One Evening A Week: Packaging Metadata Covers And Upload Logs Without Double-Posting

Description and use

An automated weekly pipeline for stock platform uploads that generates correct CSVs, prevents duplicate submissions, packages assets, and converts docs, running in ~3 hours on a 2 GB server.

Problem

Accidentally uploading the same batch twice to stock platforms leads to account reviews and restrictions.

Outcome

The pipeline now processes 39 products (~856 MB) in ~3 hours on a 2 GB server, eliminating duplicate uploads and reducing manual packaging time.

Workflow

• Point make_metadata.py at asset folder and select platform to generate correct CSV header
• Run upload_tracker.py pending to list items not yet uploaded
• Upload assets via platform API or web interface
• After successful upload, run upload_tracker.py done to mark items
• Run pack_product.py to create zip, cover, and thumbnail for each product
• Run md2pdf.py to convert Markdown docs to styled PDFs
• Review outputs, adjust titles, and mark all items done in ledger

Evidence

Adobe does not punish an accidental duplicate with a warning. It counts against your review standing, and repeated resubmission of already-published assets is one of the listed reasons reviewers flag a contributor account.

Source

All three major stock channels reject a metadata file with a wrong header instantly.

Source

The ledger is a text file I can read, back up, and grep. A re‑run of the batch script checks the ledger first, so double‑posting is impossible rather than unlikely.

Source

The entire pipeline runs on 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, no GPU.

Source

One evening, roughly three hours. I generate and review the week's assets, run the three metadata commands, check the ledger with pending, package two or three products, and mark everything done.

Source