tldr;

• jekyll 👉 pandoc
• pandoc + bash (see ./write, ./build, ./deploy and ./purge)
• aws s3
• cloudflare dns + ssl

keep it simple, stupid

past week end i started the migration from jekyll to pandoc (inspiration from this dev.to link).

i wanted to get rid of the bulky jekyll blog with lots of config, gems and dependencies.

although with pandoc i still have a dependency to a tool, it’s a standalone software you can install with brew, so it’s fine

utilities for common tasks

the next step was to implement just the things needed to make a DIY blog with pandoc.

here is where the above mentioned bash scripts come in:

./write hello world

now, whenever i come up with a decent blog post i start with a concise title to focus on the topic.

i can execute this on my terminal and it will pop up my editor for the new blog post under the posts/ folder:

~/D/p/christian-fei.github.io (master) ./write hello world

📝  write

> creating posts/2018-11-01-hello-world.md

~/D/p/christian-fei.github.io (master)

check out write here

./build

this command goes through all the markdown files and converts them with pandoc to static html pages.
each has a reference to the shipped styles and assets and I could even link some js utility to them.

it puts the built site under the dist/ folder. additionally this is the folder used under development served with npx serve dist/.

here is an example output:

~/D/p/christian-fei.github.io (master ⚡) ./build

💯  build

⛏ index page
⛏ about page
⛏ building posts
..............................................................................
⛏  nice posts urls
..............................................................................
⛏ copying assets
⛏ copying styles

check out build here

./deploy

it puts the files under the dist/ folder to my s3 bucket, hooked up with my dns + ssl provider cloudflare.com.

~/D/p/christian-fei.github.io (master ⚡) ./deploy

🚀  deploy

upload: dist/index.html to s3://christianfei.com/index.html
upload: dist/about.html to s3://christianfei.com/about.html
upload: dist/about/index.html to s3://christianfei.com/about/index.html
upload: dist/assets/images/cf.128x128.png to s3://christianfei.com/assets/images/cf.128x128.png
upload: dist/main.css to s3://christianfei.com/main.css
upload: dist/posts/index.html to s3://christianfei.com/posts/index.html
upload: dist/posts/2013-04-21-berlin-april-2013.html to s3://christianfei.com/posts/2013-04-21-berlin-april-2013.html
upload: dist/posts/2013-04-21-berlin-april-2013/index.html to s3://christianfei.com/posts/2013-04-21-berlin-april-2013/index.html
...

check out deploy here

./purge

this is used to purge the cache for the domain christianfei.com through the Cloudflare rest api:

~/D/p/christian-fei.github.io (master ⚡) ./purge

💥  purge cache for https://christianfei.com

{
  "result": {
    "id": "5309943dc0a486cbf246fe039a1f7277"
  },
  "success": true,
  "errors": [],
  "messages": []
}

check out purge here

wrapping it up

i am glad of the results. it’s super lightweight and smooth (once you figure out how to include a html template in your posts and understand the full potential of pandoc).

it’s a lightweight setup, with the bare minimum that i need.

✌️