Bootstrapping This Site

What You Need Before You Start

Two prereqs that this post assumes you already have:

GitHub account (free). You need a private repo to store the site source. If you already have a personal access token set up, you're good. If not, create one at github.com → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens.

DreamHost account, or any shared host that gives you SSH access and lets you point a domain at a directory. DreamHost runs about $3-5/month on a shared plan. The important thing is shell access. Without it, rsync won't work and you're stuck with FTP like it's 2002.

Installing Hugo

On WSL2 (Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt update && sudo apt install hugo

Verify:

hugo version

You want 0.110+ for current template behavior. If your distro's package is ancient, install via the Hugo releases page or snap:

snap install hugo

Creating the Site

cd ~/projects
hugo new site conspicuoustechnologist
cd conspicuoustechnologist
git init

Hugo scaffolds the directory structure. The important ones:

content/        ← your posts go here
themes/         ← your theme goes here
hugo.toml       ← site config
static/         ← files served as-is (images, etc.)
public/         ← built output, gitignored

The Theme

No theme was downloaded or modified. This one was built from scratch inside themes/conspicuous/. The minimum Hugo theme needs:

themes/conspicuous/
  layouts/
    _default/
      baseof.html     ← base template everything extends
      list.html       ← category/tag listing pages
      single.html     ← individual post template
    index.html        ← homepage
    partials/
      header.html
      footer.html
    shortcodes/
      jd303.html      ← the jd303 voice block
      claude.html     ← the claude voice block
  static/
    css/
      main.css
  theme.toml

The color palette: near-black background (#050510), electric blue (#00aaff), cyan (#00d4ff), purple (#cc44ff). Two fonts pulled from Google Fonts: VT323 for display text (headers, title), Share Tech Mono for body copy. Everything monospace.

The two-voice shortcodes are the structural piece. In any post, jd303 and Claude sections are wrapped like this:

  [ jd303 ]
  

    ...jd303 writes here...
  




  [ claude ]
  

    ...claude writes here...
  

Each renders as a styled block with a [ jd303 ] or [ claude ] label. jd303 gets purple (#cc44ff), Claude gets cyan (#00d4ff). Different border treatment, different color accent. Two terminals talking to each other.

Site Config

hugo.toml at the root:

baseURL = "https://conspicuoustechnologist.com/"
languageCode = "en-us"
title = "CONSPICUOUS TECHNOLOGIST"
theme = "conspicuous"

[params]
  description = "Tech, music, and other noise from a GenX systems guy in Denver."
  author = "jd303"
  tagline = "// signal over noise //"

[markup]
  [markup.highlight]
    style = "monokai"
    lineNos = true

[[menus.main]]
  name = "home"
  url = "/"
  weight = 1

[[menus.main]]
  name = "posts"
  url = "/posts/"
  weight = 2

[[menus.main]]
  name = "about"
  url = "/about/"
  weight = 3

DreamHost Setup

In the DreamHost panel, point your domain at a directory. The default is usually /home/[username]/[domain.com]. Note your actual shell username. It is not the same as your panel login. This matters. More on this in a second.

Enable SSH access in the panel under Users → Manage Users. Once it's active:

# In a new terminal, proves it actually works
ssh your-shell-username@conspicuoustechnologist.com

If that connects, you're good.

The Deploy Script

deploy.sh in the project root:

#!/bin/bash
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

DREAMHOST_USER="your-shell-username"
DREAMHOST_HOST="conspicuoustechnologist.com"
DREAMHOST_PATH="/home/your-shell-username/conspicuoustechnologist.com"

set -e

for cmd in hugo rsync ssh; do
  if ! command -v $cmd &>/dev/null; then
    echo "ERROR: $cmd not found."
    exit 1
  fi
done

echo "// building site //"
hugo --minify

echo "// deploying to DreamHost //"
rsync -avz --delete public/ "${DREAMHOST_USER}@${DREAMHOST_HOST}:${DREAMHOST_PATH}/"

echo "// deployed //"

Make it executable:

chmod +x deploy.sh

To deploy:

./deploy.sh

That builds the site into public/ and rsyncs it to DreamHost. The --delete flag removes files from the server that no longer exist locally. First run will ask for your DreamHost SSH password. Set up SSH key auth if you want passwordless deploys.

GitHub

git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
gh repo create conspicuoustechnologist --private --source=. --push

That's it. The repo is the source of truth. Posts are Markdown files. ./deploy.sh ships it.