Build your own Markdown blog

Build a place for your writing that you can understand, customize, and take with you. This course follows the decisions behind this site: ordinary Markdown, private source, a quiet reading layout, and managed hosting.

What you will build

A homepage, writing archive, About page, Markdown articles, deliberate draft controls, system-aware dark mode, RSS, a sitemap, HTTPS, and automatic deployments from a private GitHub repository.

By the end, you will also know which service owns each part of your setup and how to investigate or undo a failed release.

Before you start

You need a computer on which you can install software, a browser, and time to try the examples. No Astro experience is required. Basic HTML and CSS will help; the course supplies the complete core files. GitHub and Cloudflare accounts are needed later. You can finish the local lessons before buying a domain.

The examples were checked with Node.js 24, pnpm 11.19.0, and Astro 7.3.3. Domain registration and renewal cost money; the hosting path starts on Cloudflare’s Free plan. Provider screens and allowances can change, so each relevant lesson links to official documentation.

Follow the core path first

Lessons 1–12 form a complete, runnable blog tutorial. Each lesson has an outcome, code, an exercise or checkpoint, and a next step. Work through them in order and use your own account values wherever you see a placeholder.

The two optional comments labs cover identity, moderation, CAPTCHA, and background AI screening. They are advanced implementation plans and acceptance checks, rather than a complete copy-and-paste backend. The core blog works without them.

Keep learning at your pace

Reading never requires an account. Mark lessons complete when you finish their checkpoints, and bookmark pages you want to revisit. Guests can keep progress in this browser. Optional Google sign-in lets you sync your learning across devices.