Expand Setting Up This Blog post with config details and code snippets

Author: OpenClaw Sync

_posts/2026-03-05-setting-up-this-blog.md

@@ -1,20 +1,111 @@
 ---
 title: Setting Up This Blog
-description: How I put devin.fitzsky.com together with Jekyll, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare, and a reproducible dev setup.
+description: Jekyll, GitHub Pages, Nix, and Cloudflare — how devin.fitzsky.com came together.
 ---
 
-Been meaning to set one of these up for a while. I have always liked GitHub Pages, so I went with that. I had never used Jekyll before, but it felt like the right path for a personal site where the main job is writing and publishing cleanly.
+Been meaning to set one of these up for a while. I've always liked GitHub Pages, so I went with that. I'd never used Jekyll before, but it felt like the right path for a personal site where the main job is writing and publishing cleanly.
 
-I started from an empty repo and scaffolded a basic Jekyll structure with layouts, includes, posts, and a small set of pages. The first pass looked a little too playful, so I tightened the design into something sleeker and more minimal. Sharper typography, cleaner spacing, less decoration, and a style that stays out of the way of the writing.
+## The Structure
 
-Deploys run through GitHub Actions on pushes to `main`. The workflow builds the Jekyll site and ships it to Pages automatically. I hit one setup error early where `configure-pages` returned a `Not Found` response. That turned out to be a bootstrap issue, and setting the action to enable Pages during the run fixed it.
+I started from an empty repo and scaffolded a basic Jekyll structure — layouts, includes, posts, a few pages. The first design pass was a little too playful, so I tightened it into something minimal. Sharper typography, cleaner spacing, less decoration. The style should stay out of the way of the writing.
 
-I love Nix and devenv, so that part was an easy choice. The repo now has a reproducible dev environment, which means setup is consistent across machines instead of relying on whatever Ruby version happens to be installed.
+The config is intentionally small:
 
-That mattered quickly, because GitHub Pages dependencies currently cap part of the stack below Ruby 4. I pinned the latest compatible Ruby line, locked gem versions with `Gemfile.lock`, and kept the toolchain stable.
+```yaml
+title: Devin Bernosky
+url: "https://devin.fitzsky.com"
+permalink: /:title/
+markdown: kramdown
+plugins:
+  - jekyll-feed
+  - jekyll-seo-tag
+defaults:
+  - scope:
+      path: ""
+      type: "posts"
+    values:
+      layout: post
+      author: Devin
+```
 
-Writing flow feels super easy. Open a post file, write in Markdown, push, done. And who does not love Markdown.
+The `permalink: /:title/` is key — URLs are just the slug with no date prefix. Posts live in `_posts/` as `YYYY-MM-DD-title.md`, but the URL comes out clean: `devin.fitzsky.com/setting-up-this-blog/`.
 
-DNS is in Cloudflare for all things Fitzsky. A lot of that routes back to Tailscale, and I like carving out little pieces for static public content like this.
+## Deploy
 
-Let's see how well I can keep this updated, shall we?
+Deploys run through GitHub Actions on pushes to `main`. The workflow builds the Jekyll site and ships it to Pages automatically.
+
+I hit one gotcha early: `configure-pages` returned a `Not Found` response on the first run. Turns out GitHub Pages isn't enabled on the repo until you either flip it on manually in Settings, or — what I did — set `enablement: true` in the action:
+
+```yaml
+- name: Setup Pages
+  uses: actions/configure-pages@v5.0.0
+  with:
+    enablement: true
+```
+
+That bootstraps Pages on the first deploy. After that it's invisible.
+
+## Nix Dev Environment
+
+I use Nix and devenv everywhere, so this was an easy choice. The repo has a flake with a devenv shell that pins Ruby, Bundler, and the system dependencies:
+
+```nix
+{ pkgs, ... }:
+{
+  packages = [
+    pkgs.ruby_3_4
+    pkgs.bundler
+    pkgs.libyaml
+    pkgs.gnumake
+  ];
+
+  scripts.setup.exec = "bundle install";
+  scripts.serve.exec = "bundle exec jekyll serve --livereload --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4000";
+}
+```
+
+Enter the shell, run `devenv run setup` once, then `devenv run serve`. Same result on every machine.
+
+This mattered fast. GitHub Pages gems currently require `commonmarker`, which caps at Ruby < 4.0. I pinned Ruby 3.4.8 and locked the `github-pages` gem at version 232. Without the pin, you'll hit dependency resolution failures the moment Ruby 4.x shows up on your system.
+
+The Gemfile is two lines:
+
+```ruby
+source "https://rubygems.org"
+gem "github-pages", "= 232", group: :jekyll_plugins
+gem "webrick", "= 1.9.2"
+```
+
+`webrick` is there because Ruby 3.x dropped it from stdlib and Jekyll's local server needs it.
+
+## DNS and Domain
+
+DNS lives in Cloudflare for all things Fitzsky. Most of it routes through Cloudflare tunnels to self-hosted services — Mattermost, Gitea, that kind of thing. The blog is the exception: it's just a CNAME pointing at GitHub Pages.
+
+```
+devin  CNAME  devindudeman.github.io
+```
+
+A `CNAME` file in the repo root tells GitHub Pages to serve the custom domain, and HTTPS enforcement is on in the repo settings.
+
+## Writing Flow
+
+This is the best part. Open a file, write Markdown, push. That's it.
+
+```bash
+# new post
+hx _posts/2026-03-11-whatever-im-writing-about.md
+
+# front matter
+---
+title: Whatever I'm Writing About
+description: One-line summary.
+---
+
+# write, commit, push
+git add . && git commit -m "New post" && git push
+```
+
+Live in about 90 seconds. No build step to think about, no deploy to trigger. Push to `main` and it's on the internet.
+
+Let's see how well I can keep this updated.