The static website behind rm3l.org, hosted with Netlify, built with Gatsby, and leveraging a headless Ghost Content Management System (CMS) running in a Kubernetes cluster

Read more about this migration journey in this blog post.

• Backend
  • Ghost provides the headless Content Management System (CMS). It runs in my own self-hosted Kubernetes cluster
• Frontend
  • Gatsby pulls data from the Ghost blog GraphQL API, and builds this static site. Initial version has been created using the gatsby-starter-ghost starter, then customized to include additional pages such as a Portfolio React component
• End-to-end tests with Cypress and start-server-and-test
• Continuously tested (CI) via GitHub Actions
  • Specifically, once a deployment is successful in Netlify, a webhook triggers a Kubeless function, which in turn requests a GitHub Workflow Run that tests the newly-deployed site
• Continuously deployed (CD) on Netlify, but I am considering migrating to Cloudflare Pages.
  • Deploy previews of Pull Requests via Cloudflare Pages
• Dependabot & Snyk to keep dependencies secure and up-to-date

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/rm3l/rm3l.org my-jamstack-site && cd my-jamstack-site

2. Install and use the correct version of Node using NVM

   nvm install

3. Install the Gatsby CLI

   npm install -g gatsby-cli

4. Install YARN package manager

Follow the instructions here: https://legacy.yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install

5. Install the project dependencies

   yarn

6. Set up environment variables and customize the project

Copy the .env.template as a .env file in the repo and customize it accordingly:

GHOST_API_URL=https://my.healdless.ghost.entrypoint
GHOST_CONTENT_API_KEY=my-ghost-blog-content-key
CYPRESS_PROJECT_ID=my-cypress-project-id
CYPRESS_RECORD_KEY=my-cypress-record-key
CONTACT_FORM_ENDPOINT=my-contact-form-endpoint

• GHOST_API_URL : the URL to the headless Ghost blog
• GHOST_CONTENT_API_KEY : the Ghost Content API Key, which allows to pull data from a Ghost CMS
• CYPRESS_PROJECT_ID : the Cypress project Identifier
• CYPRESS_RECORD_KEY : the Cypress project record key, to use in a Cypress online dashboard
• CONTACT_FORM_ENDPOINT : the endpoint to call in the contact form

On build servers (CircleCI and Netlify), those are just defined as project-wide environment variables.

7. Change the site configuration

Edit the src/utils/siteConfig.js file accordingly.

8. Start the development server

   gatsby develop

Gatsby develop uses the development config in .ghost.json.

1. Generate a full static production build

    # Run a production build, locally
    gatsby build

2. Preview the site as it will appear once deployed

   # Serve a production build, locally
   gatsby serve

Gatsby build uses the production config in .ghost.json.

This repository contains few Cypress end-to-end tests that not only make sure the website renders as expected, but also test accessibility (also known as a11y). To do so, the test commands spin up the Gatsby development server and run all the Cypress test specs against the former. You can run the tests using the following command:

 # Runs the tests right away, with no user interaction
 yarn test

or :

 # Interactive test launcher: opens up a Cypress browser for interactively running the tests
 yarn test:open

This contains 3 config files specifically for deploying with Netlify. A netlify.toml file for build settings, a /static/_headers file with default security headers set for all routes, and /static/_redirects to set Netlify custom domain redirects.

To deploy to your Netlify account, hit the button below.

You need however to leverage your own Ghost Content API Keys which allow Gatsby to communicate with your Ghost headless blog. For this, I currently set Netlify ENV variables for production builds instead.

Once deployed, I also set up a Ghost + Netlify Integration to use deploy hooks from Ghost to trigger Netlify rebuilds. That way, any time data changes (e.g., new post published) in the headless Ghost CMS, my website will rebuild on Netlify.

• Armel Soro
  • keybase.io/rm3l
  • rm3l.org - <[email protected]> - @rm3l
  • paypal.me/rm3l
  • coinbase.com/rm3l

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2020-2021 Armel Soro

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