@plugdash/readtime

Word count and reading time for EmDash content. Writes readingTimeMinutes and wordCount to post metadata on publish. The EmDash equivalent of Reading Time WP.

Install

pnpm add @plugdash/readtime

Register

// astro.config.mjs
import { defineConfig } from "astro/config";
import emdash from "emdash";
import { readtimePlugin } from "@plugdash/readtime";

export default defineConfig({
  integrations: [
    emdash({
      plugins: [readtimePlugin()],
      // or sandboxed: [readtimePlugin()]
    }),
  ],
});

Configuration

Admin dashboard

After installing, open the EmDash admin and go to Plugins - Reading Time

• Settings. All configuration options are available there. Changes take effect on the next publish - no code changes required.

astro.config.mjs

Pass config at register time. Values are seeded into KV on install and reseeded automatically when the config in code changes.

readtimePlugin({
  wordsPerMinute: 250,
  collections: ["blog", "articles"],
});

| Option | Type | Default | Description | | ---------------- | ---------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------- | | wordsPerMinute | number | 238 | Average reading speed used for the calculation | | collections | string[] | all | Limit processing to specific collection slugs |

Set collections whenever your site has collections without a metadata field (e.g. EmDash's built-in plugins collection). Without an allowlist, readtime tries to write metadata on every content save and will log (but not throw) a "no such column: metadata" error when the target collection lacks one.

Astro theme usage

Access reading time values from the content metadata in your Astro templates:

---
const post = await emdash.content.get("posts", Astro.params.id);
const { wordCount, readingTimeMinutes } = post.data.metadata ?? {};
---

{readingTimeMinutes && <span>{readingTimeMinutes} min read</span>}
{wordCount && <span>{wordCount.toLocaleString()} words</span>}

What it does

• Ships ReadingTime.astro - drop-in companion component with four variants
• Fires on content:afterSave when status is published
• Extracts plain text from Portable Text body blocks
• Counts words (splits on whitespace)
• Calculates reading time with a configurable WPM rate
• Writes wordCount and readingTimeMinutes to content metadata
• Preserves existing metadata keys from other plugins

What it does not do

• Does not calculate reading time for drafts, archived, or scheduled content
• Does not count words in images, embeds, or other non-text block types
• Does not provide server-side rendering of the component - it is a client Astro component
• Does not support per-post WPM overrides
• Does not account for code blocks or block quotes differently