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[ARTICLE · art-143975] src=zander.wtf ↗ pub= topic=developer-tools verified=true sentiment=↑ positive

No more hand-edited dates

A developer released astro-git-dates, an Astro plugin that sets a content note's date from its last git commit at build time, replacing hand-edited dates. The plugin wraps a content collection's loader and swaps the `git Last Modified` or `git Created` frontmatter keyword for a real date before schema validation, requiring blog and code notes to move from `type: 'content'` collections to the `glob()` loader. The change is opt-in per note, so no dates changed in bulk, and the build produces exactly the same pages as before.

by read1 min views5 publishedOct 1, 2026
No more hand-edited dates
Image: Zander (auto-discovered)

A new package, astro-git-dates, sets a post or code note's date from its last commit at build time. #

When I change a code note, I change its date too, or I ask Claude to do it. Now I don’t have to. A note with date: git Last Modified in its frontmatter gets the date of its last commit at build time, so I edit the note and the date follows. Blog posts can do the same, and git Created gives the date of the first commit. I had this on the old Eleventy site and missed it.

I couldn’t find an Astro plugin that did it, so I wrote one: astro-git-dates. It wraps a content collection’s and swaps the keyword for a real date before the schema checks it. To use it, the blog and code notes had to move off the old type: 'content' collections and onto the glob() . That touched every page that used entry.slug, but the build makes exactly the same pages as before. I diffed the list to be sure.

It’s opt-in per note, so nothing changed date in bulk. I’ll switch notes over as I edit them.

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