| name | building-blog |
| description | How to preview blog posts locally using the Roq-based dev server: start the site with serve-noguides.sh for fast iteration.
|
Building Blog Posts
Supported Platforms
This workflow is supported on Linux, macOS, and Windows through WSL2.
Java 21+ and Maven (or the included ./mvnw wrapper) are required.
Quick Start
Run the full preview pipeline in one command — starts the dev server, detects which
posts you changed, and opens the right URLs in your browser:
just blog-preview
Or directly:
bash blog-preview.sh
To just start the dev server without the auto-open behaviour:
./serve-noguides.sh
Then browse to http://localhost:8080/blog/.
How It Works
The site is built with Quarkus Roq,
a Quarkus-based static site generator. Running mvn quarkus:dev starts a live-reload
dev server — edits to content files are picked up automatically without a server restart.
blog-preview.sh starts the dev server in the background, waits for it to be ready,
then detects recently changed posts and opens the right URLs in your browser before
bringing the server to the foreground. Press Ctrl-C to stop.
Detect and Open
The script auto-detects what you were working on and opens the right page:
| Changed posts | Preview URLs |
|---|
| 1 post | /blog/ (listing) + /blog/<slug>/ (deep-link) |
| 2–4 posts | /blog/ (listing) + a tab for each post |
| 5+ posts | /blog/ (listing only), unless git narrows it |
| No changes | /blog/ (listing only) |
The slug is derived from the filename: strip the YYYY-MM-DD- prefix and the file extension.
Change detection uses a .blog-preview-last-run timestamp file on repeat runs, and
falls back to git diff/git log on first run. Delete .blog-preview-last-run to reset.
Profiles
| Script | Profile | What it includes |
|---|
./serve.sh | (default) | Full site with all guides |
./serve-noguides.sh | noguides | Site without guides (fast) |
./serve-only-latest-guides.sh | only-latest-guides | Site with latest + main guides |
For blog-only work, serve-noguides.sh is the fastest option.
Blog Post File Conventions
- Location:
content/posts/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.adoc (or .asciidoc, .md)
- Front matter fields:
layout: post, title, date, tags, synopsis, author
author must match a key in _data/authors.yaml- Tags: lowercase, space-separated — e.g.
tags: extension kafka
- Images: store in
public/assets/images/posts/<slug>/, reference with :imagesdir: /assets/images/posts/<slug>
Future-Dated Posts
Posts with a date value in the future are served normally by the local dev server.
No special flag or workaround is needed — just run ./serve-noguides.sh and the post will appear.
Iteration Loop
Edit content/posts/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.adoc → save → Roq rebuilds → browser refreshes
Quarkus dev mode watches for file changes and triggers an incremental rebuild automatically.
Troubleshooting
Port 8080 already in use — Another process is occupying the default port.
Pass a different port: ./serve-noguides.sh -Dquarkus.http.port=8081.
Changes not appearing — Quarkus dev mode watches source files. If a change is not picked
up, press s in the terminal running the dev server to force a restart, or stop and re-run
./serve-noguides.sh.
Post not appearing — Check that the file is in content/posts/ with the correct
YYYY-MM-DD-slug.adoc naming and that the front matter layout: post and author fields
are present and valid.
Slow first start — The first run downloads Maven dependencies. Subsequent starts are fast.
