Writing with AI · Garden Handbook

You do not need to memorize component tags to add charts, metrics, or interactive calculators in Garden. Write a one-sentence idea in the post body, let an Agent compile it using the repository's skills, and verify the result on commit with the same CLI commands.

Humans and Agents Share the Same Tools

The Agent uses npx garden ui scan to locate blocks, npx garden ui apply to write them back, and npx garden ui check to validate them; the author's pre-commit hook runs npx garden ui check too. When a check fails, the printed prompt is the instruction to hand to the Agent.

1.Write a One-sentence Idea

Place an unnamed garden fence where the component belongs and state what the reader should do and see, without naming a component:

```garden
Let the reader drag daily word count and writing days per week to see how many weeks an 8,000-word article takes.
```

Draft posts (draft: true) may keep uncompiled idea fences; in non-draft posts, both npx garden ui check and npx garden check report a garden-idea error. Depending on the content, the Agent compiles the idea into a built-in component (garden interactive, card, stat, compare, and others) or replaces it with plain prose when a paragraph is clearer.

2.Three Bundled Skills

Three skills live in .agents/skills/ at the root of the site repository. npx hd-garden init installs them when creating a site, the first npx garden sync or npx garden dev fills in any missing skill files, and npx garden skill reinstalls them on demand.

Skill Name	Example Trigger Prompt	What It Does
`garden-ui`	"Compile this post: content/posts/writing-pace.md", "Recompile writing-pace", or pasting a fix prompt	Scans `uncompiled`, `stale`, and `error` blocks, generates components, and writes them back via `npx garden ui apply`; asking where interactive blocks fit runs read-only suggestion mode and returns up to 5 ready-to-paste idea fences
`garden-interactive-chart`	Canvas animations or simulations beyond the built-in component catalog	Writes a standalone `.html` file inside the post's sidecar directory and embeds it in the post with a `garden html` fence
`garden-post-review`	"Review post: content/posts/writing-pace.md"	Fixes structural errors reported by `npx garden check`, repairs interactive blocks against the chart rules, and reads the full post to offer editorial suggestions without rewriting prose

3.`garden ui` Subcommands and Post Checks

Authors and Agents run the same garden ui subcommands; when an idea fence has no id, npx garden ui apply targets it by the --intent-hash (or --at line number) returned by npx garden ui scan.

Command	When the Author Runs It	When the Agent Runs It
`npx garden ui scan <post.md>`	Inspect which blocks in a post are uncompiled or failing	Step 1: read each block's `status`, `startLine`, `hash`, and `intentHash`
`npx garden ui prompt [--studio]`	Read the component catalog, design rules, and recipes	Read before writing a block so only cataloged components and props are used
`npx garden ui schema`	Inspect the JSON schema of the component catalog	Read structured prop constraints programmatically
`npx garden ui apply <post.md> --id <id>`	Rarely needed when writing by hand	Replace a single fence by `--id`, `--intent-hash`, or `--at` while keeping everything outside the fence byte-identical
`npx garden ui check <post.md>`	Run automatically by the pre-commit hook (also accepts `--staged` or `--all`)	Validate after applying changes until the exit code is `0`
`npx garden ui catalog [--out file] [--no-open]`	Generate `.garden/ui-catalog.html` for offline browsing	Not used by the Agent
`npx garden check <post.md>`	Check a single post's title, images, and fences	Final check after all blocks are applied, verifying `"ok": true` in the JSON output

4.Pre-commit Hook and Fix Prompts

On the first npx garden sync or npx garden dev run, Garden writes exec npx --no-install garden ui check --staged --quiet to .git/hooks/pre-commit (if a custom hook already exists, it leaves the file untouched and prints the line to add). --staged reads staged content directly via git show :<path> and, on failure, prints the line numbers, diagnostic codes, and a fix prompt:

content/posts/writing-pace.md:9  -  garden-idea  uncompiled idea remaining

──────────────────────── Fix prompt for AI ────────────────────────
Handle the Garden post blocks listed below: compile uncompiled ideas, and fix interactive blocks that have errors.
……

The prompt is written to .garden/ui-fix-prompt.md and copied to the clipboard when pbcopy, wl-copy, xclip, xsel, or clip is available; pass --no-copy or set GARDEN_UI_NO_COPY=1 to disable clipboard copying.
When pasting into a web chat that cannot read your local repository, run npx garden ui check <post.md> --standalone to append the full npx garden ui prompt rules to the prompt (including source fences for up to 10 failing blocks).
A misspelled tag inside an interactive block (such as <Slidr> instead of <Slider>) reports ui-component with its exact line number; to commit anyway, run git commit --no-verify.
Run npx garden hooks to reinstall the hook (pass --force to overwrite an existing hook), or set GARDEN_SKIP_HOOKS=1 to skip automatic hook installation.

5.Generate a Code Diff from One Sentence

Place a garden idea fence immediately below an updated code block and state in one sentence what changed compared with the previous version:

```yaml
pages:
  garden:
    title: "Write in Markdown | Push to Update the Site"
```

```garden
Compared with the previous version: split the title into two lines with " | " instead of a period and newline.
```

Following the garden-ui skill, the Agent replaces that idea fence with a diff fence right below the code block. The page merges the adjacent code and diff fences into a single code frame with a toggle between the full code and the diff; see Writing Posts & Thoughts for the hand-written diff format.

6.Templates and Snippets Without an Agent

When writing components by hand without AI, you can use the templates and snippets shipped in the package:

Every draft created by make new includes an HTML comment at the bottom with copy-ready examples for idea fences and all 12 components; delete the comment whenever you are done.
templates/garden-blocks.md lists when / whenNot guidance and copyable templates for every block; macOS, Typora, and Alfred users can import templates/garden-snippets.plist to expand ;gidea, ;gcard, ;gstat, ;gcompare, ;gtimeline, ;gchart, ;gfigure, ;ghtml, ;ginteractive, ;gfile, ;grel, ;glist, and ;gchoice.
The engine repository also ships editor integrations under editors/vscode, editors/typora, and editors/obsidian, and npx garden ui catalog generates an offline component catalog at .garden/ui-catalog.html.

7.Optional Standalone Admin

The Garden engine includes an optional /admin console (under app/admin and worker/) that can be deployed separately with npm run admin:local, npm run admin:cloudflare, or Docker. Once configured via environment variables, it provides:

GitHub OAuth sign-in restricted to the ADMIN_GITHUB_LOGINS allowlist, a web editor that commits thoughts directly to content/thoughts/*.md using CONTENT_GITHUB_TOKEN, and direct browser uploads to Alibaba Cloud OSS via 10-minute Post Policies.
An interactive block overview at /admin/ui/blocks across all posts (including drafts) with one-click copying of the same fix prompt produced by the CLI hook.
The /admin/ui studio for drafting or editing components with a model (UI_MODEL_BASE_URL, UI_MODEL_API_KEY, UI_MODEL_NAME), the catalog at /admin/ui/catalog, draft previews at /admin/preview/<path>, and model evaluations at /admin/ui/evals.