Eleventy 3 — static site generator
Tailwind CSS 3 + @tailwindcss/typography — styling
Alpine.js — dropdowns, interactive UI
IndieKit (Micropub) — post creation/editing via the content/ symlink
Webmentions — via webmention.io + @chrisburnell/eleventy-cache-webmentions
ActivityPub — Fedify, handle @svemagie@blog.giersig.eu
OG images — generated at build time with Satori + resvg-js
Pagefind — client-side full-text search

Local development

npm install
npm run dev          # Eleventy dev server with live reload
npm run build        # Production build → _site/
npm run build:css    # Rebuild Tailwind CSS only

Copy .env (or set the variables below) before building. The .env file is not committed.

Environment variables

All site configuration is driven by env vars — no hardcoded values in source. Key ones:

Variable	Description
`SITE_URL`	Full URL, no trailing slash (e.g. `https://blog.giersig.eu`)
`SITE_NAME`	Display name shown in header
`AUTHOR_NAME`	Used in h-card, OG images, feeds
`AUTHOR_BIO`	Short bio line
`AUTHOR_AVATAR`	Full URL to avatar image
`AUTHOR_EMAIL`	Contact email
`SITE_DESCRIPTION`	Meta description
`SITE_LOCALE`	BCP 47 locale (e.g. `de`)
`GITHUB_USERNAME`	Enables GitHub activity feed
`BLUESKY_HANDLE`	Enables Bluesky feed + webmention self-filter
`MASTODON_INSTANCE` / `MASTODON_USER`	Mastodon feed + rel=me
`ACTIVITYPUB_HANDLE`	ActivityPub actor name (Fedify)
`SITE_SOCIAL`	Pipe-and-comma encoded social links: `Name\|URL\|icon,...`
`WEBMENTION_IO_TOKEN`	webmention.io API token
`LASTFM_API_KEY` / `LASTFM_USERNAME`	Listening page
`SUPPORT_URL` etc.	Tip/support links in JSON Feed extension
`MARKDOWN_AGENTS_ENABLED`	Serve clean Markdown to AI agents (default `true`)

Content structure

content/              ← symlink → IndieKit-managed posts (gitignored)
  articles/
  notes/
  bookmarks/
  likes/
  replies/
  reposts/
  photos/
  pages/

Posts are created/updated via IndieKit's Micropub endpoint — not edited manually. The content/ directory is gitignored but processed by Eleventy (setUseGitIgnore(false)).

Custom systems (beyond upstream)

Digital Garden

Posts can carry a gardenStage front-matter value (seedling, budding, cultivating, evergreen). Stages can also be derived from nested tags (garden/cultivate, etc.). The garden-badge.njk component renders a coloured pill in post lists and on individual posts. The /garden/ page documents the stages.

AI Disclosure

Posts declare their AI involvement level in front matter. The AI badge renders below the post content and (subtly) in list cards via .p-ai-code-level.

Nested tags

Categories support Obsidian-style path notation (lang/de, tech/programming). The nestedSlugify function in eleventy.config.js preserves / separators during slug generation.

Soft-delete filtering

Posts with deleted: true in frontmatter are excluded from all Eleventy collections. This supports ActivityPub soft-delete — the post disappears from the blog without the file being removed.

Content warnings

Posts with contentWarning or content_warning in frontmatter get special handling:

Post page: content is behind a collapsible <details> with an amber warning label
Listing pages: content (and photos) replaced by a warning + "View post" link

Upstream drift check

npm run check:upstream-widgets         # Report widget drift vs theme remote
npm run check:upstream-widgets:strict  # Exit 1 if any drift found

Deploy

The site is hosted on Cloudron. Deployment is triggered by pushing to main — a GitHub Action builds the site and rsyncs _site/ to the server. content/.indiekit/ is excluded from rsync --delete to preserve IndieKit's internal state.

Repository structure

_data/            JS data files (all env-var driven)
_includes/
  layouts/        Page layout templates
  components/     Reusable Nunjucks partials
content/          Symlink → IndieKit posts (gitignored)
css/              Tailwind source + compiled output
docs/plans/       Implementation plans
images/           Static assets
js/               Client-side scripts
lib/              Build-time utilities (OG, unfurl)
scripts/          Maintenance scripts
eleventy.config.js  Single monolithic Eleventy config

Relationship to upstream

The theme remote is tracked as theme (svemagie/blog-eleventy-indiekit). This repo (svemagie/blog) is the live site and has diverged substantially — garden system, AI disclosure, nested tags, navigation redesign, Fedify ActivityPub, OG generation, and more. Upstream changes are selectively cherry-picked, not merged wholesale.