CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

What this is

Personal blog and portfolio site for Greg Maslowski (maslowski.cloud), built with Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages. Published at https://maslowski.cloud.

Commands

# Serve locally with live reload
bundle exec jekyll serve

# Build only
bundle exec jekyll build

# Install dependencies
bundle install

Local dev server runs at http://localhost:4000. The production URL is https://maslowski.cloud — note that _config.yml has the production URL hardcoded; the commented-out url: http://localhost:4000 line can be swapped for local development if absolute URLs matter.

Ruby is managed via rbenv (Ruby 3.3.0). All Jekyll commands must be prefixed: eval "$(rbenv init -)" && bundle exec jekyll serve.

CI builds are done via Travis CI (bundle exec jekyll build with Ruby 2.3).

Architecture

This is a standard Jekyll site with a two-column layout: a fixed left panel (branding + nav) and a scrollable right panel (content).

Key config (_config.yml): controls site title, social links (Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Stack Overflow), background images per page type, and Jekyll plugins (jekyll-feed, jekyll-sitemap, jekyll-gist).

Layouts (_layouts/): all wrap compress.html (whitespace-stripping layout). The main ones are:

• home.html — homepage with canvas animation
• post-list.html — lists posts filtered to category: blog
• post.html — individual post with date, tags, Disqus comments, pagination, and share buttons
• page.html / page-no-shares.html — static pages

Includes (_includes/): reusable partials — left.html renders the left panel, social-links.html and links.html drive nav, disqus.html handles comments, share.html share buttons.

Pages (_pages/): static pages (about.md, posts.md, tags.md, projects.md, 404.md). Included via include: [_pages] in _config.yml.

Posts (_posts/): Markdown files named YYYY-MM-DD-title.markdown. Only posts with category: blog appear in the post list. Front matter fields used: layout, title, date, description, category, tag (array), comments, image.

Styles (assets/_sass/): SCSS partials compiled from assets/css/main.scss. Variables are in _variables.scss.

Writing a new post

Create _posts/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.markdown with this front matter:

---
layout: post
title: "Post Title"
date: YYYY-MM-DD
description: One-line summary shown in the post list
category: blog
tag:
- tag1
- tag2
comments: true
image: assets/image.png   # optional; shown in left panel for this post
---

Images referenced in posts use https://maslowski.cloud/assets/... for absolute URLs. Images in images/ (not assets/) use a path without a leading slash in front matter: image: images/filename.jpg (the post-list template prepends https://maslowski.cloud/).

Design system

The site uses a Hydejack-inspired layout rebuilt from scratch. Key decisions:

• Sidebar: fixed 21rem, teal accent #4fb1ba, dark teal gradient overlay, variables in _variables.scss
• Post list: 3-column CSS Grid (.posts-list), equal-height cards via flexbox
• About page: custom HTML classes — .about-lanes, .about-table, .tech-stack-groups, .about-contact — defined in _site.scss
• Canvas particle animation in assets/js/cursor-glow.js, loaded via _includes/scripts.html
• Share buttons removed; _includes/share.html is intentionally empty

Content notes

Greg writes about EV fleet charging, distributed systems, and software architecture. Domain context:

• Tenix (tenix.eu) builds Charge Management Software for electric bus fleets
• VDV 261 spec (2024 edition) is at ~/Downloads/bekaVerlag-Order4558-VDV-Schrift 261_2024.pdf — use pypdf to extract text if needed (pip3 install pypdf)
• Blog voice: direct, technical, no buzzwords; show expertise through specifics, not claims