#30 Seconds to a Live Blog

git clone https://github.com/1ay1/loom.git
cd loom
make
./loom content/

Open http://localhost:8080. You're running a blog. That's it.

Edit any file in content/ and refresh — changes show up instantly. No build step, no restart.

#Make It Yours

Copy the example site as a starting point:

cp -r content/ myblog/

Open myblog/site.conf and change the basics:

title = My Blog
description = What I'm working on
author = Your Name
base_url = https://yourdomain.com
theme = nord

Pick any theme: default, mono, serif, nord, rose, cobalt, earth, dracula, gruvbox, catppuccin, tokyonight, kanagawa, typewriter, brutalist, lavender, warm, ocean, sakura, midnight, hacker. See them all on the Themes page.

Run your blog:

./loom myblog/

#Write Your First Post

Create myblog/posts/hello.md:

---
title: Hello World
date: 2024-01-01
tags: meta
excerpt: The first post.
---

This is my first post. **Bold**, *italic*, `code`, and [links](https://example.com) all work.

## A Heading

- List item one
- List item two

Save it. Refresh the browser. It's live.

#Add a Page

Pages are for content that isn't time-ordered — an about page, a projects page, a contact page.

Create myblog/pages/about.md:

---
title: About
slug: about
---

This is the about page.

Add it to your navigation in site.conf:

nav = Home:/, About:/about

#Add Images

Put images anywhere in your content directory:

mkdir myblog/images
cp photo.png myblog/images/

Use them in markdown: ![alt text](/images/photo.png). Any file that isn't markdown or site.conf is served as a static asset.

#Create a Series

Group related posts by putting them in a subdirectory:

mkdir myblog/posts/my-series

Add posts inside it. The directory name becomes the series name. Each post gets a navigation panel linking to all parts.

#Deploy

Loom is the server. Run it behind nginx or caddy for TLS, or expose port 8080 directly.

# systemd service example
[Unit]
Description=Loom Blog
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/loom /var/www/myblog
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Or serve straight from a git repo — push to publish:

./loom --git /path/to/repo.git main content/

#Requirements

• Linux (uses epoll and inotify)
• g++ with C++20 support (GCC 10+)
• zlib (usually pre-installed)

Build takes under 3 seconds.