Personal Website & Blog

This is my personal website and blog built with Jekyll, featuring articles about technology, product management, development, and personal experiences.

🌐 Live Site: himanshuawasthi.com

Features

Content & Design

• ✨ Responsive design using plainwhite theme
• 🌙 Dark mode support
• 📝 Blog posts with categories and tags
• 🔍 Client-side search functionality
• 📊 Reading time calculator
• 💬 Disqus comments integration

SEO & Analytics

• 🎯 SEO optimized with jekyll-seo-tag
• 📈 Google Analytics integration
• 🗺️ Automatic sitemap generation
• 🤖 robots.txt configuration
• 🐦 Twitter/social media card support

Development Tools

• 🚀 Quick post creation script
• 🛠️ Development server helper
• 📤 Draft publishing tool
• ✅ GitHub Actions CI/CD
• 🔐 Automated dependency updates

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Ruby 3.0+ (recommended: 3.2)
• Bundler
• Git

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/89hardy/89hardy.github.io.git
   cd 89hardy.github.io

2. Install dependencies

   bundle install

3. Run the development server

   ./dev.sh
   # or
   bundle exec jekyll serve --livereload

4. Visit http://localhost:4000 in your browser

Creating Content

Option 1: Quick Post Script (Recommended)

The easiest way to create a new post:

./new-post.sh

This interactive script will:

• Prompt for post title, description, categories, and tags
• Generate proper frontmatter automatically
• Create the file with the correct naming convention
• Open it in your default editor

Example:

$ ./new-post.sh
Post title: My Awesome New Post
Short description: This is what my post is about
Categories (comma-separated): tech, tutorial
Tags (comma-separated): jekyll, blogging
Create as draft? (y/N): n
✓ Post created successfully!
Location: _posts/2025-11-17-my-awesome-new-post.md

Option 2: Manual Creation

Create a file in _posts/ with the format: YYYY-MM-DD-title.md

---
layout: post
title: "Your Post Title"
date: 2025-11-17 10:30:00 +1100
categories: [tech, tutorial]
tags: [jekyll, blogging]
description: "Brief description for SEO"
---

Your content here...

Working with Drafts

Create a Draft

./new-post.sh
# When prompted "Create as draft?", answer: y

Drafts are stored in _drafts/ without a date in the filename.

Preview Drafts Locally

./dev.sh --drafts
# or
bundle exec jekyll serve --drafts

Publish a Draft

./publish-draft.sh

This script will:

• List all available drafts
• Let you select which one to publish
• Update the date in frontmatter
• Move it to _posts/ with the correct filename
• Optionally delete the original draft

Development Scripts

./dev.sh - Development Server

Simplified Jekyll development server with options:

# Basic usage
./dev.sh

# Show drafts
./dev.sh --drafts

# Enable incremental builds (faster)
./dev.sh --incremental

# Custom port
./dev.sh --port 4001

# Disable live reload
./dev.sh --no-livereload

# Combine options
./dev.sh --drafts --incremental --port 4001

./new-post.sh - Create New Post

Interactive script to create posts with proper frontmatter.

./new-post.sh

./publish-draft.sh - Publish Draft

Convert a draft to a published post with the current date.

# Interactive mode (shows list of drafts)
./publish-draft.sh

# Direct mode
./publish-draft.sh my-draft-post.md

Automated Workflows

This repository includes GitHub Actions for automation:

🔨 Jekyll Build & Deploy

• Trigger: Every push to main/master
• Purpose: Build and deploy to GitHub Pages
• Features: HTML validation, artifact upload

✅ Content Validation

• Trigger: Pull requests and pushes affecting posts/drafts
• Purpose: Validate post frontmatter and structure
• Checks:
  • Required fields (layout, title, date)
  • Filename format (YYYY-MM-DD-)
  • Non-empty titles
  • Basic spell checking (non-blocking)

🔄 Dependency Updates

• Trigger: Weekly (Dependabot)
• Purpose: Keep dependencies up to date
• Monitors: Jekyll gems, GitHub Actions, Python packages

Project Structure

89hardy.github.io/
├── _config.yml           # Jekyll configuration
├── _posts/               # Published blog posts
├── _drafts/              # Draft posts (not published)
├── _layouts/             # HTML templates
├── _includes/            # Reusable HTML components
├── _sass/                # Stylesheets (SCSS)
├── assets/               # Images, fonts, static files
├── .github/
│   ├── workflows/        # GitHub Actions
│   ├── dependabot.yml    # Automated dependency updates
│   └── wordlist.txt      # Custom dictionary for spellcheck
├── app/                  # Flask CMS (optional, for local editing)
├── new-post.sh           # Quick post creation script
├── dev.sh                # Development server helper
└── publish-draft.sh      # Draft publishing tool

Configuration

Site Settings (_config.yml)

Key configuration options:

title: Your Name
url: "https://yoursite.com"
timezone: Your/Timezone
plainwhite:
  analytics_id: "G-XXXXXXXXX"  # Google Analytics
  dark_mode: true

Custom Domain

To use a custom domain:

1. Add your domain to CNAME file
2. Configure DNS with your registrar:
   • Add A records pointing to GitHub Pages IPs
   • Or add CNAME record pointing to yourusername.github.io
3. Enable "Enforce HTTPS" in repository settings

Troubleshooting

Bundle Install Fails

# Update RubyGems
gem update --system

# Install bundler
gem install bundler

# Try again
bundle install

Port 4000 Already in Use

# Use a different port
./dev.sh --port 4001

Changes Not Showing

# Clear Jekyll cache
bundle exec jekyll clean

# Rebuild
./dev.sh

Livereload Not Working

# Check if using correct URL (not 0.0.0.0)
# Use http://localhost:4000 or http://127.0.0.1:4000

Deployment

GitHub Pages (Current Setup)

Automatic deployment on push to main/master:

git add .
git commit -m "Your commit message"
git push origin main

Site will be live in 1-2 minutes at your custom domain or username.github.io.

Manual Deployment

To deploy to other platforms (Netlify, Vercel, etc.):

# Build the site
bundle exec jekyll build

# Output is in _site/ directory
# Upload contents to your hosting provider

Maintenance

Update Dependencies

# Update Ruby gems
bundle update

# Update specific gem
bundle update jekyll

# Check for outdated gems
bundle outdated

Security Updates

Dependabot will automatically create PRs for security updates. Review and merge them regularly.

Backup

# Your content is already in Git
# Just make sure to push regularly

# To backup locally
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/yourrepo.git backup/

Performance Tips

1. Optimize Images: Use compressed images (JPEG/WebP)
2. Enable Incremental Builds: ./dev.sh --incremental
3. Use CDN: Consider Cloudflare for image/asset delivery
4. Minimize Plugins: Only use necessary Jekyll plugins

Advanced Features

Adding Custom Pages

Create a new .md file in the root:

---
layout: page
title: My New Page
permalink: /new-page/
---

Content here...

Custom Navigation

Edit _config.yml:

plainwhite:
  navigation:
    - title: Home
      url: "/"
    - title: Custom Page
      url: "/custom-page"

Newsletter Integration

Add to your layout or page:

<!-- Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Substack, etc. -->
<form action="your-signup-url" method="post">
  <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="Email">
  <button type="submit">Subscribe</button>
</form>

FAQ

Q: How do I change the theme? A: Modify the remote_theme in _config.yml or add your own custom styles in _sass/.

Q: Can I use custom Jekyll plugins? A: On GitHub Pages, only approved plugins work. For custom plugins, deploy to Netlify/Vercel.

Q: How do I add comments? A: Disqus is already configured. Edit _config.yml to change the shortname or use alternatives like Utterances.

Q: How do I add a contact form? A: A contact form using Formspree is already in contact.md. Update with your Formspree endpoint.

Resources

• Jekyll Documentation
• Plainwhite Theme
• GitHub Pages Docs
• Markdown Guide
• IMPROVEMENTS.md - Detailed improvement recommendations

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.txt file for details.

Contact

Himanshu Awasthi

• Twitter: @89hardy
• LinkedIn: in/ha89
• GitHub: @89hardy
• Email: [email protected]

Project Link: himanshuawasthi.com

---

Made with ❤️ using Jekyll and plainwhite theme

Blog CMS

A simple Content Management System for your Jekyll blog.

Features

• Create, edit, and delete blog posts
• Markdown editor with preview
• Image upload support
• Categories and tags management
• Automatic frontmatter handling

Setup

1. Clone this repository next to your Jekyll blog:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/blog-cms.git
cd blog-cms

2. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Copy .env.example to .env and configure your settings:

cp .env.example .env

4. Edit .env with your credentials and paths:

SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
ADMIN_USERNAME=your-username
ADMIN_PASSWORD=your-password
BLOG_PATH=path/to/your/jekyll/blog
GITHUB_TOKEN=your-github-token
GITHUB_USERNAME=your-github-username

5. Run the application:

python run.py

6. Visit http://localhost:5000 and log in with your credentials.

Usage

1. Creating a Post

   • Click "New Post" in the sidebar
   • Fill in the title, categories, and tags
   • Write your content in Markdown
   • Click "Save" to create the post

2. Editing a Post

   • Click "Posts" in the sidebar
   • Find the post you want to edit
   • Click "Edit"
   • Make your changes
   • Click "Save"

3. Uploading Images

   • While editing a post, click the image button in the editor
   • Select your image file
   • The image will be uploaded and inserted into your post

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.