GitHub Discussions can be used as CMS with comments

[robinpokorny]

Every GitHub repo may activate Discussions, which are meant for, well, discussions about the project.

Today, I realized you can use them as a CMS for TIL (duh!), AMA, or even a blog. Plus you get one of the best comments experiences. All for free, fast, and on portal you already visit every day (right?).

People have been using Issues of GitHub for content like this, most famously AMA (Ask Me Anything). See Sindre Sorhus's which is one of the most famous ones. However, Issues used like that have issues (I still think it is a genius hack). I think discussions are more suited for this. This is especially true if you want non-AMA style of CMS.

There is a special category type called ‘Announcements’ in which only the maintainer can create new posts. Still, anybody can comment (give it a try!). This is what I use here.

This can potentially be used to support a generated site for a blog or similar. GitHub offers a GraphQL API to access the content. This would require some work, it's not completely straightforward.

Oh, and if you'd like to see new TILs, you can just star and watch this repository.

I'm sure there will be some rough edges and little to big annoyances. Right now, I'd like to give it a try and see.

Links:

• Discussions Docs
• List of AMAs
• A blog using Issues