Mark the Thoughts

A minimal, dependency-free static blog — reflections, tinkerings, and technical write-ups. Lives at www.marcuschiu.com.

The site is plain HTML/JS with no build step or framework. It works on any static host, including opening the files directly via file://.

Structure

index.html      # single-page app: article listing + reader (easter eggs inlined)
config.js       # site config (title, tagline) — copied from config.js.example
support.js      # shared runtime / rendering
articles/
  <YYYY-MM-DD>/
    index.md    # the article (frontmatter + Markdown body)
    index.js    # auto-generated body bundle (do not edit)
    assets/     # images for the article (optional)
  manifest.js   # auto-generated listing (do not edit)
server/
  server.mjs            # local admin server + manifest build (node server/server.mjs [--build])
  update-local.sh       # deploy helper (ssh: git pull + restart service)
  thoughts-admin.service # systemd unit for running the server in a container

Configuration

Site-level text (the header title and tagline) lives in config.js. Copy the template and edit the values:

cp config.js.example config.js

window.SITE_CONFIG = {
  title: 'Mark the Thoughts',
  tagline: 'Reflections, parables, and ramblings — collected here. Sort and filter, or click any post to read it.',
};

config.js.example is the checked-in template; config.js is what the site actually loads. If config.js is missing, the header falls back to the built-in defaults.

Writing an article

Create a folder named by date and add an index.md:

articles/2026-06-11/index.md

With frontmatter followed by the Markdown body:

---
draft: false
title: "My Post Title"
tags: ["homelab", "networking"]
img: assets/cover.png
---

Body goes here. Images are relative to this folder, e.g. ![alt](assets/1.png)

Frontmatter keys:

• title — post title (defaults to the folder name).
• draft — true omits the post from the site entirely.
• tags — array used for filtering (defaults to []).
• img — optional cover image, relative to the article folder or an absolute URL.
• date — optional; derived from the folder name when omitted.

Build

After adding or editing articles, regenerate the manifest and body bundles:

node server/server.mjs --build

This scans articles/, writes articles/manifest.js (the listing), and writes a sibling index.js next to each index.md. Both are generated — don't edit them by hand.

Admin (local CRUD)

A local-only tool for managing articles without editing files by hand. It is a dev tool — never deploy the server.

node server/server.mjs   # then open http://127.0.0.1:8787/

Admin mode lives inside index.html itself. With the site open, press ⌘E (macOS) / Ctrl+E (Windows/Linux) to toggle it. The listing then shows every article (including drafts, whose tiles are dimmed) with a ✎ edit button on each tile, a Status filter (All / Visible / Hidden), a ⚙ settings button to point the editor at a different server endpoint, and a floating + button to create a post. Press ⌘E / Ctrl+E again to leave admin mode.

Creating or editing a post opens an in-page editor with frontmatter fields (title, date, draft, tags, cover image), a rendered/Markdown editor, and image uploads into the article's assets/ folder. New posts default to draft: true. Changing a post's date renames its folder; if the date is already taken the folder is auto-suffixed (-2, -3). Every change re-runs the manifest build and is auto-committed/pushed server-side, so the static site stays in sync. The server requires no npm dependencies, and the editor only works while it is running (otherwise admin mode shows a "server not reachable" banner).

Deploy

Serve the directory as static files. No server-side code is required.

Run the admin server as a service (systemd)

To keep the admin server running in a Proxmox LXC Ubuntu container, use the bundled unit server/thoughts-admin.service. It assumes the repo is checked out at /root/thoughts and runs Node from the nvm path /root/.nvm/versions/node/v24.16.0/bin/node — adjust ExecStart in the unit if your Node version or install path differs (systemd does not load nvm's PATH, so an absolute node path is required).

# from inside the container
git clone <repo> /root/thoughts
ln -s /root/thoughts/server/thoughts-admin.service /etc/systemd/system/thoughts-admin.service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now thoughts-admin.service
systemctl status thoughts-admin.service

The service binds 0.0.0.0:9000 (all interfaces) so it accepts remote connections. The admin API has no authentication — only run it on a trusted network/firewall, and preferably behind a reverse proxy (nginx/Caddy) for TLS and access control. To restrict it to the container itself instead, edit the unit and set Environment=HOST=127.0.0.1, then systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl restart thoughts-admin.service.

server/update-local.sh is a convenience script that SSHes in, pulls the latest commit, and restarts the service after you've published changes.