Auto-Sync Medium Posts to WordPress (Draft-First, Idempotent)

WordPress still wins when you need categories, plugins, schema, and URLs you own. Medium still wins for distribution. Mature teams run both with a pipe—not a one-weekend export.

Tool outcome: A WP-Cron or server cron that creates draft posts from new Medium article_id values only once.

Why manual import fails

Copy-paste breaks images, internal links, and heading hierarchy. Duplicate posts appear when someone re-imports the same essay. Automation is quality control: same mapping rules every run.

Architecture editors accept

Discover new Medium posts on schedule (/user/{id}/articles).
Import body via /article/{id}/markdown (themes) or /html.
Create WordPress posts as draft.
Notify Slack/email for a quick skim.
Store medium_article_id in post meta → never double-import.

Pull /article/{id} for featured image, tags, reading time.

WordPress plugin-style script (WP-CLI friendly)

<?php
// wp-content/mu-plugins/medium-sync.php — run via: wp eval-file sync-run.php

function medium_sync_fetch(string $path): array {
    $url = 'https://api.zenndra.com' . $path;
    $res = wp_remote_get($url, [
        'headers' => ['Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . getenv('ZENNDRA_API_KEY')],
        'timeout' => 30,
    ]);
    if (is_wp_error($res)) {
        throw new RuntimeException($res->get_error_message());
    }
    return json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body($res), true);
}

$userId = 'YOUR_USER_ID';
$articles = medium_sync_fetch("/user/{$userId}/articles")['articles'] ?? [];

foreach ($articles as $a) {
    $mediumId = $a['id'];
    $existing = get_posts([
        'post_type' => 'post',
        'meta_key' => 'medium_article_id',
        'meta_value' => $mediumId,
        'posts_per_page' => 1,
        'fields' => 'ids',
    ]);
    if ($existing) {
        continue;
    }

    $md = medium_sync_fetch("/article/{$mediumId}/markdown");
    $postId = wp_insert_post([
        'post_title' => $a['title'],
        'post_content' => $md['markdown'] ?? '',
        'post_status' => 'draft',
    ]);
    update_post_meta($postId, 'medium_article_id', $mediumId);
    update_post_meta($postId, 'medium_canonical_url', $a['url']);
}

Use WP Markdown or your theme’s MD support; or convert HTML with a trusted library.

Canonical strategy

Until traffic justifies a flip, many teams keep Medium canonical and use WordPress for email capture and funnels. Document the choice; Zenndra feeds content—it does not replace your SEO policy.

See Google Search Central on canonicalization.