The Magic Behind vNoted.com
Ever wondered how vNoted.com consistently delivers fresh tech content? In this post, we’ll pull back the curtain and show you the automated system that powers our site. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast curious about website automation or someone looking to create a similar setup, this guide will walk you through our process.
The Big Picture: How It All Works
At its core, vNoted.com is a static website built with Hugo and the PaperMod theme, hosted on GitHub Pages, and connected to Cloudflare for domain management. But what makes our site special is the automated content pipeline that keeps it fresh and relevant.
Here’s a visual overview of how everything works:
Step 1: Finding Interesting Topics Automatically
The first piece of our automation puzzle is the Topic Fetcher. This Python script scans various tech sources across the internet to find trending and relevant topics:
- Reddit tech communities like r/selfhosted, r/homelab, r/linux
- Hacker News trending stories
- GitHub trending repositories
- Stack Exchange hot questions
- Dev.to popular articles
- Tech news sites
- Official documentation
The Topic Fetcher doesn’t just blindly collect topics. It filters them based on relevance, language, and quality to ensure we only get the best tech content ideas. All these topics are saved to a JSON file that acts as our content pipeline.
Step 2: Generating Insightful Content
Once we have our topics, the Post Generator takes over. This script:
- Selects a topic from our collection
- Uses AI to craft a comprehensive, well-structured article
- Formats it properly with YAML frontmatter for Hugo
- Adds appropriate tags and metadata
- Saves it as a Markdown file in our content directory
Each generated post includes a proper introduction, detailed explanations, and a conclusion with key takeaways. The system is smart enough to avoid duplicate content and ensures each article has a unique perspective.
Step 3: Building and Publishing the Site
With fresh content in place, Hugo transforms our Markdown files into a sleek, fast static website using the PaperMod theme. The entire process—from fetching topics to generating content to building the site—is orchestrated by GitHub Actions.
Every time new content is generated:
- GitHub Actions triggers the build process
- Hugo compiles the site into static HTML
- The files are deployed to GitHub Pages
- Cloudflare serves the content from our domain
This means vNoted.com is always up-to-date with minimal maintenance required.
Behind the Technology: The Tools We Use
GitHub Pages & Actions
GitHub Pages hosts our site for free, while GitHub Actions provides the automation backbone. Every time our workflow runs, it executes our Python scripts and builds the site automatically.
Hugo & PaperMod
Hugo is an ultra-fast static site generator that transforms our Markdown content into HTML. We use the PaperMod theme for its clean design, dark mode support, and excellent reading experience.
Cloudflare
Cloudflare connects our custom domain to GitHub Pages while providing CDN benefits, security features, and analytics.
Python Automation
Our two Python scripts are the real stars of the show:
- Topic Fetcher: Collects interesting tech topics from across the web
- Post Generator: Transforms topics into well-structured, informative articles
In Conclusion
The beauty of vNoted.com is in its automation. By leveraging GitHub Actions, Python scripts, and Hugo, we’ve created a system that continuously delivers fresh tech content with minimal human intervention.
This approach allows us to focus on quality and curation rather than the mechanics of site maintenance. The result is a constantly updated tech resource that serves our readers with minimal overhead.
Have questions about our setup or suggestions for improvement? Let us know in the comments below!