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  • in en, meta
  • 3 min read

How This Blog Was Built

The first post is about the blog itself — a write-up of every decision and step that went into putting this site together.

If you are setting up a similar lightweight developer blog with MkDocs Material, this should save you a couple of hours.

Why MkDocs Material?

I wanted three things:

  1. Write posts in Markdown — no CMS, no database, no WordPress.
  2. Deploy on every git push — GitHub Actions builds the site and deploys to GitHub Pages.
  3. Bilingual out of the box — English and Chinese, with search that handles both.

Static site generators are the obvious choice. Among them:

Tool Writing i18n Theme ecosystem
Hugo Good Built-in Large, fragmented
Jekyll Good Plugins GitHub Pages native
MkDocs Material Good (Markdown) Built-in search langs One excellent theme

MkDocs Material wins on the third column — one theme that does everything well, consistently, without me stitching together five half-maintained templates. The blog plugin is first-class, not an afterthought.

Step-by-step Setup

1. Scaffold

uv init
uv add mkdocs-material pillow cairosvg \
  mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin \
  mkdocs-rss-plugin

uv manages dependencies with a lockfile (uv.lock) so builds are reproducible.

After that, mkdocs.yml and docs/index.md are the only files you touch. Replace index.md with your landing page.

Local dev server:

uv run mkdocs serve    # → http://127.0.0.1:8000

2. Core Configuration

mkdocs.yml is the single source of truth. Here is what goes in:

# Blog plugin — posts, archive, categories, pagination
plugins:
  - blog:
      blog_dir: blog
      post_dir: "{blog}/posts"
      archive: true
      categories: true
      pagination: true
      pagination_per_page: 10
      authors_file: "{blog}/.authors.yml"

  # Tags — auto-generates tag index pages
  - tags

  # Search with Chinese tokenization
  - search:
      lang: [en, zh]

  # RSS
  - rss:
      match_path: blog/posts/.*

3. Bilingual Strategy

No separate site builds, no mkdocs-static-i18n plugin. Just a directory convention:

docs/blog/posts/
├── en/    ← English posts go here, tagged `english`
└── zh/    ← 中文文章放这里，tag `chinese`

Search indexes both languages — the lang: [en, zh] line above tells the built-in segmenter to handle CJK characters. Readers filter by language via the tag system.

4. GitHub Actions CI

A single workflow file (.github/workflows/ci.yml) does three things on every push to Master:

  1. Checkout the repo (full depth, needed for git-revision-date-localized)
  2. pip install dependencies + mkdocs build
  3. actions/deploy-pages to publish

Set Settings → Pages → Source → GitHub Actions in the repo and you are done.

5. Analytics & Comments

Google Analytics 4 — one block in mkdocs.yml:

extra:
  analytics:
    provider: google
    property: G-XXXXXXXXXX

giscus — free, no-ads comment system powered by GitHub Discussions. Enable Discussions in the repo settings, install the giscus app, and drop the repo/category IDs into mkdocs.yml.

6. Theme Polish — Atom One Dark Pro

This site doesn't use the stock Material palette.

Colors are inspired by Atom One Dark Pro -- I always like this palette, and was really sad when Atom stops updating 😿, the popular VS Code theme. All overrides live in a single CSS file (docs/stylesheets/extra.css) loaded via extra_css.

Dark mode (default):

Variable Hex Usage
Background #282c34 Page body
Surface #21252b Code blocks, sidebar
Text #abb2bf Body copy
Primary #61afef Links, header
Accent #56b6c2 Hover states

Light mode:

Variable Hex Usage
Background #fafafa Page body
Surface #ffffff Cards, sidebar
Text #383a42 Body copy
Primary #4078f2 Links, header
Accent #0184bc Hover states

Key CSS snippet:

[data-md-color-scheme="slate"] {
  --md-default-bg-color: #282c34;
  --md-primary-fg-color: #61afef;
  --md-accent-fg-color:  #56b6c2;
}

[data-md-color-scheme="default"] {
  --md-default-bg-color: #fafafa;
  --md-primary-fg-color: #4078f2;
  --md-accent-fg-color:  #0184bc;
}

The home page gets a hero layout — large title, single-line subtitle, and Material's .md-button classes for CTA links. Blog post cards have rounded corners, subtle backgrounds, and a hover lift effect. A fadeIn animation smooths page transitions.

Dark mode is set as the default — the slate palette entry is listed first in mkdocs.yml.

Writing a Post

Every post is a Markdown file with frontmatter:

---
date:
  created: 2026-07-10
categories:
  - en             # language category: en or zh
  - topic-name
tags:
  - english     # or chinese
  - topic-tag
authors:
  - requiema
---

# Title

Content goes here.

Drop it in docs/blog/posts/en/ or docs/blog/posts/zh/, commit, push — the CI pipeline handles the rest.

Summary

Dimension Choice
SSG MkDocs Material 9.7
Hosting GitHub Pages (Actions CI)
Language en / zh via directory convention + tags
Search Built-in, lang: [en, zh]
Analytics Google Analytics 4
Comments giscus (GitHub Discussions)
RSS mkdocs-rss-plugin
Writing Markdown + YAML frontmatter

The full config is in the repo source. Go write something.

  • in zh, meta
  • 2 min read

这个博客是怎么搭建的

第一篇博客写博客本身 —— 记录搭建这个站点的每一个决策和步骤。如果你也想用 MkDocs Material 建一个轻量级开发者博客，希望这篇能帮你省几个小时。

为什么选 MkDocs Material？

我要的三件事：

  1. 用 Markdown 写文章 —— 不要 CMS、不要数据库、不要 WordPress。
  2. git push 即部署 —— GitHub Actions 自动构建，GitHub Pages 自动上线。
  3. 原生支持双语 —— 英文和中文，搜索能同时索引两种语言。

静态站点生成器是自然的选择，横向对比：

工具 写作 国际化 主题生态
Hugo 好 内置 多但碎片化
Jekyll 好 靠插件 GitHub Pages 原生
MkDocs Material 好（Markdown） 内置搜索多语言 一个精品主题

MkDocs Material 赢在第三列 —— 一个主题把事做全、做一致，不需要拼接五个维护参差的模板。 blog 插件 是一等公民，不是事后补丁。

搭建步骤

1. 脚手架

uv init
uv add mkdocs-material pillow cairosvg \
  mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin \
  mkdocs-rss-plugin

uv 管理依赖，带 lockfile（uv.lock），构建可复现。之后只需要关注 mkdocs.yml 和 docs/index.md。把 index.md 换成自己的首页。

本地开发：

uv run mkdocs serve    # → http://127.0.0.1:8000

2. 核心配置

mkdocs.yml 是唯一的配置来源。关键部分：

# Blog 插件 —— 文章、归档、分类、分页
plugins:
  - blog:
      blog_dir: blog
      post_dir: "{blog}/posts"
      archive: true
      categories: true
      pagination: true
      pagination_per_page: 10
      authors_file: "{blog}/.authors.yml"

  # Tags —— 自动生成标签索引页
  - tags

  # 搜索 —— 中英文分词
  - search:
      lang: [en, zh]

  # RSS 订阅
  - rss:
      match_path: blog/posts/.*

3. 双语方案

没有拆分站点、没有用 mkdocs-static-i18n 插件。就是目录约定：

docs/blog/posts/
├── en/    ← 英文文章，tag `english`
└── zh/    ← 中文文章，tag `chinese`

搜索同时索引两种语言 —— 上面那段 lang: [en, zh] 告诉内置分词器要处理 CJK 字符。 读者通过标签系统按语言筛选文章。

4. GitHub Actions CI

一个 workflow 文件（.github/workflows/ci.yml）做三件事：

  1. Checkout 仓库（full depth，git-revision-date-localized 插件需要）
  2. pip install 依赖 → mkdocs build
  3. actions/deploy-pages 发布

仓库 Settings → Pages → Source → GitHub Actions 设置好就全自动了。

5. 统计与评论

Google Analytics 4 —— mkdocs.yml 里加一个块：

extra:
  analytics:
    provider: google
    property: G-XXXXXXXXXX

giscus —— 免费无广告的评论系统，基于 GitHub Discussions。仓库开启 Discussions、安装 giscus App，把 repo/category ID 填入 mkdocs.yml 即可。

6. 主题定制 —— Atom One Dark Pro

本站不使用 Material 默认的 indigo 配色。色调灵感来自 Atom One Dark Pro（VS Code 经典主题）—— 我一直很喜欢这个配色，Atom 停更的时候还挺难过的 😿。 所有覆盖写在一个 CSS 文件里（docs/stylesheets/extra.css），通过 extra_css 加载。

暗色模式（默认）：

变量 色值 用途
背景 #282c34 页面底色
表面 #21252b 代码块、侧栏
正文 #abb2bf 段落文字
主色 #61afef 链接、顶栏
强调 #56b6c2 悬停状态

亮色模式：

变量 色值 用途
背景 #fafafa 页面底色
表面 #ffffff 卡片、侧栏
正文 #383a42 段落文字
主色 #4078f2 链接、顶栏
强调 #0184bc 悬停状态

核心 CSS：

[data-md-color-scheme="slate"] {
  --md-default-bg-color: #282c34;
  --md-primary-fg-color: #61afef;
  --md-accent-fg-color:  #56b6c2;
}

[data-md-color-scheme="default"] {
  --md-default-bg-color: #fafafa;
  --md-primary-fg-color: #4078f2;
  --md-accent-fg-color:  #0184bc;
}

首页用了 hero 布局 —— 大标题、一行描述、Material 的 .md-button CTA 按钮。博客卡片 加了圆角、浅色背景和悬停上浮效果。页面切换有 fadeIn 淡入动画。

暗色模式设为**默认** —— mkdocs.yml 中 slate 配置项排在最前面。

如何写文章

每篇文章是一个 Markdown 文件，加上 frontmatter：

---
date:
  created: 2026-07-10
categories:
  - zh             # 语言分类：en 或 zh
  - topic-name
tags:
  - chinese    # 或 english
  - topic-tag
authors:
  - requiema
---

# 标题

正文内容。

放入 docs/blog/posts/zh/ 或 docs/blog/posts/en/，commit，push —— CI 自动处理剩下的。

总结

维度 选择
静态站点生成器 MkDocs Material 9.7
托管 GitHub Pages（Actions CI）
语言 en / zh，目录约定 + 标签
搜索 内置，lang: [en, zh]
统计 Google Analytics 4
评论 giscus（GitHub Discussions）
RSS mkdocs-rss-plugin
写作 Markdown + YAML frontmatter

完整配置在 仓库源码 里。去写点什么吧。