hotdog-cms/docs/importing.md

Importing a site

hotdog-cms import brings a site in from WordPress, Hugo, Jekyll or Ghost, into a HotDog CMS site made with hotdog-cms new:

hotdog-cms new mysite && cd mysite
hotdog-cms import wordpress -url https://old.example.com
hotdog-cms check

From	Command
A live WordPress site	import wordpress -url https://example.com (published posts and pages). With -user name and an Application Password in HOTDOG_WP_PASSWORD, drafts and private posts too.
A WordPress export file	import wxr -file export.xml (Tools → Export)
Ghost	import ghost -file export.json -url https://old.example.com (Settings → Labs → Export)
Hugo	import hugo -from ../oldsite (-rename posts=articles by default)
Jekyll	import jekyll -from ../oldsite

Every importer takes -site DIR (default .), -posts COLLECTION (default articles) and -overwrite.

What happens

• Markdown where it's faithful. Posts and pages become Markdown files with front matter: title, date, updated, summary, tags (and categories), author, draft, featured image and its alt text.
• HTML where Markdown would lose something: embeds, layout blocks (page builders, WordPress columns), tables with merged cells, inline styles. Those pages keep their HTML (format: html), and markdown.unsafe_html is turned on so they build. The HTML is sanitized at build time, so scripts and embeds are dropped. The report lists each page and why.
• Pictures come across, through the same re-encoding as uploads: no location or camera data, resized, WebP copies. A picture that can't be fetched keeps its old address, and the report says so.
• Old addresses keep working. Every page's old permalink (WordPress links, Hugo url/aliases, Jekyll permalinks and redirect_from, Ghost's /slug/) becomes a redirect to its new address, in site.yaml.
• Page hierarchies stay: a WordPress page with pages under it becomes its folder's own page, listing its children.
• What only the old tool could run (WordPress shortcodes like [gallery], Hugo shortcodes, Jekyll's Liquid) is left as text and listed in the report. WordPress's [caption] becomes a figure.
• Nothing is overwritten unless you say -overwrite. Running an import again skips what's there.

The report goes to IMPORT-REPORT.md in the site. Read it, then run hotdog-cms check and hotdog-cms serve.

The WordPress password

Use an Application Password (Users → Profile → Application Passwords), not the login password. It's read from HOTDOG_WP_PASSWORD, used for the requests, and never written anywhere. Revoke it in WordPress when the import is done.