@masonjames/emdash-author-box

A polished author box plugin for EmDash CMS that turns existing EmDash bylines into a reusable presentation layer.

It ships with:

• an authorBox Portable Text block for editors
• a reusable AuthorBox.astro component for theme developers
• sitewide settings for avatar, bio, website link, layout, and contributor order defaults
• graceful handling for missing bios, avatars, websites, and empty bylines

Compatibility

| Mode | Supported | | --- | --- | | Trusted install via plugins: [] | Yes | | Portable Text block rendering | Yes | | Direct theme component import | Yes | | Sandboxed install via sandboxed: [] | No | | EmDash marketplace bundle / emdash plugin publish | No |

Why not marketplace publishing yet?

This plugin depends on componentsEntry and admin.portableTextBlocks, which currently require EmDash native/trusted mode. Current EmDash marketplace bundling rejects Portable Text block plugins, so the supported release path today is npm publish + trusted install in astro.config.mjs.

Installation

npm install @masonjames/emdash-author-box

Then register it in your site:

// astro.config.mjs
import { defineConfig } from "astro/config";
import emdash from "emdash/astro";
import { authorBoxPlugin } from "@masonjames/emdash-author-box";

export default defineConfig({
	integrations: [
		emdash({
			plugins: [authorBoxPlugin()],
		}),
	],
});

What the plugin adds

Admin settings

The plugin creates an Author Box settings page with defaults for:

• showing contributor avatars
• showing contributor bios
• showing contributor website links
• choosing compact vs expanded multi-contributor layout
• choosing primary-first vs byline-order sorting

Editor block

Editors can insert an authorBox Portable Text block and optionally override:

• heading text
• layout
• bio visibility
• website visibility
• all contributors vs primary contributor only

Direct theme component

Theme authors can import the same presentation layer directly:

---
import { AuthorBox } from "@masonjames/emdash-author-box/astro";
---

<AuthorBox
	heading="Meet the contributors"
	content={post.data}
	contributors={post.data.bylines}
/>

Portable Text usage

For the authorBox block to resolve the current entry’s bylines, pass the current content context through your Portable Text renderer:

---
import { PortableText } from "emdash/ui";
---

<PortableText
	value={post.data.content}
	content={post.data}
	contributors={post.data.bylines}
/>

The plugin auto-registers its authorBox component through componentsEntry, so you do not need to wire the block manually.

Data contract

The component is designed around EmDash’s hydrated byline shape:

type ContentBylineCredit = {
	byline: {
		id: string;
		displayName: string;
		bio: string | null;
		avatarMediaId: string | null;
		websiteUrl: string | null;
	};
	sortOrder: number;
	roleLabel: string | null;
};

If no usable contributors are available, the component renders nothing.

Design behavior

• one contributor → single spotlight card
• multiple contributors + expanded layout → equal-weight contributor cards
• multiple contributors + compact layout → tighter contributor list
• no avatar media → initials fallback
• invalid website URLs → omitted safely
• duplicate contributor entries → deduplicated

Development

npm install
npm run check

Publishing

This package is meant to be published to npm:

npm publish --access public

Do not use emdash plugin publish for this package today. EmDash’s current marketplace bundler rejects native Portable Text block plugins.