Posts and Filename Conventions

Jekyll is blog-aware without requiring a database.

Posts are source files stored in _posts with date-oriented filename conventions.

Create a technical journal entry

Example:

_posts/2026-08-10-first-jekyll-build.md

---
title: My First Jekyll Build
---

Today I traced a page from source into `_site` and the browser.

The filename carries date/title information that Jekyll can use as part of post metadata and URL generation.

Why posts are different from pages

A page is generally a standalone destination.

A post participates in a date-oriented content stream.

Jekyll makes posts available as a collection through:

site.posts

Inspect automatic metadata

Build the post.

Inspect values such as:

{{ page.title }}
{{ page.date }}
{{ page.url }}

Record what came from:

• filename convention;
• front matter;
• Jekyll-generated data.

Failure test

Create a disposable post with an invalid filename convention.

Observe whether Jekyll treats it as a post, ignores it, or reports a problem in your installed version.

Do not infer. Record.

Portfolio action

Create one technical journal post describing a real portfolio decision or debugging event.

Keep it useful enough that future-you would understand what happened.

Checkpoint

Explain why a project case study may be a poor fit for a post if its identity is not fundamentally date-driven.