tau-site

tau's personal site. Self-hosted, no tracking, no analytics, no BS.

Live: tau.htcusainc.info

---

What's in here

• A static Next.js 16 site (React 19, Tailwind v4) compiled to a folder of HTML and served by nginx.
• A tiny Express + SQLite guestbook service in guestbook-api/, living behind the same domain via Traefik.
• A tau content CLI for adding posts, projects, gallery photos, shrines, etc. without touching React.
• All content stored as JSON in src/data/ (or files under public/), versioned with the code.

tau-site/
├── src/               Next.js pages, components, JSON data
├── public/            shrines, gallery, music, blinkies
├── scripts/cli/       the `tau` CLI
├── guestbook-api/     Express + SQLite (the only real backend)
├── docs/              the deep docs (start here!)
├── Dockerfile         multi-stage build → nginx runtime
└── docker-compose.yml site + api together, Traefik labels

---

Docs

Doc	What's in it
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md	Tech stack, repo layout, build pipeline, why-this-not-that
docs/CONTENT.md	Every page on the site + where to edit each kind of content
docs/CLI.md	Full tau CLI reference (every command, every flag)
docs/API.md	Guestbook API endpoints, schemas, rate limits, admin tools
docs/DEPLOYMENT.md	Docker compose layout, Traefik routing, deploy workflow
docs/tau-cli-guide.pdf	Illustrated walkthrough of the tau CLI

---

Quick start

Local development

pnpm install
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

For the guestbook to work locally too, in a second terminal:

cd guestbook-api
npm install
npm run dev          # listens on :3001

Then in .env.local at the project root:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE=http://localhost:3001/api

Without it, the guestbook page shows "could not reach the guestbook service" — non-fatal, every other page works fine.

Static build

pnpm build

Output lands in out/. Open it with any static server.

Production (Docker)

On a server with Docker + a shared Traefik network named traefik-net:

docker compose up -d --build

See docs/DEPLOYMENT.md for the full topology (Traefik labels, persistent volumes, edit-on-server workflow).

---

Editing content

You're not expected to touch React. Use the tau CLI:

tau post add               # interactive: new blog post
tau project add            # new project
tau now edit               # /now page sections in $EDITOR
tau photo add img.jpg travel
tau publish                # rebuild + redeploy the site container

tau help lists everything. Full reference: docs/CLI.md.

If you'd rather edit JSON directly, the source files live in src/data/*.json. docs/CONTENT.md lists which file backs which page.

---

Roadmap

• Frontend with all routes (home, /now, /projects, /videos, /entertainment, /gallery, /music, /links, /socials, /guestbook, /shrines)
• Auto-derived home updates feed (posts + project status)
• Auto /now last-touched timestamp from file mtime
• Paginated post archive at /void
• Per-project detail pages
• Guestbook backend (Express + SQLite, rate-limited, spam-filtered)
• Site Dockerfile + nginx + docker-compose + Traefik labels
• tau CLI — post, project, now, video, channel, watching, shrine, photo, album, track, link, social, button, publish
• Gallery: directory-scan prebuild + per-photo detail pages
• Music: tracks.json metadata + custom audio player
• Posts RSS feed (/feed.xml)
• Guestbook RSS feed (/api/guestbook.rss)
• Footer with both feeds + AI-built disclaimer
• CrowdSec integration for the API
• Real cursor-trail tuning, real blinkies wall

---

License

The source code is MIT — do anything with it.

The site content (writing, photography, music, hand-written shrines under public/shrine/) remains © Jadon Etuale, all rights reserved, unless explicitly noted otherwise.

---

Built with Claude Code. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full story.