Building the Session Notes Publisher Plugin

---
title: "Building the Session Notes Publisher Plugin"
uuid: 2026-05-22-c13aca7d
date: 2026-05-22
published_at: 2026-05-22T02:23:57.181Z
description: "Designed and built a standalone Claude Code plugin that captures session summaries and publishes them to GitHub Pages at notes.thethoughtdungeon.com"
---

## Summary

This session designed and built a standalone Claude Code plugin called `session-notes` that captures structured summaries of Claude conversations and publishes them as shareable pages at `notes.thethoughtdungeon.com/{uuid}`. The plugin is domain-agnostic, wraps any user-owned domain, and deploys static HTML to GitHub Pages via the `gh` CLI. The blog at `thethoughtdungeon.com` (Astro 4, GitHub Pages) served as the testing ground but was not modified.

## Key Topics

- Claude Code plugin architecture (`commands/`, `skills/`, `cache/` directories)
- GitHub Pages subdomain deployment via `gh api` (no git clone needed)
- Self-contained HTML generation with markdown toggle and copy button
- Astro 4 static site structure at `chastep/chastep.github.io`
- Plugin registration via `~/.claude/settings.json` and `installed_plugins.json`
- User-level custom slash commands via `~/.claude/commands/`

## Decisions & Insights

- Chose a **separate GitHub repo** (`chastep/notes`) over branching the blog repo — avoids deploy conflicts and keeps notes fully independent
- The `~/.claude/commands/` directory is the correct path for user-level slash commands; the plugin cache system is managed by Claude Code and cleans up unrecognized entries
- **`commands/` flat `.md` files** create slash commands; `skills/` subdirectories are context-triggered only (not slash-commandable)
- Used `gh api --input` (body via temp file) instead of shell args to avoid base64 length limits when uploading to GitHub Contents API
- HTML files embed **both pre-rendered HTML and raw markdown** — no CDN dependencies, works offline
- A `manifest.json` in the notes repo tracks metadata; `index.html` is regenerated from it on each deploy

## Action Items

- [ ] Add DNS CNAME record: `notes → chastep.github.io` at DNS provider for `thethoughtdungeon.com`
- [ ] Enable GitHub Pages on `chastep/notes` repo: Settings → Pages → main branch / root → custom domain `notes.thethoughtdungeon.com`
- [ ] Test end-to-end deploy after DNS propagates

## Code Snippets

### generate-note.mjs — UUID generation
```javascript
const dateStr = new Date().toISOString().slice(0, 10); // "2026-05-21"
const hex = randomBytes(4).toString('hex');             // "a3f7b2c1"
const uuid = `${dateStr}-${hex}`;
```

### deploy-note.mjs — GitHub Contents API upload
```javascript
const body = { message, content: Buffer.from(content).toString('base64'), branch, sha };
writeFileSync('/tmp/gh-upload-body.json', JSON.stringify(body));
execSync(`gh api repos/${user}/${repo}/contents/${path} --method PUT --input /tmp/gh-upload-body.json`);
```

### note-template.html — view toggle
```javascript
function toggleView() {
  showingHtml = !showingHtml;
  document.getElementById('html-view').style.display = showingHtml ? 'block' : 'none';
  document.getElementById('md-view').style.display   = showingHtml ? 'none'  : 'block';
  document.getElementById('btn-toggle').textContent  = showingHtml ? 'show markdown' : 'show rendered';
}
```