Some opinions, held with varying degrees of certainty.

How is this site deployed?

It's hosted on sourcehut pages and build straight from the repository.

What are sourcehut pages?

It's a service that allows you to host static websites. It's a part of broader sourcehut ecosystem.

Is it free?

It is free if you build your website locally and upload it to sourcehut pages.

And if you want to build it on sourcehut?

Then you need to have a paid account to use another part of sourcehut ecosystem - build service.

What is the advantage of building on sourcehut?

We will get to that. First, let's see how to upload locally built website to sourcehut pages.

Do we follow the official Haunt documentation?

Yes, we do. We just run haunt build

With default configuration that produces site directory with all the files. Is it enough?

We need to create a tar.gz archive from that directory. We can do it with tar -czf site.tar.gz site command

How do we upload it to sourcehut?

The easiest way is to use hut cli tool.

How to install it?

Check your distribution. For example, it is packaged for Guix and also for Arch.

What if it is not my case?

Follow the instructions how to build and install it from source. It's not that scary.

What is the next step?

You need to run hut init command to initialize hut. Follow the instructions and provide your OAuth token.

Where do I get the OAuth token?

Go to your sourcehut account settings and create a new OAuth token.

Are we ready to upload our website?

Almost, but we need to decide if it is going to use default domain provided by sourcehut or custom domain.

What is the default domain?

It is yourusername.srht.site

What if I already have a custom domain?

Then you need to add a CNAME record to your DNS configuration. It should point to pages.sr.ht.

What if it is a naked domain?

Then you need to add an A record to your DNS configuration. As for today, it should point to 173.195.146.139 but that may change in the future.

Ok, I know what domain to use. How do I upload my website?

Run hut pages publish -d yourusername.srht.site site.tar.gz command. Replace yourusername.srht.site with your custom domain if you have one.

Is it all?

Yes, it is. You can now check your website at yourusername.srht.site or on your custom domain.

What about the ssl certificate?

It's provided for your site by sourcehut automatically.

So, what about the fully automated build and deployment?

We need to use build service that, as we mentioned before, requires paid account.

Is it worth it?

You can decide for yourself. I'm not going to convince you, but the minimal plan is $2/month.

Ok, let's do it. How do I start?

You need to create a remote repository on sourcehut. When you push to it, it will trigger a build.

I already have my website repository on some other git forge. How to add sourcehut remote?

Run git remote add sourcehut git@git.sr.ht:~yourusername/my-site-repo command. Modify it to match your details.

If I push to sourcehut remote, will it trigger a build?

No, you need to add .build.yml file to your repository. It should contain build instructions.

What to put there?

Take a look at the build file of this site. It has all the necessary parts.

It looks like it's running Guix.

Neat, isn't it? It's a Scheme all the way down.

How to trigger a build?

Just push to sourcehut remote. It will not only trigger a build but also provide a link to the build log.

What if build fails for some reason?

The great thing about sourcehut is that you have four hours to ssh into the build machine and debug it.

Why that blog looks so weird?

We explained it in obligatory metablogging post.