Recent Articles
Scheduling Netlify Builds with GitHub Actions
Apr 24, 2020 · 3 min read
Netlify is a popular service to host JAMstack websites with, and updating those websites automatically on a schedule is easy with GitHub Actions.
Minify Files in Metalsmith
Mar 26, 2020 · 3 min read
Minified files maintain all the functionality of their original source but optimize for size, which in turns means faster page loads and improved SEO - and it's a snap to do in Metalsmith.
Debugging Remote Jest Tests
Feb 20, 2020 · 4 min read
I ran into the need to debug Jest tests running inside a Docker container recently and didn't find any clear instructions on how to do it. Turns out it's pretty easy when you have the right flags.
Adding a Favicon in Metalsmith
Feb 17, 2020 · 3 min read
Favicons are low-resolution website icons that web browsers use to help identify bookmarks, tabs, and desktop icons at a glance - and they're easy to add in Metalsmith.
Pull Requests Welcome™
Feb 15, 2020 · 5 min read
Developers like to complain. We'll complain about lack of documentation, lack of tests, choice of framework, choice of linter settings, and so on. My response to it? Pull requests welcome.
Why You Should Use UUIDs for Your Primary Keys
Jan 30, 2020 · 4 min read
Universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) are 128-bit (16-byte) numbers that are designed to be globally unique, and as a result they make for great primary keys.
Adding a Sitemap in Metalsmith
Jan 11, 2020 · 4 min read
Sitemaps are XML files that provide a list of all pages on a site that should be crawled by search engines, and they're very simple to add in Metalsmith.
Adding a Google Site Ownership Verification File in Metalsmith
Dec 28, 2019 · 4 min read
In order to manage your website in the Google Search Console you first need to verify ownership of your site. One way of doing this is by downloading a special HTML file from Google and uploading it to your site for Google to crawl.
Linting Metalsmith Output HTML
Dec 8, 2019 · 3 min read
Best I know, there aren't any good ways to test the output of a Metalsmith build to make sure things like updated dependencies didn't break styling or content. But one thing we can do is lint the output HTML to make sure it's at least syntactically correct and doesn't contain broken links.
Using Font Awesome with Metalsmith
Dec 1, 2019 · 3 min read
Font Awesome is a large set of icon web fonts I've been using in multiple projects for years. They add new icons and entirely new styles all the time and in general their free tier is good enough for most projects to start. Let's dive into including their static assets into a Metalsmith project.
Using Bootstrap 4 with Metalsmith
Sep 22, 2019 · 6 min read
As a primarily back-end developer I tend to use Bootstrap in most of my full-stack applications. It's a great way to save some time getting a small project or prototype up and running. Using Bootstrap in Metalsmith isn't complicated, it just takes 3 plugins.
Starting a Metalsmith Project
Sep 19, 2019 · 12 min read
Metalsmith is a plugin-based static site generator originally from Segment. It's a current favorite of mine because of how sites are built as a pipeline of plugins where the output of each plugin is the input of the next. This allows for strong control over what happens and when it happens.