forge

every developer eventually builds their own blog engine. this is mine.

the stack

forge is a two-part system:

a rust cli that parses markdown, applies templates, and outputs a static site
a minimal frontend built with vite, vanilla typescript, and tailwind v4

the goal was simple: fast builds, tiny output, zero runtime complexity.

why rust

i'm a wannabe rustacean

rust gives us:

fast compilation of markdown to html
zero-cost abstractions for template rendering
a single binary with no runtime dependencies

let posts = load_posts(Path::new("content"));
let renderer = Renderer::new(Path::new("templates"));

for post in &posts {
    let html = renderer.render_post(post, &config);
    fs::write(post_dir.join("index.html"), html)?;
}

the frontend

the entire javascript runtime is under 1kb. it handles:

dark mode toggle via a pull-string ui element
scroll reveal animations with IntersectionObserver
font loading with fout prevention

the best javascript is the javascript you don't ship.

what's next

wasm-powered client-side search
image optimization pipeline
incremental builds