%m-%d-)$title.md"

  # If the title is empty, show usage.
  if [[ -z $title ]]; then
    echo "Usage: jpc <title> [categories]"
    return 1
  fi

  # If the current directory is not "_posts", prepend it to the file.
  if [[ $(pwd) != *"_posts"* ]]; then
    file="_posts/$file"
  fi

  # If the file already exists, show error.
  if [[ -f $file ]]; then
    echo "File $file already exists"
    return 1
  fi

  # Create the file and add the YAML front matter.
  echo "---" >> $file
  echo "layout: post" >> $file
  echo "title: $title" >> $file
  # Add the date, time and timezone.
  echo "date: $(date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z")" >> $file
  echo "categories: $categories" >> $file
  echo "---" >> $file
}

VSCode Snippet

Make sure that you’ve enabled quickSuggestions for markdown in your VSCode settings.json file. Otherwise, the snippet won’t work. For more information about VSCode snippets, see the official documentation.

"[markdown]": {
    "editor.quickSuggestions": true
}

{
  "jekyll": {
    "prefix": "jekyll",
    "body": [
      "---",
      "layout: post",
      "title: $1",
      "date: $CURRENT_YEAR-$CURRENT_MONTH-$CURRENT_DATE $CURRENT_HOUR:$CURRENT_MINUTE:$CURRENT_SECOND",
      "categories: $2",
      "---",
      "$3"
    ],
    "description": "Jekyll post"
  }