Tips for future posts in a private/unlisted URL?

Hello there,

I wanted to set up a system where posts I make that have the publishDate frontmatter set to the future still get published but end up in a randomly generated string unlisted URL. Then when time is up, it would get published to the actual URL where it should be and the old unlisted URL will remain but only as a redirect to the new page.

I tried approaching it with a modified slug but that’s just not sustainable in the long run so I wanted to make it an automated thing. I’m not that familiar with Hugo though so I’m not sure if it is even capable of being set up to do this particular use-case.

What are my options? All I can think of is writing convoluted scripts that go into the *.md files and modifying the front matter for me but is this the only way to achieve what I want to happen? Or is there a more elegant way of doing it in Hugo itself?

There is not.