Building blocks for building blogs
Documenting the technologies and tools behind this blog. What began life as a fork-it-and-go template has grown into something more substantial.
This site began life as a clone of the Next.js Blog with Draft Mode template offered by Vercel.
The design and functionality have diverged from that template, but if you were to pop the hood and take a gander, you'd see that those foundations are still there.
When I started this project, my basic pitch was: "All you need is some command-line familiarity to set things up, and not much else."
That's still 100% true if you just want to fork the template, write some stuff, and hit the big green PUBLISH button.
But I'm pleased to say this site has grown into something more ambitious than that; a sandbox where I can test out ideas for code and content. It's been a fun journey to get from there to here.
That process is written about in the following entries.
Fundamentals
Out of the box, this template is built using:
Next.js | JavaScript Framework
Contentful | Digital Experience Platform
TailwindCSS | CSS Framework
GitHub is where the code and its whole history reside, where I'm learning about the value of version control and creating a branch from your main repo.
The blog is hosted on Vercel, with some additional features like domain management, web analytics and speed insights.
Fun with GenAI
The cover images are made with Midjourney, and Claude is my collaborator on the code and the early drafting of copy.
Just to be absolutely clear, however: the published words, and the editorial decisions behind them, are purely mine.
Where a post leans on a prompt worth sharing, you'll find it included.
