Due to time-constraints, I find myself unable to write a full hacking post today. So instead, here’s my jekyll setup and workflow.

This site is currently hosted on github pages, a free static hosting service for github users. The content is built using jekyll. Jekyll takes markdown files as input, transforms them to html, and finally adds silliness such as comments and theming.

My daily workflow is as follows:

1. switch to my blog’s directory

    cd ~/my/blog/dir/
   

2. ask git to use the ‘wip’ branch (gotta keep ‘master’ clean)

    git checkout wip
   

3. cd to the _posts directory

    cd _posts
   

4. copy an old post as basis for the next one

    cp 2017-04-24-first-post-1.md 2017-04-26-new-post.md
   

5. open new post with my favorite editor

    vim 2017-04-26-new-post.md
   

6. write post content (take notes and read)

7. open another terminal and build the site locally to test it

    cd ~/my/blog/dir/
    bundle exec jekyll serve
   

8. view the site content in a browser (http://localhost:4000/) to make sure I formatted the markdown correctly. Jekyll automatically rebuilds the site as I make changes.

9. when satisfied, add the new post to git. Then commit the change and merge it to the master branch.

    git add 2017-04-26-new-post.md
    git commit -m "Adds new post"
    git checkout master
    git merge wip
   

10. now that the content is complete, all that’s left is to push it up to github. Github takes care of refreshing my site’s content and making it available.

     git push origin master
    

This setup is nice for a variety of reasons:

1. It’s a workflow similar to coding, which I’ve had some practice on.
2. I can leverage familiar tools such as git and vim.
3. After 3 hours of initial setup, I don’t have to worry about the theming any more.
4. Github takes care of building and hosting the site.

In short, I am highly satisfied with the jekyll workflow. It has made writing and publishing incredibly convenient for me. I can focus on the content rather than worrying about hosting, provisioning, and theming. Thanks github pages + jekyll!

Tomorrow should be a return to form with the hacking book notes.

More to come.