Static Site Hosting

A pattern for deploying websites: build static sites locally or in CI, then deploy them to a self-hosted Nginx server where each site gets its own subdomain.

The Pattern

graph LR
    A["📦 Source Repo<br/>(Forgejo)"] --> B["🔨 Build Tool<br/>(Hugo / Quartz)"]
    B --> C["📁 Built Output<br/>(static files)"]
    C -->|"rsync / scp"| D["🖥️ Web Server<br/>192.168.0.17:/var/www/sites/subfolder"]
    D -->|"Nginx wildcard"| E["🌐 subfolder.sites.brads.house"]

Every static site follows this flow:

Source lives in a git repo (on Forgejo at git.brads.house)
Build using the appropriate tool (Hugo, Quartz, etc.)
Deploy the built output to the web server via SSH
Serve via Nginx with wildcard subdomain routing

Infrastructure

Web Server

Host: 192.168.0.17 (SSH alias: static-web)
Web root: /var/www/sites/
User: agent (SSH key-based auth)
Server: Nginx with wildcard subdomain configuration

Nginx routes *.sites.brads.house to the matching subfolder under /var/www/sites/. For example:

commune.sites.brads.house → /var/www/sites/commune/
diary.sites.brads.house → /var/www/sites/diary/

DNS

A wildcard DNS record *.sites.brads.house points to the web server. No per-site DNS configuration needed.

Build Tools

Hugo

Used for:

Diary — personal daily journal site
Dungeon Church — TTRPG community site

Hugo is a fast static site generator written in Go. Sites build in milliseconds.

Quartz v4

Used for:

This library (commune.sites.brads.house) — the wiki you’re reading now

Quartz is a digital garden / wiki tool that renders Markdown with wikilinks, backlinks, and graph views. It’s built on top of Node.js.

Deployment Methods

Manual (rsync)

The static-deploy agent skill handles manual deployments:

rsync -avz --delete ./public/ agent@static-web:/var/www/sites/<subfolder>/

CI via Forgejo Actions

For automated deployments, repos use Forgejo workflows:

Push to main triggers the build
Built output is pushed to a pages branch (or deployed directly)
A deploy step rsyncs to the web server

See Forgejo for workflow patterns and webhook routing options.

Self-Hosted vs. Cloud

	Self-Hosted	Netlify / Vercel / GitHub Pages
Cost	Just electricity + hardware	Free tier, then paid
Control	Full — own the server, config, logs	Limited to platform features
Privacy	No third-party analytics or tracking	Platform may inject analytics
Custom domains	Wildcard DNS, any subdomain	Per-site config, sometimes tricky
Build speed	Depends on hardware	Optimized build infra
CDN	No (LAN-optimized)	Yes, global edge network
Uptime	Your responsibility	Platform SLA
HTTPS	Manual cert management	Automatic

For our use case — a small commune serving mostly local and known users — self-hosting wins on control and simplicity. We don’t need global CDN, and we value owning the full stack.

Adding a New Site

Build your site with whatever tool you like
Pick a subfolder name (this becomes your subdomain)
Deploy: rsync -avz --delete ./build/ agent@static-web:/var/www/sites/<name>/
Visit <name>.sites.brads.house

No Nginx restart needed — the wildcard config handles it automatically.

Commune

Explorer