immich-folio/plans/2026-02-15-photo-stories-v1.md

Photo Stories / Essays

Add a Markdown-driven photo essay system to the gallery, allowing the photographer to create long-form vertical scroll pages that intersperse Immich images with narrative text — like a photo essay or editorial blog post.

Design Decisions

Important

Content authoring via Markdown files — follows the same pattern as the existing content/about.md (frontmatter + gray-matter). Each story lives in content/stories/<slug>.md. This keeps content in the repo, versioned with Git, and avoids any database or CMS dependency.

Important

Image references use Immich asset UUIDs — stories reference images by UUID (e.g. ![caption](asset:UUID)). The renderer resolves these to proxied URLs with ThumbHash placeholders. No images are stored locally — they flow through the existing /api/image proxy like everything else.

Warning

Stories are a separate content type from albums — they don't live under subpages. They get their own top-level routes at /stories/<slug> and appear in the header nav and footer as a "Stories" link. This avoids polluting the album/subpage routing logic.

Proposed Changes

Content Layer

[NEW] content/stories/

New directory for story Markdown files. Each story is a .md file with YAML frontmatter:

---
title: "A Weekend in Potsdam"
date: 2026-02-10
cover: <immich-asset-uuid>     # cover image for the story card
---

An opening paragraph of text. Sets the mood.

![Sanssouci Palace at dawn](asset:<uuid>)

More narrative text explaining the moment, the light, the feeling.

![Two images side by side](asset:<uuid1>)
![](asset:<uuid2>)

A closing paragraph.

Authoring rules:

• Standard Markdown for text (paragraphs, headings, blockquotes, emphasis)
• Images use ![caption](asset:<UUID>) syntax — the custom renderer swaps these for proxied next/image with ThumbHash blur
• Two ![...] on consecutive lines → rendered as a side-by-side pair (2-column layout)
• A single ![...] → rendered full-width (edge-to-edge)
• The cover frontmatter UUID is used for the story card thumbnail and OG image

---

Configuration

[MODIFY] gallery.yaml

No changes needed — stories are auto-discovered from content/stories/*.md. This keeps configuration minimal and avoids requiring UUID registration for every story.

[MODIFY] config.ts

Add a stories property to AppConfig:

export interface StoryConfig {
  slug: string;
  title: string;
  date: string;
  cover: string;  // Immich asset UUID
}

// In AppConfig:
stories: StoryConfig[];

Add a loadStories() function that scans content/stories/*.md, reads frontmatter from each, validates the cover UUID, and returns a sorted array (newest first).

---

Library

[NEW] storyParser.ts

Parses a story Markdown file into a structured block array for rendering:

type StoryBlock =
  | { type: 'text'; html: string }
  | { type: 'image'; assetId: string; caption?: string; blurDataURL?: string; aspectRatio?: number }
  | { type: 'image-pair'; images: [StoryImageData, StoryImageData] };

Logic:

1. Parse frontmatter with gray-matter
2. Split the body into blocks separated by blank lines
3. Detect ![caption](asset:UUID) patterns
4. Two consecutive image lines → group as image-pair
5. Text blocks → render to HTML with a lightweight Markdown renderer (use marked or inline custom parser since the about page already does line-splitting — but for stories we want headings, emphasis, blockquotes)
6. For each image block, call immich.getAssetInfo() to fetch ThumbHash and aspect ratio

---

Pages

[NEW] app/stories/page.tsx

Stories index page at /stories — lists all stories as cards in a masonry or vertical list.

Each card shows:

• Cover image (proxied from Immich, with ThumbHash blur)
• Title
• Date
• Click → navigates to /stories/<slug>

Server component. Reads the story configs from getConfig().stories and fetches ThumbHash for each cover.

[NEW] app/stories/[slug]/page.tsx

Story detail page at /stories/<slug>.

Server component that:

1. Reads the Markdown file from content/stories/<slug>.md
2. Parses it through storyParser.ts
3. Fetches ThumbHash/aspect data for all referenced images
4. Renders the block array as a vertical scroll layout with alternating text and full-bleed images
5. Generates metadata (title, OG image from cover)

---

Styling

[NEW] app/stories/stories.css

Story index page styles — card grid similar to the subpage grid.

[NEW] app/stories/[slug]/story.css

Story detail page styles:

• .story — max-width container (680px for text, full-bleed for images)
• .story__header — title + date, large serif typography
• .story__text — paragraph styles, headings, blockquotes. Serif body text for editorial feel
• .story__image — single full-width image with optional caption below
• .story__image-pair — two images side-by-side with equal height (CSS Grid 1fr 1fr)
• .story__caption — small italic text below images
• Responsive: image pairs stack vertically on mobile (< 640px)
• Generous vertical spacing between blocks (48–64px) for a magazine feel
• Smooth fade-in animations on scroll using existing FadeIn component

---

Navigation

[MODIFY] layout.tsx

Add a "Stories" link to the header nav (between the subpage links and "About"), conditionally rendered only when getConfig().stories.length > 0.

---

Dependencies

[MODIFY] package.json

Add marked (lightweight Markdown → HTML renderer, ~40KB) for rendering story text blocks. The about page's basic split('\n') approach won't suffice for stories since they need headings, emphasis, blockquotes, and links.

---

Summary of Files

Action	File	Purpose
NEW	content/stories/	Story markdown files directory
MODIFY	lib/config.ts	Add StoryConfig type, loadStories(), stories to AppConfig
NEW	lib/storyParser.ts	Parse story MD → structured block array
NEW	app/stories/page.tsx	Stories index page (list of cards)
NEW	app/stories/stories.css	Styles for stories index
NEW	app/stories/[slug]/page.tsx	Story detail page (essay reader)
NEW	app/stories/[slug]/story.css	Styles for story reader
MODIFY	app/layout.tsx	Add conditional "Stories" nav link
MODIFY	package.json	Add marked dependency

Verification Plan

Automated Tests

1. Unit test for storyParser — add lib/__tests__/storyParser.test.ts:

   • Parses a single image ![caption](asset:UUID) into an image block
   • Parses two consecutive images into an image-pair block
   • Parses plain text into a text block with rendered HTML
   • Handles mixed content (text → image → text → pair → text)
   • Rejects malformed asset: references gracefully
   • Run: npx vitest run lib/__tests__/storyParser.test.ts

2. Unit test for loadStories — add to lib/__tests__/config.test.ts:

   • Returns empty array when no stories directory exists
   • Sorts stories by date descending
   • Run: npx vitest run lib/__tests__/config.test.ts

3. Build check — npm run build passes with no TypeScript errors

4. Lint check — npm run lint passes clean

Manual Verification

1. Create a sample story at content/stories/test-story.md with mixed text + images
2. Run npm run dev, navigate to /stories — confirm the story card appears with cover image
3. Click into the story — confirm text renders with proper typography, images load with blur-up placeholders, and image pairs display side-by-side on desktop
4. Test mobile (375px) — confirm image pairs stack vertically and text is readable
5. Check /stories link appears in header nav
6. Check that removing all content/stories/*.md files makes the "Stories" nav link disappear