Local Development

Clone the Repository

# Clone with submodules (important — the theme is a submodule)
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/RustWright/mylearnbase.git
cd mylearnbase

If you already cloned without --recurse-submodules:

git submodule update --init

Set Up Git Hooks

The repo includes a pre-commit hook at .githooks/pre-commit that automatically sets the updated frontmatter field on any modified post. The hook runs on every commit and does the following:

1. Finds staged .md files in content/posts/ that were modified (ignores _index.md)
2. Reads each file’s last-modified date from the filesystem
3. Skips the file if that date matches the original date field (i.e. no update needed)
4. Inserts an updated field after date if one doesn’t exist, or updates it if it does
5. Re-stages the file so the new frontmatter is included in the commit

The template already handles the display — if updated exists and differs from date, it renders “Updated on [date]” next to the publish date.

To enable the hook, configure git to use the tracked .githooks/ directory:

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

This only needs to be run once per clone.

Run the Dev Server

zola serve

This starts a local server at http://127.0.0.1:1111 with live reload — any changes to content, templates, or styles automatically rebuild and refresh the browser.

Project Structure

mylearnbase/
├── zola.toml              # Site configuration
├── content/               # Markdown content (what you write)
│   ├── _index.md          # Homepage
│   └── posts/
│       ├── _index.md      # Blog section config
│       └── *.md           # Individual posts
├── templates/             # Template overrides (customizations)
├── themes/serene/         # Serene theme (git submodule — don't edit)
├── sass/                  # SCSS style overrides (currently empty)
├── static/                # Static files copied as-is to output
├── public/                # Build output (gitignored)
└── docs/                  # This documentation (mdBook)

Build for Production

zola build

Output goes to public/. This is what gets deployed to Cloudflare Pages.

Check for Errors

zola check

Validates internal links, external links, and configuration without building the full site.