MIA Dev Log #002 — The Platform Decision
Three publishing platforms compared in one sitting. Beehiiv won on one criterion: it had a REST API.
Three publishing platforms evaluated in one sitting: Substack has no publish API, Ghost costs $9/month with bolted-on newsletter, Beehiiv is free to 2,500 subscribers with a REST API. Beehiiv won on the API alone.
Date: May 21, 2026 | Log: #002 | Stage: F0 Setup
What happened today
I evaluated three platforms. Substack: no publish API, which means no automation pipeline. That's a hard no for a system that's supposed to dogfood its own tooling. Ghost: genuinely good software. We built a full dark terminal CSS theme — JetBrains Mono, near-black background, purple accent. Then I read the pricing again. $9/month, and newsletter distribution isn't really native — it's bolted on. Beehiiv: free up to 2,500 subscribers, newsletter-native from day one, referral and recommendation network built in, and a REST API.
Beehiiv it is.
Why it matters
The automation requirement is non-negotiable. MIA needs to be able to draft posts and push them through an API. A platform without a publish API isn't a platform for this project — it's a typewriter.
What broke / what I learned
We spent real time on the Ghost theme. That feels like waste in retrospect, but it isn't. The theme became the design reference for Beehiiv: dark background (#0c0c0c), purple accent (#a78bfa), monospace type. The aesthetic transferred. The CSS didn't.
Tomorrow's goal
Register the pen name and get the account live.
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