Goldfinch.me

Description

Personal website for Liam Goldfinch, featuring blog articles primarily focused on Kentico development and .NET technologies.

🧰 Tech Stack

Backend:

• .NET 10 with ASP.NET Core MVC
• Xperience by Kentico

Frontend:

• Hand-written CSS (dark-only terminal/IDE aesthetic) — JetBrains Mono + Geist
• Vanilla JS progressive-enhancement modules (mobile drawer, ⌘K command palette, live search, TOC scrollspy)
• Vite — bundler for CSS + TypeScript entrypoints
• highlight.js — syntax highlighting inside code-block widgets
• React — admin customisations only (not used on the public site)

📁 Project Structure

• Goldfinch.Core – Shared business logic and data models
• Goldfinch.Admin – Kentico admin interface customizations
• Goldfinch.Web – Main web application with blog functionality

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK (see global.json)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2019 or newer (including SQL Server Express or LocalDB)
• Node.js (24.x — see .nvmrc)

Setup Instructions

1. Clone the repository
2. Configure your database connection using .NET User Secrets (kept out of the repo, loaded automatically in Development):

   cd src/Goldfinch.Web
   dotnet user-secrets set "ConnectionStrings:CMSConnectionString" "Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=Goldfinch.me;Integrated Security=True;Persist Security Info=False;Connect Timeout=60;Encrypt=False;Current Language=English;"

3. Build the front-end bundle:

   cd src/Goldfinch.Web/wwwroot/sitefiles
   npm install
   npm run build

4. Navigate to the web project and restore Kentico CI objects:

   cd src/Goldfinch.Web
   dotnet run --kxp-ci-restore

5. Run the project:

   dotnet run

6. Visit the site and log in using the admin credentials below

Note: This project uses Kentico's Continuous Integration (CI) system. This repository does not include a database backup. Kentico objects can be created from the included CI files.

🔐 Admin Login (Local Only)

If using the included CI files, an admin user will be created automatically:

• Username: admin
• Password: Test123!

⚠️ For local development only. Do not reuse these credentials in any production environment.

🌍 Environment URLs

Environment	URL
Local	https://localhost:52623
Production	https://www.goldfinch.me

🤝 Contributions

This repository is primarily for reference and personal use.

• Public contributions are not expected
• Any PRs will be accepted only after explicit review and approval by myself

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.