2026-07-29
📰 A reusable deploy pipeline for Umbraco Cloud
Owain Williams describes a reusable deploy pipeline for Umbraco Cloud, utilizing a shared GitHub Actions workflow to streamline deployment across multiple projects. Each project has a small caller workflow that pins a version and passes credentials. This approach prevents drift, simplifies project setup, and ensures consistent deployment logic.
2026-07-22
📰 Build a custom Umbraco Automate action
Owain Williams discusses creating a custom action in Umbraco Automate to convert blog tags into social media hashtags. The action processes tags stored as a JSON array, formatting them with a '#' prefix for seamless integration into posts on platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, and LinkedIn, enhancing automation efficiency.
2026-07-15
📰 Are you okay
Owain Williams discusses the importance of mental health awareness among developers, particularly men, who often avoid expressing vulnerability. He emphasizes the value of community support in fostering open conversations about struggles. As AI changes the tech landscape, he warns that this could hinder diversity and entry-level opportunities, urging developers to check in on each other.
2026-07-08
📰 Using Umbraco.Automate to populate content from an API
Owain.Codes discusses how to automatically populate Umbraco content using Umbraco.Automate, illustrated with a Pokémon blog example. By leveraging the PokéAPI, the process involves triggering content updates upon publication, making HTTP requests, and updating content properties with data from the API, demonstrated in a video on his YouTube channel.
2026-07-01
📰 OC.Automate Update
OC.Automate.LinkedIn has officially left beta, allowing users to post directly from Umbraco to LinkedIn after configuring an API account. Additionally, all three OC.Automate packages—LinkedIn, BlueSky, and Mastodon—are now fully compatible with Umbraco 17 and 18, available on the Umbraco Marketplace or via Nuget.
📰 Umbraco Automate
Umbraco Automate is an open-source event-driven automation engine integrated into the Umbraco backoffice, allowing users to create workflows without external platforms. Owain Williams shares his experience building social media automation workflows, highlighting a no-code approach to avoid duplicate posts. The tool offers flexibility and potential for further development.
📰 Umbraco Automate Workflows
Umbraco Automate, an open-source event-driven automation engine from Umbraco HQ, allows users to create workflows within the backoffice without external tools. Owain Williams shares his experience building connections for social media automation, highlighting a no-code approach to prevent duplicate posts by using a toggle property for content publishing.
2026-06-24
📰 It's Coffee Time!
In "My Coffee Machine Writes My Blog Now," Owain Williams details a project where a Raspberry Pi and a smart plug automate blog updates based on coffee brewing. The setup involves monitoring power consumption to detect brewing activity, posting updates to Umbraco, and sharing on social media. The project highlights technical challenges and learning experiences, emphasizing the joy of creating for fun.
📰 Codegarden 2026 recap
In Codegarden 2026, held in Copenhagen, Owain Williams reflects on a week filled with engaging talks, community interactions, and enjoyable activities like morning runs and a lively party. The venue and sessions were exceptional, making it a memorable experience. Ultimately, the connections with fellow attendees stood out as the highlight.
2026-06-17
📰 OC.Automate.Mastodon released
At the Umbraco MVP Summit and Codegarden, Umbraco HQ introduced Umbraco.Automate, an event-driven automation engine. Inspired by its capabilities, Owain.Codes developed OC.Automate.Mastodon, a third-party package enabling automated blog sharing to Mastodon. The open-source project aims to expand with more connections, enhancing user workflows in Umbraco.
2026-06-03
📰 Speed up slow deployments to Umbraco Cloud
Owain.Codes shares a solution to speed up Umbraco Cloud deployments, which were taking 20 minutes. By pushing changes to a private GitHub repository and adjusting the project file to set CompressionEnabled to false, deployment times improved to 6 minutes. He advises against pushing directly to Cloud.
📰 Fixing the sort order in Content Pickers in Umbraco
After upgrading to Umbraco 17, Owain.Codes encountered an issue where the content picker no longer displayed recently published news articles at the top. He developed a notification handler to sort articles by their "News Date" upon publication, enhancing user experience in the content picker while addressing pagination concerns.
📰 Codegarden 2026 - not long now!
Owain.Codes expresses excitement for Codegarden 2026 in Copenhagen, where he will speak about the Management API with Umbraco CMS. He highlights the MVP Summit, the change in venue, and the importance of pacing during the event. Owain invites attendees to connect and join morning runs, fostering community engagement.
2026-05-20