bobcat

A personal web directory in the spirit of late-90s link directories like Yahoo! and DMOZ. Built with Hugo, deployed via GitHub Pages. No database, no CMS, no algorithmic curation — just a hand-maintained collection of links you actually want to find again.

hadella.github.io/bobcat

Why

Browser bookmark folders are a mess. Awesome-lists on GitHub are single-column walls of text. Bobcat is dense, scannable, and searchable — closer to what the early web used for navigation before search engines took over.

Features

• Multi-column layout organized by category
• Client-side fuzzy search via Fuse.js
• Dead link detection via lychee with skull indicator
• All links stored as TOML data files — no HTML editing required
• Pinned category for personal/meta links
• Recently added sidebar section
• Header with total link count and last built date
• Per-category link preview limit with expand

Adding Links

Each category is a TOML file in data/links/. Create a new file or add to an existing one:

category = "Category Name"

[[link]]
title = "Site Title"
url = "https://example.com"
desc = "Why you saved this — in your own words"
added = "2026-03-23"
tags = ["tag1", "tag2"]

To pin a category to the top of the sidebar add pinned = true after the category name. All other categories sort alphabetically.

To limit how many links are shown by default in a category, add preview = N:

category = "Category Name"
preview = 5

The global default is set via preview_links in hugo.toml. Links beyond the limit are hidden but still searchable — a "show all" link expands the section inline.

Splitting categories

When a category gets too big, split it into multiple files:

data/links/programming.toml        # before
data/links/programming-c.toml      # after
data/links/programming-rust.toml

Checking for Dead Links

Requires lychee. Install via snap:

snap install lychee

Run the full check and rebuild:

make check

This builds the site, runs lychee against the output, writes dead URLs to static/dead_links.json, then rebuilds so skulls appear next to flagged links. Run this occasionally — there's no automation, just a manual audit when you care.

Some sites block automated requests and will show as dead incorrectly. Add them to the --exclude list in the Makefile as needed.

Local Development

make serve    # start local dev server
make build    # build to public/
make check    # audit links and rebuild

Deployment

Push to main — GitHub Actions builds and deploys to GitHub Pages automatically. See .github/workflows/deploy.yml.

Stack

• Hugo — static site generator
• Fuse.js — client-side fuzzy search
• lychee — link checker
• GitHub Pages — hosting