building-blog

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.