- Astro Weekly
- Posts
- Astro Weekly #97
Astro Weekly #97
Astro writing made easy with new desktop app, enums bring type safety to Astro DB, WordPress previews that work
Nathan Lawson
August 24, 2025
In partnership with
Hello, Astronauts!
No official release this week, but there’s still plenty happening across the Astroverse.
A new desktop app makes writing for Astro content collections feel more enjoyable than ever, turning frontmatter into smart forms and offering features like focus mode.
We’ve also got enums arriving in Astro DB and a clever plugin that brings seamless previews to Astro + headless WordPress setups.
Let’s dive in! 🚀
What’s new with Astro 🗞️
Fresh features, updates, and announcements. The latest from Astro HQ!
An editor that speaks Zod better than you do
A clean writing experience, built for Astro ✍️
No official Astro news this week, but I wanted to highlight a project recently shared on the official Astro Discord: Astro Editor.
Astro Editor is a macOS desktop app built specifically for Astro content collections.
Point it at your project and it reads your Zod schemas from content.config.ts, then turns your frontmatter into proper forms — dates become date pickers, enums become dropdowns, arrays become tag inputs, and so on.
Beyond schema-aware forms, it’s packed with even more thoughtful writing features:
Focus mode dims everything except the current sentence for distraction-free sessions.
Copyedit highlighting color-codes parts of speech to help refine your writing.
MDX component insertion lets you drop components into content with a simple shortcut and configure props visually.
A clean editor interface inspired by iA Writer, designed for long-form writing sessions.
It’s open source too, so feel free to explore, give feedback, or even contribute.
Astro Boosters 🚀
Fueling the mission — brought to you by this week’s sponsor.
Job boards are dead. Your network is alive.
You don’t need another job board. You need a signal in the noise.
Indy AI, a new feature by Contra, helps independents find career-defining opportunities through the networks they’ve already built. It connects to LinkedIn and X, then quietly surfaces warm, high-fit opportunities hiding in your extended network, including from people you didn’t even know were hiring.
No cold outreach. No endless scrolling. No pitching into the void.
This is work that finds you. Real opportunities, backed by real people you already know.
It’s not hustle culture. It’s human signal.
And it’s how independents grow without burning out.
Let Indy AI do the searching, so you can focus on the work that actually matters.
Astro Community 🧑🚀
Spotlight on what’s shining in the Astroverse.
Stronger typing in AstroDB 🔢
Enums have officially landed in Astro DB, giving you stronger type safety when working with your database.
In his latest video, Chris Pennington explains what enums are, and how to use them in your Astro projects. From defining enum values in your schema to getting type hints in your editor, it’s a great DX boost for anyone building with Astro DB.
Hit preview, get Astro
WordPress previews, the Astro way 🔗
Previews in headless WordPress setups are notoriously clunky, but a new plugin aims to make rendering your Astro site right inside the WordPress preview button effortless.
Alex Moon shows how to connect the plugin with Astro, handling authentication, draft routing, and preview queries. The result is a familiar WordPress preview experience, powered by your Astro site.
Spotted in the Astroverse 🪐
A few standout posts from the community that grabbed my attention!
If you have something awesome you’d like to share with the Astro community, you can reach me at [email protected] or via DM on X
Blazing-fast Astro themes ⚡
A clean, minimal blog template
Feather is the ultimate Astro blog template for authors and writers seeking a seamless blend of beautiful design and powerful SEO.
With elegant typography, a focus on readability, and flawless Core Web Vitals, it’s built to elevate your content and your search ranking.
Astro on X 🛰️
Tuning in to the Astro frequency on X!
little weekend tinkering project: I built a proof-of-concept using @NotionHQ as a CMS for an
@astrodotbuild site (rolled my own custom loader for fun)rough, definitely not comprehensive, but I enjoyed thinking through the use case to get it wired up
— Jason Lengstorf (@jlengstorf)
5:15 AM • Aug 11, 2025
Direct link for web version:
https://x.com/jlengstorf/status/1954773689838555623
Astro Boosters 🚀
Fueling the mission — brought to you by this week’s sponsor.
Start learning AI in 2025
Keeping up with AI is hard – we get it!
That’s why over 1M professionals read Superhuman AI to stay ahead.
Get daily AI news, tools, and tutorials
Learn new AI skills you can use at work in 3 mins a day
Become 10X more productive
Astro Showcase 🤩
Fresh from the launchpad: Astro sites worth a look!
That’s all for this week!
If you’re in the UK, enjoy the bank holiday weekend — whether that’s tinkering with Astro, or just taking a well-deserved break.
And if you’re building something cool or have knowledge to share, let’s hear it! Drop me a line at [email protected] or send a DM on X.
Until next time, Astronauts.
– Nathan 🧑🚀