Markdown Personal Library Site Template

A Next.js personal site template for people who want a Markdown-maintained Library of things they love, plus writing, activity logs, projects, search, and RSS.

It is designed to feel like a personal profile instead of a resume: a sidebar identity card, a README-style home page, recent activity, Markdown blog posts, short notes, full-site search, RSS, and a Library for anime, movies, artists, games, books, or anything else you want to collect.

The core idea is simple: edit Markdown files, commit them, and your public Library updates automatically.

Live Demo

See the finished template at sean-hawks.github.io/personal-library-site-template.

Original site and inspiration: hawks.tw.

Production Preview

Desktop screenshots from the original site, hawks.tw.

Home	Library

Blog

Features

• Library-first homepage with profile, activity timeline, featured picks, latest posts, talks, and projects
• Markdown Blog, Talk, and Library content powered by YAML frontmatter
• Library categories for anime, movie, artist, and game
• Review pages with cover images, ratings, tags, recommended works, and featured ordering
• Tag archive pages shared by Blog and Library content
• Full-site search
• RSS feed at /rss.xml
• Light and dark theme toggle
• Static export ready for GitHub Pages

Quick Start

npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Before publishing:

npm run lint
npm run build

Make It Yours

Search for these placeholders and replace them:

• Your Name
• your-site.example
• your-github
• hello@example.com

Then edit:

• app/components/ProfileSidebar.tsx for avatar text, bio, contact, and profile details
• app/components/ReadmeSection.tsx for the homepage intro
• app/data/roles.ts for profile tags
• app/data/projects.ts for project cards
• public/avatar.svg and public/banner.svg for your own visuals

Most day-to-day updates happen in Markdown:

• content/library/*.md for Library items and reviews
• content/posts/*.md for longer posts
• content/talks/*.md for activity notes

Content

Blog posts live in content/posts/.

---
title: "My first post"
date: "2026-01-01"
desc: "One sentence summary."
tags:
  - "#blog"
status: published
---

Short updates live in content/talks/.

---
title: "Today I changed the site"
date: "2026-01-02"
subtitle: "A short activity note."
event: "Personal Website"
tags:
  - "#log"
status: published
---

Library entries live in content/library/.

---
title: "Work title"
subtitle: "Optional subtitle"
category: "anime"
year: "2026"
date: "2026-01-03"
status: "watched"
recommendation: "recommended"
rating: 8.5
featured: true
featuredOrder: 1
tags:
  - "#favorite"
note: "Short personal note."
image:
  src: "/images/library/example-anime.svg"
  alt: "Cover image"
  credit: ""
  source: ""
  fit: "cover"
---

If a Library Markdown file has body content, it becomes a clickable review page. If it only has frontmatter, it works as a collection card. This makes the site easy to maintain from a Markdown editor, Obsidian vault, or ordinary Git workflow.

Library Fields

• category: anime, movie, artist, or game
• status: watched, listened, watching, playing, played, planned, or recommended
• recommendation: brilliant, favorite, recommended, or casual
• rating: number from 0 to 10, or null
• featured: promotes the item into homepage and Library highlights
• featuredOrder: lower numbers appear first
• recommendedWorks: optional list for artist or creator pages

Deployment

This template is configured for static export and GitHub Pages.

1. Create a GitHub repository from this template.
2. Push to main.
3. In GitHub, open Settings -> Pages.
4. Set the source to GitHub Actions.
5. Optional: add your custom domain and create public/CNAME.

If you deploy under https://<user>.github.io/<repo>/, the GitHub Actions workflow automatically reads the repository name and builds with the correct subpath.

If you deploy with a custom domain, set a repository variable:

DEPLOY_TARGET=custom-domain

Recommended First Issues

• Add a siteConfig file to centralize all profile and metadata settings
• Add more Library categories
• Add a theme preset system
• Add a CLI script that creates new content from templates
• Improve Open Graph image generation for Library reviews

License

MIT