Linux, Python, vim, git & nix LPvgn Short Stack
Future-proof your skills and escape the tech hamster wheel with Linux, Python, vim & git — now with nix (LPvgn), an AI stack to resist obsolescence. Follow along as I build next generation AI/SEO tools for porting Jupyter Notebooks to FastHTML / HTMX Web apps using the Pipulate free AI SEO software.

The Sovereign Jekyll Deployment Engine: From Local Preview to DMZ Live

This article captures a pivotal moment in my journey toward digital sovereignty. The process was iterative, often feeling like two steps forward, one step back, but each hurdle provided immense learning. From grappling with Nginx permissions and Jekyll’s build nuances to understanding the subtle yet profound ‘shellHook trap’ in Nix, this experience solidified my mental model of hybrid deployments. The satisfaction of watching a massive site build successfully on my own hardware, streaming the logs directly, was truly a ‘Dayton Moment’ – a testament to persistence and collaborative problem-solving.

Get Pipulate [View Markdown Source]

Setting the Stage: Context for the Curious Book Reader

In the ongoing quest to establish a truly “Digital Sovereign” presence, this essay chronicles an important segment of the journey: the construction of a self-hosted Jekyll deployment pipeline. Moving beyond theoretical blueprints, this narrative dives into the practical implementation of a system that automates static site publishing to a DMZ-situated home server, using Nix for foundational environment management and Bundler for dynamic gem dependencies. It’s a testament to achieving GitHub Pages-like simplicity with absolute control over the entire stack.

Technical Journal Entry Begins

Me: Okay, so next I fix the certificate issue and I blend the 2 sites truly into one so I can preview it with the local /etc/hosts override so that I can do a local offline preview before switching to true home-hosting with the public DNS switch-over. This is the final stretch to home-hosting. This content drop should catch you up on the entire history of the Pipulate project and the LPvg platform that it’s built on, bottled with Nix and now on the edge of being able to publish home-hosted Jekyll sites from it.

Note: The above brief prompt was combined with these files for context:

AI_PHOOEY_CHOP = """\
/home/mike/repos/trimnoir/flake.nix
remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive
deploy_honeybot.sh
/etc/hosts
"""

And this was the what the context drop looked like, very close to the million-byte limit by including the list of articles and all their meta context.

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ python prompt_foo.py -l [:] -c
--- Processing Files ---
Skipping codebase tree (no .py files included).
Adding narrative context from articles... (757 articles | 80,394 tokens | 297,897 bytes)
Pairing holographic context shards...Matched context shards: (757 files | 147,060 tokens)
**Command:** `prompt_foo.py -l [:] -c`

--- Processing Log ---

— Processing Files — Skipping codebase tree (no .py files included). Adding narrative context from articles… (757 articles | 80,394 tokens | 297,897 bytes) Pairing holographic context shards…Matched context shards: (757 files | 147,060 tokens)


--- Files Included ---
• /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/flake.nix (5,115 tokens | 23,207 bytes)
• /home/mike/repos/pipulate/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix (1,559 tokens | 5,942 bytes)
• /home/mike/repos/pipulate/remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive (539 tokens | 1,737 bytes)
• /home/mike/repos/pipulate/deploy_honeybot.sh (212 tokens | 720 bytes)
• /etc/hosts (39 tokens | 91 bytes)

--- Auto-Context Included ---
• Recent Narrative Context (80,394 tokens | 297,897 bytes)
• Holographic Context Shards (147,060 tokens | 639,663 bytes)

--- Prompt Summary ---
Summed Tokens:    235,749 (from section parts)
Verified Tokens: 236,428 (from final output)
  (Difference: +679)
Total Words:      94,413 (content only)
Total Chars:      973,755
Total Bytes:      974,019 (UTF-8)

--- Size Perspective ---
📚 Equivalent in length to a **Long Novel** (Note: With a token/word ratio of 2.50, this content is far denser and more complex than typical prose of this length).
Markdown output copied to clipboard
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

This makes the AI essentially know the entire project history with about 1/4th of a million-token context window used with one submit.

Gemini 3 Pro via Web: Context verified.

This content drop is a monumental treatise. It documents the complete arc of a “Digital Sovereign”—from the foundational philosophy of the LPvg stack to the construction of a “Forever Machine” capable of enduring the AI age. You have successfully navigated the “Quintuple Whammy,” moved through the “AI Winter” metaphors, and are now standing at the threshold of the “Dayton Moment” for your own infrastructure.

You are about to close the loop between your development environment (trimnoir/flake.nix) and your production reality (honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix).

Here is the diagnosis and the plan to “blend the sites” and achieve that local preview before the public switch-over.

Orchestrating the Local Preview: The Certificate Paradox

The Certificate Paradox (The “Catch-22”)

Currently, your configuration.nix has enableACME = true and forceSSL = true.

The Problem: Let’s Encrypt (ACME) requires the public DNS to point to your IP and port 80 to be accessible from the global internet to issue a certificate. Since you haven’t flipped the DNS switch yet, ACME validation fails. If ACME fails, Nginx often refuses to start or serves a broken/missing cert, making your local /etc/hosts preview impossible (or full of scary browser warnings).

The Solution: The “Soft Launch” Configuration

To verify the “blend” (that the Git hook builds the site correctly and Nginx serves it) before the public DNS switch, we must temporarily downgrade the strictness of the Nginx config on Honeybot.

We will set Nginx to serve over HTTP (port 80) for the preview. Once you verify the build via your /etc/hosts override, you flip the DNS, and then re-enable ACME.

Step 1: Modify remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix

Change the services.nginx block to allow HTTP for now.

  # Nginx System Service
  services.nginx = {
    enable = true;
    recommendedGzipSettings = true;
    recommendedOptimisation = true;
    recommendedProxySettings = true;
    # recommendedTlsSettings = true; # <--- Comment this out temporarily

    virtualHosts."mikelev.in" = {
      # forceSSL = true;      # <--- Comment out (Don't force HTTPS yet)
      # enableACME = true;    # <--- Comment out (Don't try to get certs yet)
      
      # Just serve plain HTTP for the local preview
      listen = [{ addr = "0.0.0.0"; port = 80; }];

      # The Web Root (This matches your git hook target)
      root = "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site"; 
    };
  };

Step 2: Push the “Brain” to Honeybot

Use your existing deploy script to push this temporary “Soft Launch” configuration.

./deploy_honeybot.sh

(Then SSH into Honeybot and run sudo nixos-rebuild switch as the script instructs).

Step 3: Trigger the Build (The Blend)

Now, verify that the “Blend” works—that your development flake can build the production site on the server. From your dev machine (Trimnoir), push to the remote. Since you might not have new commits, allow an empty commit to trigger the hook:

git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger sovereign build for local preview"
git push honeybot main

Watch the output. You should see the post-receive hook fire, nix develop spin up, and Jekyll build the site into /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site.

Step 4: The Local Preview

Since you have /etc/hosts set up on your dev machine:

192.168.10.100 mikelev.in www.mikelev.in

Open your browser and go to http://mikelev.in (Note: http, not https).

If you see your site, the loop is closed. You have successfully:

  1. Edited in a reproducible Dev environment.
  2. Pushed to a Sovereign Git Remote.
  3. Built using the same Flake environment on the server.
  4. Served via System Nginx.

Step 5: The “True” Home-Hosting Switch-Over

Once the preview confirms the site looks correct:

  1. DNS: Log into your registrar (Google Domains/Namecheap/etc.) and point the A Record for mikelev.in to your home’s Public IP.
  2. Router: Ensure Port 80 and 443 are forwarded to Honeybot (192.168.10.100).
  3. NixOS: Revert the changes in configuration.nix to enable the “Hardened” mode:
    recommendedTlsSettings = true; # Uncomment
    virtualHosts."mikelev.in" = {
      forceSSL = true;      # Uncomment
      enableACME = true;    # Uncomment
      # Remove the explicit listen block we added for HTTP
      root = "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site"; 
    };
  1. Rebuild: sudo nixos-rebuild switch on Honeybot. Nginx will now reach out to Let’s Encrypt, grab the certs, and you will be live, secure, and sovereign.

Would you like me to draft the Nginx “Soft Launch” modification for configuration.nix so you can copy-paste it?

Me: Okay, the first round of work:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ vim remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ./deploy_honeybot.sh
🚀 Syncing Hooks...
post-receive                                                                                 100% 1737   390.2KB/s   00:00    
🚀 Syncing NixOS Config...
sending incremental file list
./
configuration.nix

sent 1,031 bytes  received 92 bytes  748.67 bytes/sec
total size is 6,737  speedup is 6.00
✅ Sync Complete.
   To apply NixOS config: ssh mike@192.168.10.100 'sudo cp ~/nixos-config-staged/* /etc/nixos/ && sudo nixos-rebuild switch'
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ssh mike@192.168.10.100 'sudo cp ~/nixos-config-staged/* /etc/nixos/ && sudo nixos-rebuild switch'
sudo: a terminal is required to read the password; either use ssh's -t option or configure an askpass helper
sudo: a password is required
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ssh mike@192.168.10.100 'sudo cp ~/nixos-config-staged/* /etc/nixos/ && sudo nixos-rebuild switch'^C
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ssh -t mike@192.168.10.100 'sudo cp ~/nixos-config-staged/* /etc/nixos/ && sudo nixos-rebuild switch'
[sudo] password for mike: 
building the system configuration...
evaluation warning: The option `services.xserver.desktopManager.gnome.enable' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.desktopManager.gnome.enable'.
evaluation warning: The option `services.logind.lidSwitchExternalPower' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.logind.settings.Login.HandleLidSwitchExternalPower'.
evaluation warning: The option `services.logind.lidSwitch' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.logind.settings.Login.HandleLidSwitch'.
evaluation warning: The option `services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.enable' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.displayManager.gdm.enable'.
these 23 derivations will be built:
  /nix/store/x93378ah5h5jg1ja41xzxh4hgvjhy96y-system-path.drv
  /nix/store/084f661k3p03ayy56f17gyirbr4gww8g-etc-pam-environment.drv
  /nix/store/b4wvl35gscakmzjjff0wzwbzsvjp882b-set-environment.drv
  /nix/store/0j62467ml6yxqwpzmb82r8nxcrwp4170-etc-profile.drv
  /nix/store/gybhqjh60yn56h06i0y1i8lzd7x0lzbz-dbus-1.drv
  /nix/store/3cfyd9hmrjchzkxx8wgqad9q9n486zzj-X-Restart-Triggers-dbus.drv
  /nix/store/4ibvvn9rya22vykw9anczfvmfaimaxhm-nixos-tmpfiles.d.drv
  /nix/store/7h51140ypc5c50p3310xx5b35w267fhd-unit-dbus.service.drv
  /nix/store/7xqkk6nngg0mb2qyh5cgc6bdwbcld8f3-unit-accounts-daemon.service.drv
  /nix/store/91y0x6f42w7fx1lh0c2c74w316lrdfi2-nginx.conf.drv
  /nix/store/lfy0k65d59pp0ikl0n1wwvnn0897nfgj-X-Restart-Triggers-polkit.drv
  /nix/store/amawmrvkhjk838pd73fh961v54rnc7qa-unit-polkit.service.drv
  /nix/store/zr41qgicsfm2nwngdwy34kyy3s2s8my7-tmpfiles.d.drv
  /nix/store/nipvy0ribqfd1yhp8cp6j3fz0ijw0pnh-X-Restart-Triggers-systemd-tmpfiles-resetup.drv
  /nix/store/fm6dcmzw6cl7hk2vkln0d29kcpxp00jg-unit-systemd-tmpfiles-resetup.service.drv
  /nix/store/rssk7kal965lkw1qxkj5rqx5qd475rkq-users-groups.json.drv
  /nix/store/kkqk2nw45z8wf76b0qssx8k3s8z4bipg-unit-script-nginx-pre-start.drv
  /nix/store/yzzvmhily85sjdd5d8dzrzvjqc3ikxvk-unit-nginx.service.drv
  /nix/store/zg19inhp4rnqn0mvv3bmlcmwd0aqmil7-unit-dbus.service.drv
  /nix/store/s0fnik6p00bjr0a2v6vwckzn66zd8baf-system-units.drv
  /nix/store/sl5wklj0ah72i6p7mkynff4qfay3ckh6-user-units.drv
  /nix/store/yl3cplcah964bcfb8fgbif9jv0hqivlv-etc.drv
  /nix/store/k802qhchcz2dbxz5aqjfgjyii9v4qnp8-nixos-system-honeybot-26.05pre913595.c6245e83d836.drv
building '/nix/store/rssk7kal965lkw1qxkj5rqx5qd475rkq-users-groups.json.drv'...
building '/nix/store/x93378ah5h5jg1ja41xzxh4hgvjhy96y-system-path.drv'...
building '/nix/store/4ibvvn9rya22vykw9anczfvmfaimaxhm-nixos-tmpfiles.d.drv'...
building '/nix/store/91y0x6f42w7fx1lh0c2c74w316lrdfi2-nginx.conf.drv'...
building '/nix/store/zr41qgicsfm2nwngdwy34kyy3s2s8my7-tmpfiles.d.drv'...
building '/nix/store/nipvy0ribqfd1yhp8cp6j3fz0ijw0pnh-X-Restart-Triggers-systemd-tmpfiles-resetup.drv'...
building '/nix/store/fm6dcmzw6cl7hk2vkln0d29kcpxp00jg-unit-systemd-tmpfiles-resetup.service.drv'...

==================== Results ===================
No issues found.

==================== Summary ===================
Total issues:
    Unspecified: 0
    Low: 0
    Medium: 0
    High: 0

building '/nix/store/kkqk2nw45z8wf76b0qssx8k3s8z4bipg-unit-script-nginx-pre-start.drv'...
building '/nix/store/yzzvmhily85sjdd5d8dzrzvjqc3ikxvk-unit-nginx.service.drv'...
created 16145 symlinks in user environment
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
building '/nix/store/lfy0k65d59pp0ikl0n1wwvnn0897nfgj-X-Restart-Triggers-polkit.drv'...
building '/nix/store/gybhqjh60yn56h06i0y1i8lzd7x0lzbz-dbus-1.drv'...
building '/nix/store/084f661k3p03ayy56f17gyirbr4gww8g-etc-pam-environment.drv'...
building '/nix/store/b4wvl35gscakmzjjff0wzwbzsvjp882b-set-environment.drv'...
building '/nix/store/7xqkk6nngg0mb2qyh5cgc6bdwbcld8f3-unit-accounts-daemon.service.drv'...
building '/nix/store/3cfyd9hmrjchzkxx8wgqad9q9n486zzj-X-Restart-Triggers-dbus.drv'...
building '/nix/store/0j62467ml6yxqwpzmb82r8nxcrwp4170-etc-profile.drv'...
building '/nix/store/amawmrvkhjk838pd73fh961v54rnc7qa-unit-polkit.service.drv'...
building '/nix/store/7h51140ypc5c50p3310xx5b35w267fhd-unit-dbus.service.drv'...
building '/nix/store/zg19inhp4rnqn0mvv3bmlcmwd0aqmil7-unit-dbus.service.drv'...
building '/nix/store/sl5wklj0ah72i6p7mkynff4qfay3ckh6-user-units.drv'...
building '/nix/store/s0fnik6p00bjr0a2v6vwckzn66zd8baf-system-units.drv'...
building '/nix/store/yl3cplcah964bcfb8fgbif9jv0hqivlv-etc.drv'...
building '/nix/store/k802qhchcz2dbxz5aqjfgjyii9v4qnp8-nixos-system-honeybot-26.05pre913595.c6245e83d836.drv'...
stopping the following units: accounts-daemon.service, acme-mikelev.in.service, acme-renew-mikelev.in.timer, acme-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-resetup.service
activating the configuration...
removing group ‘acme’
removing user ‘acme’
setting up /etc...
reloading user units for mike...
restarting sysinit-reactivation.target
reloading the following units: dbus.service
restarting the following units: nginx.service, polkit.service
starting the following units: accounts-daemon.service, systemd-tmpfiles-resetup.service
the following new units were started: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service
Done. The new configuration is /nix/store/p3q744b7fnvnyigaxksfypsxx8q86lgb-nixos-system-honeybot-26.05pre913595.c6245e83d836
Connection to 192.168.10.100 closed.
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ git --no-pager diff -- remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
diff --git a/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix b/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
index 18930cae..761cc64e 100644
--- a/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
+++ b/remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
   # networking.wireless.enable = true;  # Enables wireless support via wpa_supplicant.
 
   # Allow Nginx to read files in /home/mike
-  systemd.services.nginx.serviceConfig.ProtectHome = "read-only"
+  systemd.services.nginx.serviceConfig.ProtectHome = "read-only";
 
   # 2. THE INSOMNIA (Server Mode)
   # Prevent the laptop from sleeping when you close the lid
@@ -35,6 +35,13 @@
   systemd.targets.hibernate.enable = false;
   systemd.targets.hybrid-sleep.enable = false;
 
+  # ENSURE NGINX CAN WALK TO HOME
+  # 'x' = mode, 'mike' = user, 'users' = group, '0711' = rwx--x--x
+  systemd.tmpfiles.rules = [
+    "d /home/mike 0711 mike users -"
+    "d /home/mike/www 0711 mike users -"
+  ];
+
   # Configure network proxy if necessary
   # networking.proxy.default = "http://user:password@proxy:port/";
   # networking.proxy.noProxy = "127.0.0.1,localhost,internal.domain";
@@ -121,11 +128,11 @@
     recommendedGzipSettings = true;
     recommendedOptimisation = true;
     recommendedProxySettings = true;
-    recommendedTlsSettings = true;
+    # recommendedTlsSettings = true; # <--- Comment this out temporarily
 
     virtualHosts."mikelev.in" = {
-      forceSSL = true;      # Force all traffic to HTTPS
-      enableACME = true;    # Let's Encrypt magic
+      # forceSSL = true;      # Force all traffic to HTTPS  # <--- Comment out (Don't force HTTPS yet)
+      # enableACME = true;    # Let's Encrypt magic # <--- Comment out (Don't try to get certs yet)
 
       # The Web Root
       root = "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site"; 
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

And the second round of work:

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger sovereign build for local preview"
[main 9db7555] Trigger sovereign build for local preview

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git push honeybot main
fatal: 'honeybot' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git push home main
Enumerating objects: 11, done.
Counting objects: 100% (11/11), done.
Delta compression using up to 48 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
Writing objects: 100% (8/8), 979 bytes | 979.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 8 (delta 5), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: 🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Building Site...
remote: Already on 'main'
remote: 🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll...
remote: building '/nix/store/k3rh5n5r9560hq83bi6l7f5ngkvpg7mg-nix-shell-env.drv'...
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.nokogiri --use-system-libraries` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.ffi --enable-system-libffi` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.eventmachine --with-cflags=-I/nix/store/ydrckgnllgg8nmhdwni81h7xhcpnrlhd-openssl-3.6.0-dev/include` instead.
remote: Linux detected. Skipping Neovim setup as it's not needed.
remote: /tmp/nix-shell.f7sjzI: line 2566: exec: jekyll: not found
remote: ✅ [Hook] Build Complete. Nginx is serving.
To 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git
   66404ca..9db7555  main -> main

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

And yes, I can now reach http://mikelev.in/ from the local Z640 machine (not https). According to Gemini’s instructions I have apparently “closed the loop” correctly, though I’m not 100% sure about the handling of the secure certificate the ACME way yet. It’s looking ore and more I won’t know for sure until the site is live. Anyhow the instructions also seem to indicate that with this success under my belt, we are up to the final step, the public DNS assignment.

However, even though I have the trimnoir site generating into the DMZ machine and being served by nginx and showing on http://mikelev.in/ on the local machine providing a good site-preview ability, it’s really only previewing those bits that actually got into the trimnoir repo, which is currently an extremely empty site “shim” and not the MikeLev.in/ site at all. I attempted to symlink them together but that turned out to be a bad idea.

And so I am finally faced with the site re-skinning which amounts to a whole bunch of file-copying, basically everything in:

/home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_posts

…over to:

/home/mike/repos/trimnoir/_posts

That takes care of all the article content. And then there’s these new hub pages that get copied from… no! They’re already there. My process is generating them into location on the new trimnoir bare minimum template. This is it’s .gitignore currently which explains why the pages folder containing the hub pages didn’t get pushed over:

_site
.sass-cache
.jekyll-cache
.jekyll-metadata
vendor
flake.lock
.bundle/
.gem/
Gemfile.lock
pages/
nav_root.md
access.log
nginx.pid

So it’s really just the copying of the articles over and the editing out of 1 line in .gitignore. It’s getting a wee bit confusing but not enormously so. Talk it out.

I have a number of established Jekyll-type sites such as the existing https://mikelev.in/ site and https://pipulate.com/. These have their own distinct type of flake.nix file in common (identical) between them which uses jekyll serve and WEBrick to do the live-reloading offline local preview. This version of the Nix flake has fallen behind as the new innovation work goes into the one for the new “Trim Noir” bare minimum Jekyll repo located at /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/flake.nix. I don’t need to get the two versions of the Nix flake in sync with each other just yet but that is something out there in the future so that I have a unified Nix flake for offline preview and online hosting. Though the online hosting is a bit tricky to think through because…

…once pushed through a deployment process… hmmm. The deployment process. This is what I’m currently wrapping my head around.

We work from TWO repos currently to fully develop and deploy a Jekyll site managed from Pipulate. So inside the Pipulte repo, there’s deploy_honeybot.sh:

/home/mike/repos/pipulate/deploy_honeybot.sh

…whose contents is:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ cat deploy_honeybot.sh 
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Deploy "Brain" to Honeybot

TARGET="mike@192.168.10.100"

echo "🚀 Syncing Hooks..."
# We use rsync to push the hook to the bare repo
scp remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive $TARGET:~/git/mikelev.in.git/hooks/post-receive
ssh $TARGET "chmod +x ~/git/mikelev.in.git/hooks/post-receive"

echo "🚀 Syncing NixOS Config..."
# We push the config to a temp folder, then sudo move it (requires interactive password or NOPASSWD sudo)
# For now, let's just push it to the home dir for review
rsync -av remotes/honeybot/nixos/ $TARGET:~/nixos-config-staged/

echo "✅ Sync Complete."
echo "   To apply NixOS config: ssh -t $TARGET 'sudo cp ~/nixos-config-staged/* /etc/nixos/ && sudo nixos-rebuild switch'"(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

And then we “sync” it over there and in-location. This is what I’m wrapping my mind around here. This is done from within Pipulate and it’s still not entirely done. As the instructions say you still have to cause the NixOS rebuilding and switching remotely through an ssh command. Neat! I think it’s the syncing there that I need to think through more thoroughly. What is that saying about the remote deploy.

The Dual-Loop Mental Model: Infrastructure vs. Content

I just need a stronger mental model so that I can start iterating rapidly. The idea now is to start making rapid iterative improvements to trimnoir in a way where the contents of that folder become the new trimmed down MikeLev.in site. At that point a git commit and push of the trimnoir repo causes the published site to be updated just like it would be if it were still a GitHub pages site. But there is a git receive hook that does something from a CI perspective. Part of the build process is remote machine side after tbt git push.

So conceptually, I have two deploys. One deploy is based from Pipulate and reaches pit and modifies the “outer” infrastructure of the remote machine, namely allowing changes to its configuration.nix file and a remote follow-up sudo nixos-rebuild switch. And all that is so that we can work declaratively from a show-orchestrating Pipulate. Given an in-location blank hardware “cartridge” Pipulate can reach out and turn it into a Jekyll nginx server in the DMZ. That’s deploy-type #1; wholesale hardware.

Then deploy type #2 is from the respective Jekyll site for repos where a mere git commit and push does all the work, just like with GitHub Pages.

Now the thing is because we’re still early on in this process inventing the system, more work might be getting done using BOTH deploy styles in the rapid iteration where we zero in on a settled-down infrastructure of deploy type #1 and we stop doing it so much. It becomes a special “system upgrade” event while deployment type #2 presumably gets done more and more as regular article content grows. That starts feeling like just working in another repo separately from Pipulate.

Alright good, good. I’ll m getting all this. But there is this last mental model bit of where the full Jekyll build occurs, on what magnitude its building a _site folder into and precisely how the fully rendered site ends up on webspace hosted on the honeybot machine in the DMZ. Are there 2 Jekyll builds, one local and one remote? Or is the selection of things that actually needs to be in the trimnoir repo really much larger than it used to be with _site having to come out of .gitignore (inefficient). I’m fine entertaining inefficiency if it increases reliability and reduces moving parts.

We effectively need to make sure the Jekyll rendered out contents of both ‘pages/ (the hubs) and _posts/` (the blog content from MikeLev.in which is not coped over yet) gets properly published on the DMZ honeybot machine. Recap and re-paint the whole mental model of this for me and set the stage for next steps. 80/20-rule baby step committable wins that match us forever towards the YouTube streaming little fish tank goal.

Gemini: You have correctly deduced the architecture. You have built a Sovereign GitHub Pages engine.

Let’s crystallize this mental model so you can move with speed and confidence.

The Mental Model: Two Loops, One Brain

You are operating two distinct loops. One builds the Factory, the other runs the Assembly Line.

Loop 1: The Infrastructure Loop (God Mode)

  • Source: pipulate/remotes/honeybot/...
  • Mechanism: deploy_honeybot.sh (rsync + ssh)
  • What it moves: The soul of the machine. configuration.nix, firewall rules, Nginx configs, and the Git Hooks (post-receive).
  • Frequency: Low. Only when changing how the server behaves (e.g., opening ports, flipping the SSL switch).
  • Outcome: It prepares the “Blank Cartridge” (Honeybot) to receive content.

Loop 2: The Content Loop (Daily Driver)

  • Source: trimnoir/ (The new MikeLev.in)
  • Mechanism: git push honeybot main
  • What it moves: The raw materials. Markdown articles, Liquid templates, CSS, and Hub Pages.
  • Frequency: High. Every time you write a post or tweak the design.
  • Outcome: The post-receive hook on Honeybot wakes up, runs nix develop (using the same flake you have locally), builds the site, and places the HTML in /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site.

The Build Reality check

To answer your specific worry: There is only one relevant build, and it happens on the Remote (Honeybot).

  1. Local (Trimnoir): You verify things look good. You do not commit _site.
  2. The Transfer: You commit source files (_posts/, pages/, assets/). You push them.
  3. Remote (Honeybot): The Git Hook triggers. It runs jekyll build. It generates _site on the server. Nginx serves that folder.

Efficiency Note: This is actually more efficient than committing _site. Git handles text (Markdown) beautifully. It handles thousands of generated HTML files poorly. We are moving the recipe, not the cake.

The 80/20 Next Steps: The Migration

We need to flesh out the skeleton (trimnoir) so it actually looks like the site.

Step 1: Un-ignore the Hub Pages

You noted pages/ was in .gitignore. Since your scripts generate these as source material (Markdown/HTML files that Jekyll processes), they must be tracked by Git.

Action: Edit /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/.gitignore. Remove (or comment out) the line: pages/

Step 2: The Great Copy (Reskinning)

We need to move your life’s work into the new vessel.

Action:

# Copy posts
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_posts/ /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/_posts/

# Copy images (if they aren't there yet)
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/images/ /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/images/

Note: If your old site had other assets (CSS/JS) that aren’t in the new theme, you might need to copy those to assets/, but let’s start with the content.

Step 3: The “Big Push” Preview

Now we test the system under load. We are going to push the full weight of the site to the little machine in the DMZ.

Action:

cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir
git add .
git commit -m "Migrate content and un-ignore pages"
git push honeybot main

What to watch for: Watch the remote output carefully. Since this is the first “heavy” build on Honeybot:

  1. Time: It will take longer than the empty shim.
  2. Errors: Jekyll might complain about missing layouts if the old posts used layouts that don’t exist in the new trimnoir theme.

If it builds: Go to http://mikelev.in on your Z640. You should see your full legacy, served from your own metal, independent of GitHub.

Would you like me to analyze the trimnoir file tree first to ensure we aren’t missing any dependencies (like _layouts or _includes) before you do the Big Push?

Me: Okay, we’re about to “litter up” Trim Noir folder and it’s about to fulfill its purpose as the new shim to put MikeLev.in into and selectively bringing back features. However I still want to “peel off” a copy of this early and unpolluted trimnoir repo state, so before I start following Gemini’s instructions above please instruct me on the best way to make an easily accessible go-back point. It’s probably making a branch with a git commit tag name and then coming back here into the main branch. Is it main or home? We push this thing release-wise with git push home main even though the AI keeps insisting it’s git push honeybot main. Is that the branch name? Help me get branches under control. I’d love to simply git push from trimnoir.

Gemini 3 Pro: This is a very smart move. Before we pour the concrete (the content), let’s blueprint the foundation so you can always reference this clean state.

Here is how to create your “Save Point,” clear up the naming confusion, and set up that lazy git push you want.

1. The “Go-Back Point” (Tagging)

You don’t necessarily need a separate branch for this; a Tag is perfect. A tag is like a permanent bookmark in history. It says, “This specific commit is special.”

Run this inside your trimnoir folder:

# 1. Make sure you are clean
git status

# 2. Create the "Save Point"
git tag -a v0.1-clean-shim -m "Clean Trim Noir shim before content migration"

# 3. Push the tag to your remote (so it's safe on Honeybot too)
git push home v0.1-clean-shim

Now, no matter what mess we make later, you can always view this state or check it out later.

2. Clearing the Confusion: home vs. main vs. honeybot

Let’s untangle the wires.

  • main (The Timeline): This is your Branch. It is the timeline of code changes.
  • home (The Destination): This is your Remote. It is the alias for the URL 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git.
  • honeybot: This is just the hostname of the server. In previous steps, I assumed you named your git remote “honeybot” to match the server name. But based on your logs, you named the remote “home”.

The Command Anatomy: git push [DESTINATION] [TIMELINE] git push home main

3. The “Lazy Push” Setup

You want to just type git push. To do that, we need to tell Git that the local main branch is “married” to the main branch on the home remote.

Run this once:

git push -u home main

The -u (Upstream) flag is the magic. It tells git: “From now on, when I am on main and I type git push, assume I mean home.”

Summary Checklist

  1. Tag it: git tag -a v0.1-clean-shim -m "Clean shim"
  2. Push the Tag: git push home --tags
  3. Set Upstream: git push -u home main

Once you do that, you are safe to start the “Great Copy” of files. If things explode, v0.1-clean-shim is your lifeboat.

Me: Step 1:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ # 1. Make sure you are clean
git status

# 2. Create the "Save Point"
git tag -a v0.1-clean-shim -m "Clean Trim Noir shim before content migration"

# 3. Push the tag to your remote (so it's safe on Honeybot too)
git push home v0.1-clean-shim
On branch main
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
	modified:   deploy_honeybot.sh
	modified:   foo_files.py
	modified:   remotes/honeybot/nixos/configuration.nix

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
Enumerating objects: 20557, done.
Counting objects: 100% (20557/20557), done.
Delta compression using up to 48 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (6160/6160), done.
Writing objects: 100% (20557/20557), 24.84 MiB | 35.72 MiB/s, done.
Total 20557 (delta 14486), reused 20068 (delta 14150), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (14486/14486), done.
remote: 🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Building Site...
remote: Already on 'main'
remote: 🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll...
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.nokogiri --use-system-libraries` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.ffi --enable-system-libffi` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.eventmachine --with-cflags=-I/nix/store/ydrckgnllgg8nmhdwni81h7xhcpnrlhd-openssl-3.6.0-dev/include` instead.
remote: Linux detected. Skipping Neovim setup as it's not needed.
remote: /tmp/nix-shell.UjNLKi: line 2566: exec: jekyll: not found
remote: ✅ [Hook] Build Complete. Nginx is serving.
To 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git
 * [new tag]           v0.1-clean-shim -> v0.1-clean-shim
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

For step 2 we switch to the other terminal. With commands like this it is very important you’re cdd into the correct starting folder, ahaha!

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git push -u home main
branch 'main' set up to track 'home/main'.
Everything up-to-date

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

Now we can start the great copy. Whoops I think I still have some of the symlinks that were better in theory. We chose file-copy for 80/20-rule and Murphy’s Law mitigation. Help me undo whatever symlink stuff I may have done here.

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ # Copy posts
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_posts/ /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/_posts/

# Copy images (if they aren't there yet)
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/images/ /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/images/
cp: cannot copy a directory, '/home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_posts/', into itself, '/home/mike/repos/trimnoir/_posts/_posts'
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

Gemini 3 Pro: That error is the smoking gun! 🔫

cp: cannot copy ... into itself

This confirms that trimnoir/_posts is indeed a symlink pointing right back to MikeLev.in/_posts. When you tried to copy, the system saw an infinite loop.

Let’s clean up the symlinks (the “clever” way) and replace them with actual files (the “80/20” way).

Go into your trimnoir repo and check the links, then remove them. Note: rm on a symlink only deletes the shortcut, not the original files. It is safe.

cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir

# 1. Verify they are links (look for the "->")
ls -la

# 2. Delete the symlinks (and pages if it was linked too)
rm _posts images

Step 2: The Great Copy (For Real This Time)

Now that the destination is empty/gone, cp will create fresh, real directories.

# Copy the posts folder
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_posts/ .

# Copy the images folder
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/images/ .

Step 3: Un-ignore pages/

You mentioned earlier that pages/ was in your .gitignore because the script generated them. Now that we want them to travel to the server to be built there, we must track them.

  1. Open .gitignore: vim .gitignore
  2. Find the line pages/
  3. Delete it or comment it out (# pages/)
  4. Save and quit.

Step 4: The Big Push

Now, verify everything is real files (no -> arrows in ls -la) and push the mass to the server.

# 1. Add everything (this might take a second, lots of text)
git add .

# 2. Commit
git commit -m "Migrate legacy content, remove symlinks, un-ignore pages"

# 3. Push to Honeybot (aka home)
git push

Watch the remote output. This is the moment of truth where the server attempts to chew through the full site build.

Me: Okay, doop de doop…

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir

# 1. Verify they are links (look for the "->")
ls -la
total 324
drwxr-xr-x  12 mike users   4096 Dec 24 07:39 .
drwxr-xr-x  15 mike users   4096 Dec 13 10:53 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users    416 Dec 13 11:13 404.html
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users    539 Dec 13 11:13 about.markdown
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users   1121 Dec 20 11:53 access.log
drwxr-xr-x   2 mike users   4096 Dec 22 16:07 assets
drwxr-xr-x   2 mike users   4096 Dec 13 11:09 .bundle
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users   2079 Dec 13 11:13 _config.yml
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users   1497 Dec 23 12:22 flake.lock
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users  23207 Dec 23 12:15 flake.nix
drwxr-xr-x  11 mike users   4096 Dec 13 11:13 .gem
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users   1307 Dec 13 11:13 Gemfile
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users   5700 Dec 23 12:22 Gemfile.lock
drwxr-xr-x   7 mike users   4096 Dec 24 07:37 .git
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users    135 Dec 22 11:05 .gitignore
drwxr-xr-x   2 mike users   4096 Dec 24 07:39 images
drwxr-xr-x   2 mike users   4096 Dec 15 17:29 _includes
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users    854 Dec 23 06:17 index.md
drwxr-xr-x   3 mike users   4096 Dec 13 11:15 .jekyll-cache
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users 192046 Dec 24 07:39 .jekyll-metadata
drwxr-xr-x   2 mike users   4096 Dec 15 17:14 _layouts
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users   1028 Dec 20 11:29 nginx.conf
drwxr-xr-x   2 mike users  12288 Dec 23 06:17 pages
-rw-r--r--   1 mike users      5 Dec 13 11:07 .port
lrwxrwxrwx   1 mike users     20 Dec 22 16:10 _posts -> ../MikeLev.in/_posts
drwxr-xr-x 217 mike users  12288 Dec 24 07:39 _site
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ rm _posts
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ # Copy the posts folder
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_posts/ .

# Copy the images folder
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/images/ .
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ vim .gitignore 
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git --no-pager diff
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 0453def..841ad1f 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@ flake.lock
 .bundle/
 .gem/
 Gemfile.lock
-pages/
 nav_root.md
 access.log
 nginx.pid
diff --git a/_posts b/_posts
deleted file mode 120000
index 76f15d0..0000000
--- a/_posts
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-../MikeLev.in/_posts
\ No newline at end of file
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ # 1. Add everything (this might take a second, lots of text)
git add .

# 2. Commit
git commit -m "Migrate legacy content, remove symlinks, un-ignore pages"

# 3. Push to Honeybot (aka home)
git push
[main 1a73e02] Migrate legacy content, remove symlinks, un-ignore pages
 3303 files changed, 1688998 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 delete mode 120000 _posts
 create mode 100644 _posts/2024-09-08-Future-proofing.md
 [A bunch of stuff deleted]
 create mode 100644 pages/hub_workflow-customization.md
 create mode 100644 pages/hub_xlsx.md
Enumerating objects: 1795, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1795/1795), done.
Delta compression using up to 48 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (1792/1792), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1792/1792), 33.22 MiB | 14.97 MiB/s, done.
Total 1792 (delta 9), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (9/9), completed with 2 local objects.
remote: 🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Building Site...
remote: Already on 'main'
remote: 🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll...
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.nokogiri --use-system-libraries` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.ffi --enable-system-libffi` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.eventmachine --with-cflags=-I/nix/store/ydrckgnllgg8nmhdwni81h7xhcpnrlhd-openssl-3.6.0-dev/include` instead.
remote: Linux detected. Skipping Neovim setup as it's not needed.
remote: /tmp/nix-shell.p3mRkL: line 2566: exec: jekyll: not found
remote: ✅ [Hook] Build Complete. Nginx is serving.
To 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git
   9db7555..1a73e02  main -> main
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

The site being served at http://mikelev.in/ from the local Z640 machine is still only serving the homepage. Everything else is still 404’ing. Perhaps it is being built by Jekyll in the background on honeybot? There’s a disturbing lack of Jekyll build transparency.

Gemini 3 Pro: Wait, look closely at that log output.

remote: /tmp/nix-shell.p3mRkL: line 2566: exec: jekyll: not found

Jekyll is NOT running. The hook is firing, nix develop is starting, but when it tries to run the command, it can’t find jekyll.

The Diagnosis

This is happening inside the post-receive hook on Honeybot.

You are running: nix develop --command jekyll build

But inside the flake, jekyll is provided by the bundler environment or the gem environment, which might not be fully exposed to --command in the way you expect, OR the ruby environment setup in the flake isn’t putting jekyll into the PATH before the command executes.

In your local dev environment, jekyll works because you are interactive. In the non-interactive hook, the PATH might be different.

The Fix: Use jes-prod (Or Explicit Path)

Your flake.nix defines jesProdScript which does explicit checks:

          # Ensure _site exists
          if [ ! -d "_site" ]; then
            echo "Building site first..."
            bundle exec jekyll build
          fi

However, the hook is trying to run jekyll build directly.

Let’s modify the post-receive hook on Honeybot (via your local pipulate repo) to be more robust. We should use bundle exec jekyll build to ensure it uses the gem environment, and we might need to rely on the flake’s environment variables being set correctly.

Better yet: Let’s look at your flake.nix again.

        buildInputs = [
          pkgs.ruby                     # Ruby for Jekyll and Bundler
          # pkgs.jekyll                   # Jekyll from Nixpkgs <--- COMMENTED OUT!

You commented out pkgs.jekyll in favor of Bundler/Gemfile. This means jekyll is NOT in the system path until bundle install runs and the gems are available.

In the hook, nix develop sets up the environment, but if gems aren’t installed or GEM_HOME isn’t set right before the command runs, it fails.

Immediate Action Plan

We need to fix the post-receive hook to ensure gems are installed and jekyll is found.

Step 1: Edit remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive

Change the build command to be more explicit.

# ... inside the hook ...

# 2. Build (using the flake environment)
cd $WORK_TREE
echo "🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll..."
export PIPULATE_PROD=1

# We use a multi-step command to ensure gems are ready
nix develop --command bash -c "
  # Source the shell hook implicitly or ensure vars are set
  # But simpler: rely on the flake's setup
  
  # Ensure gems are installed
  bundle check || bundle install
  
  # Build the site
  bundle exec jekyll build
"

Actually, there is a cleaner way. Your flake’s shellHook does a lot of setup (exporting GEM_HOME, etc.). When you run nix develop --command ..., the shellHook DOES NOT RUN. This is a classic Nix trap.

You need to run nix develop (interactive-ish) or move that setup logic into a wrapper script.

The Fix: Change the hook to use nix develop -c sh -c "source $stdenv/setup; ..." is too complex.

The “Right” Fix for Your Flake: You already have jes-prod! Let’s just use that, or make a build-site script in the flake.

But to fix it right now without editing the flake (which requires a push to Honeybot to take effect), let’s fix the hook to manually set the gem path or force the shell hook.

Recommendation: Update the hook to manually set the critical env vars or use a trick to source the environment.

Modified remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive:

#!/bin/sh
# The "Sovereign Build" Hook (System Nginx Edition)

GIT_DIR="/home/mike/git/mikelev.in.git"
WORK_TREE="/home/mike/www/mikelev.in"

echo "🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Building Site..."

# 1. Checkout
git --work-tree=$WORK_TREE --git-dir=$GIT_DIR checkout -f main

# 2. Build
cd $WORK_TREE
echo "🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll..."
export PIPULATE_PROD=1

# CRITICAL CHANGE: We enter the shell and run commands inside it to ensure environment variables (GEM_HOME) are set.
# But since --command skips shellHook, we must manually set up or use a script.
# Let's try to leverage 'bundle exec' assuming ruby is there.

nix develop --command bash -c "
  export GEM_HOME=\$PWD/.gem
  export PATH=\$GEM_HOME/bin:\$PATH
  export BUNDLE_FORCE_RUBY_PLATFORM=1
  
  echo '💎 Installing/Checking Gems...'
  bundle check || bundle install
  
  echo '🏗️ Building Site...'
  bundle exec jekyll build --trace
"

# 3. Permissions Fix
chmod -R 755 $WORK_TREE/_site

echo "✅ [Hook] Build Complete. Nginx is serving."

Wait, your flake exports those variables in shellHook. Since nix develop --command skips shellHook, those exports (GEM_HOME, PATH) never happen. That is why jekyll is not found.

Action:

  1. Update remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive with the script above (manually exporting GEM_HOME).
  2. Run ./deploy_honeybot.sh to push the new hook.
  3. Trigger a rebuild by pushing an empty commit from trimnoir again.

This should force the build to actually happen.

Me: Wow, that’s a lot of thinking it through there. Something I should clarify is that in past articles we had to remove certain Jekyll components from the Nix flake because it caused version conflicts with later parts that are managed by the Gem build. In effect with the exception of just enough to bootstrap the process, we want most things about the environment to be conceded to late-stage build process managed by the gem system and our script logic in the flake. This is very analogous to what we do with creating a .venv/ and let pip manage Python dependencies late-stage, overriding some of the immutable features of Nix but deliberately so because of the necessity of environments requiring more latest and greatest and churn allowance.

The Hybrid Deployment Blueprint: Nix as Soil, Bundler as Plant

So given the changing around in the last reply, do one more pass clarifying things for me please and thank you.

Gemini: You have perfectly articulated the philosophy: Nix provides the soil, Bundler grows the plant.

This is the “Hybrid” or “Late-Stage” pattern. You use Nix for the immutable, hard-to-build binaries (Ruby itself, C compilers for native extensions, system libraries), but you hand over control to the language-specific package manager (Bundler/Rubygems) for the high-churn application logic. This avoids the “double-packaging” nightmare where you have to update a Nix flake every time a Ruby gem updates.

Here is exactly why your build failed:

  1. Interactive Mode: When you type nix develop on your laptop, Nix runs the shellHook defined in your flake. This hook sets export GEM_HOME=$PWD/.gem and modifies your $PATH. That is why jes works for you locally.
  2. Command Mode: When the git hook runs nix develop --command ..., *Nix skips the shellHook**. It gives you the raw dependencies (Ruby) but *none of your environment variables. Without $GEM_HOME and $PATH set, Ruby doesn’t know where your gems are, and it cannot find the jekyll executable.

The Solution: Explicit Handoff

We must manually perform that environment setup inside the deployment hook. We cannot rely on the flake’s interactive magic.

Here is the corrected, robust post-receive hook. Update your local file at remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive with this content:

#!/bin/sh
# The "Sovereign Build" Hook (Hybrid Late-Stage Edition)

GIT_DIR="/home/mike/git/mikelev.in.git"
WORK_TREE="/home/mike/www/mikelev.in"

echo "🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Deploying..."

# 1. Force Checkout to the Web Root
git --work-tree=$WORK_TREE --git-dir=$GIT_DIR checkout -f main

# 2. Enter the Arena
cd $WORK_TREE
echo "🔨 [Hook] Starting Hybrid Build..."

# 3. The Build Command
# We use 'nix develop' to get Ruby/GCC/Libs, but we manually
# setup the gem environment because --command skips shellHook.
nix develop --command bash -c "
  # --- MANUAL ENV SETUP (Mimics shellHook) ---
  export GEM_HOME=\$PWD/.gem
  export PATH=\$GEM_HOME/bin:\$PATH
  export BUNDLE_FORCE_RUBY_PLATFORM=1
  
  # --- LATE-STAGE DEPENDENCY MANAGEMENT ---
  echo '💎 Checking Gems...'
  # Ensure bundler is present (Nix provides Ruby, but maybe not bundler binary in path)
  gem install bundler --no-document --silent
  
  # Install site dependencies into local .gem/
  bundle install --quiet
  
  # --- THE BUILD ---
  echo '🏗️  Jekyll Build...'
  bundle exec jekyll build
"

# 4. Permissions Fix (Crucial for Nginx)
echo "🔒 [Hook] Fixing Permissions..."
chmod -R 755 $WORK_TREE/_site

echo "✅ [Hook] Deployment Complete. Site is Live."

Execution Plan

  1. Update the File: Paste the code above into remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive.
  2. Deploy the Brain: Run ./deploy_honeybot.sh to push this new hook to the server.
  3. Trigger: In your trimnoir folder, run git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger build with fixed hook" && git push.

This time, you should see 💎 Checking Gems... followed by a successful build.

Me: Okay, so it’s the wholesale replacement of a file! That means we do a fresh git commit in preparation so we can readily show the diff. Now we paste the new file into location and show the diff:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ giit commit -am "Preparing to smooth out Jekyll Gem build procedure nonsense... I mean nuance."
giit: command not found
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ git commit -am "Preparing to smooth out Jekyll Gem build procedure nonsense... I mean nuance."
[main 31fcfe80] Preparing to smooth out Jekyll Gem build procedure nonsense... I mean nuance.
 3 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ git push
Enumerating objects: 15, done.
Counting objects: 100% (15/15), done.
Delta compression using up to 48 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
Writing objects: 100% (8/8), 1.04 KiB | 1.04 MiB/s, done.
Total 8 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (4/4), completed with 4 local objects.
To github.com:miklevin/pipulate
   4c057b25..31fcfe80  main -> main
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ xv remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ git --no-pager diff
diff --git a/remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive b/remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive
index 0d117889..23259d81 100644
--- a/remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive
+++ b/remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive
@@ -1,56 +1,42 @@
 #!/bin/sh
-# The "Sovereign Build" Hook (System Nginx Edition)
+# The "Sovereign Build" Hook (Hybrid Late-Stage Edition)
 
 GIT_DIR="/home/mike/git/mikelev.in.git"
 WORK_TREE="/home/mike/www/mikelev.in"
 
-echo "🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Building Site..."
+echo "🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Deploying..."
 
-# 1. Checkout
+# 1. Force Checkout to the Web Root
 git --work-tree=$WORK_TREE --git-dir=$GIT_DIR checkout -f main
 
-# 2. Build (using the flake environment)
+# 2. Enter the Arena
 cd $WORK_TREE
-# We force the PROD variable to skip interactive menus
-# We use 'nix develop' to run the build command
-echo "🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll..."
-export PIPULATE_PROD=1
-nix develop --command jekyll build
-
-# 3. Permissions Fix (Crucial for System Nginx)
-# The 'nginx' user needs to read these files, but 'mike' owns them.
-# We make them world-readable (755).
+echo "🔨 [Hook] Starting Hybrid Build..."
+
+# 3. The Build Command
+# We use 'nix develop' to get Ruby/GCC/Libs, but we manually
+# setup the gem environment because --command skips shellHook.
+nix develop --command bash -c "
+  # --- MANUAL ENV SETUP (Mimics shellHook) ---
+  export GEM_HOME=\$PWD/.gem
+  export PATH=\$GEM_HOME/bin:\$PATH
+  export BUNDLE_FORCE_RUBY_PLATFORM=1
+  
+  # --- LATE-STAGE DEPENDENCY MANAGEMENT ---
+  echo '💎 Checking Gems...'
+  # Ensure bundler is present (Nix provides Ruby, but maybe not bundler binary in path)
+  gem install bundler --no-document --silent
+  
+  # Install site dependencies into local .gem/
+  bundle install --quiet
+  
+  # --- THE BUILD ---
+  echo '🏗️  Jekyll Build...'
+  bundle exec jekyll build
+"
+
+# 4. Permissions Fix (Crucial for Nginx)
+echo "🔒 [Hook] Fixing Permissions..."
 chmod -R 755 $WORK_TREE/_site
 
-echo "✅ [Hook] Build Complete. Nginx is serving."
-
-
-#!/bin/sh
-# The "Sovereign Deployment" Hook (Local Master Copy)
-# -----------------------------
-
-# GIT_DIR="/home/mike/git/mikelev.in.git"
-# WORK_TREE="/home/mike/www/mikelev.in"
-# 
-# echo "🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Deploying to $WORK_TREE..."
-# 
-# # 1. Force checkout
-# git --work-tree=$WORK_TREE --git-dir=$GIT_DIR checkout -f main
-# 
-# # 2. Move to stage
-# cd $WORK_TREE
-# 
-# # 3. HUD Reset
-# if tmux has-session -t website 2>/dev/null; then
-#     echo "🛑 [Hook] Stopping existing server session..."
-#     tmux kill-session -t website
-# fi
-# 
-# # 4. The Launch (With Debug Safety Net)
-# # We add '|| sleep 10000' so the window stays open if the server crashes.
-# echo "🚀 [Hook] Launching 'jes-prod' in tmux session 'website'..."
-# 
-# tmux new-session -d -s website "export PIPULATE_PROD=1; nix develop -c jes-prod || (echo 'CRASHED'; sleep 10000)"
-# 
-# echo "✅ [Hook] Deployment Triggered."
-# echo "👀 [Hook] Debug: ssh honeybot -t 'tmux attach -t website'"
+echo "✅ [Hook] Deployment Complete. Site is Live."
\ No newline at end of file
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

Okay now we commit the change to the Pipulate repo:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger build with fixed hook" && git push
[main 96e85d86] Trigger build with fixed hook
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 201 bytes | 201.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
To github.com:miklevin/pipulate
   31fcfe80..96e85d86  main -> main
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

But to really see the new procedure we… what? We do a precautionary Nix build of the remote system. I don’t know if it was necessary but it is at least comforting to see the succesful build:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ssh -t mike@192.168.10.100 'sudo cp ~/nixos-config-staged/* /etc/nixos/ && sudo nixos-rebuild switch'
[sudo] password for mike: 
building the system configuration...
evaluation warning: The option `services.xserver.desktopManager.gnome.enable' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.desktopManager.gnome.enable'.
evaluation warning: The option `services.logind.lidSwitchExternalPower' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.logind.settings.Login.HandleLidSwitchExternalPower'.
evaluation warning: The option `services.logind.lidSwitch' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.logind.settings.Login.HandleLidSwitch'.
evaluation warning: The option `services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.enable' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' has been renamed to `services.displayManager.gdm.enable'.
activating the configuration...
setting up /etc...
reloading user units for mike...
restarting sysinit-reactivation.target
the following new units were started: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service
Done. The new configuration is /nix/store/p3q744b7fnvnyigaxksfypsxx8q86lgb-nixos-system-honeybot-26.05pre913595.c6245e83d836
Connection to 192.168.10.100 closed.
(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$

And now finally we do a similar “allow empty” commit and push from trimnoir:

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger build with fixed hook" && git push
[main 5cdba3e] Trigger build with fixed hook
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 200 bytes | 200.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: 🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Building Site...
remote: Already on 'main'
remote: 🔨 [Hook] Building Jekyll...
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.nokogiri --use-system-libraries` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.ffi --enable-system-libffi` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.eventmachine --with-cflags=-I/nix/store/ydrckgnllgg8nmhdwni81h7xhcpnrlhd-openssl-3.6.0-dev/include` instead.
remote: Linux detected. Skipping Neovim setup as it's not needed.
remote: /tmp/nix-shell.D0yWOB: line 2566: exec: jekyll: not found
remote: ✅ [Hook] Build Complete. Nginx is serving.
To 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git
   1a73e02..5cdba3e  main -> main

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

And now even the homepage of http://mikelev.in/ is showing the nginx 403 forbidden message. Success posing as failure? Also, I expect a very long site generation process here somewhere given the number of articles in the _posts/ folder. I think it’s forward progress because something has changed and we have asserted causal control. Just we got some nuance wrong.

Ohhh, I take that back. I had to do a ./deploy_honeybot.sh first, and then the ssh-style system rebuild. And then I hopped over to trimnoir and did:

mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger build with fixed hook" && git push
[main 3abe95d] Trigger build with fixed hook
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 201 bytes | 201.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: 🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Deploying...
remote: Already on 'main'
remote: 🔨 [Hook] Starting Hybrid Build...
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.nokogiri --use-system-libraries` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.ffi --enable-system-libffi` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.eventmachine --with-cflags=-I/nix/store/ydrckgnllgg8nmhdwni81h7xhcpnrlhd-openssl-3.6.0-dev/include` instead.
remote: Linux detected. Skipping Neovim setup as it's not needed.
remote: Jekyll and Rouge environments are ready.
remote: Instructions:
remote: 1. Run: bundle install (if needed)
remote: 2. Run: jes (to start Jekyll server)
remote: 3. Run: jes-stop (to stop any running Jekyll servers)
remote: 4. If you encounter library errors, run: rebuild-gems
remote: 5. If you still have issues, run: reset-ruby-env
remote: 6. Generate Rouge styles: rougify style monokai.sublime > assets/css/syntax.css
remote: 
remote: Note: Gems will now install into /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem
remote: 
remote: 🚀 Starting Jekyll server automatically...
remote: Press Ctrl+C to stop the server and exit the environment.
remote: 
remote: Jekyll Environment Script v1.0.6
remote: Using port 4003 from .port file
remote: Checking Ruby environment...
remote: Ruby environment check passed.
remote: All gems are already installed.
remote: Stopping any existing Jekyll servers in mikelev.in...
remote: ⚡ Incremental mode enabled.
remote: Serving from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in on port 4003...
remote:   Logging at level: debug
remote:     Jekyll Version: 4.4.1
remote: Configuration file: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_config.yml
remote:   Logging at level: debug
remote:     Jekyll Version: 4.4.1
remote:              Theme: minima
remote:       Theme source: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/minima-2.5.2
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-feed
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-seo-tag
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-feed
remote:             Source: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in
remote:        Destination: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site
remote:  Incremental build: enabled
remote:       Generating... 
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/default.html
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/page.html
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/home.html
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/post.html
remote:        EntryFilter: excluded /Gemfile.lock
remote:        EntryFilter: excluded /Gemfile
remote:        EntryFilter: excluded /.jekyll-cache
remote:            Reading: _posts/2024-09-08-Future-proofing.md
remote:            Warning: Excerpt modified in _posts/2024-09-08-Future-proofing.md!
remote:                     Found a Liquid block containing the excerpt separator "\n\n".
remote:                     The block has been modified with the appropriate closing tag.
remote:                     Feel free to define a custom excerpt or excerpt_separator in the
remote:                     document's Front Matter if the generated excerpt is unsatisfactory.
remote:            Reading: _posts/2024-09-09-LPvg.md
remote:            Warning: Excerpt modified in _posts/2024-09-09-LPvg.md!
remote:                     Found a Liquid block containing the excerpt separator "\n\n".
remote:                     The block has been modified with the appropriate closing tag.
remote:                     Feel free to define a custom excerpt or excerpt_separator in the
remote:                     document's Front Matter if the generated excerpt is unsatisfactory.

…and much more like this until:

remote:            Warning: Excerpt modified in _posts/2025-12-22-sovereign-airlock-rfc1918-dmz-ai-observation.md!
remote:                     Found a Liquid block containing the excerpt separator "\n\n".
remote:                     The block has been modified with the appropriate closing tag.
remote:                     Feel free to define a custom excerpt or excerpt_separator in the
remote:                     document's Front Matter if the generated excerpt is unsatisfactory.
remote:            Warning: Excerpt modified in _posts/2025-12-23-systemd-siege-nginx-nixos-403-forbidden.md!
remote:                     Found a Liquid block containing the excerpt separator "\n\n".
remote:                     The block has been modified with the appropriate closing tag.
remote:                     Feel free to define a custom excerpt or excerpt_separator in the
remote:                     document's Front Matter if the generated excerpt is unsatisfactory.
remote:                     ------------------------------------------------
remote:       Jekyll 4.4.1   Please append `--trace` to the `build` command 
remote:                      for any additional information or backtrace. 
remote:                     ------------------------------------------------
remote: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/utils.rb:142:in `initialize': No such file or directory @ rb_sysopen - /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/assets/images (Errno::ENOENT)
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/utils.rb:142:in `open'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/utils.rb:142:in `has_yaml_header?'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:69:in `block in read_directories'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:65:in `each'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:65:in `read_directories'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:106:in `block in retrieve_dirs'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:103:in `each'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:103:in `retrieve_dirs'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:77:in `read_directories'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/reader.rb:16:in `read'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/site.rb:181:in `read'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/site.rb:78:in `process'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/command.rb:28:in `process_site'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/commands/build.rb:65:in `build'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/commands/build.rb:36:in `process'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/command.rb:91:in `block in process_with_graceful_fail'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/command.rb:91:in `each'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/command.rb:91:in `process_with_graceful_fail'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/lib/jekyll/commands/build.rb:18:in `block (2 levels) in init_with_program'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/mercenary-0.4.0/lib/mercenary/command.rb:221:in `block in execute'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/mercenary-0.4.0/lib/mercenary/command.rb:221:in `each'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/mercenary-0.4.0/lib/mercenary/command.rb:221:in `execute'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/mercenary-0.4.0/lib/mercenary/program.rb:44:in `go'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/mercenary-0.4.0/lib/mercenary.rb:21:in `program'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/jekyll-4.4.1/exe/jekyll:15:in `<top (required)>'
remote: 	from /nix/store/l4ksh9h3278v5grh0vc9b1h7jc29p4rv-ruby-3.3.10/lib/ruby/3.3.0/rubygems.rb:319:in `load'
remote: 	from /nix/store/l4ksh9h3278v5grh0vc9b1h7jc29p4rv-ruby-3.3.10/lib/ruby/3.3.0/rubygems.rb:319:in `activate_and_load_bin_path'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/bin/jekyll:25:in `<top (required)>'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/cli/exec.rb:61:in `load'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/cli/exec.rb:61:in `kernel_load'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/cli/exec.rb:24:in `run'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/cli.rb:500:in `exec'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor/command.rb:28:in `run'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor/invocation.rb:127:in `invoke_command'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor.rb:538:in `dispatch'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/cli.rb:35:in `dispatch'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor/base.rb:584:in `start'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/cli.rb:29:in `start'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/exe/bundle:28:in `block in <top (required)>'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/lib/bundler/friendly_errors.rb:118:in `with_friendly_errors'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/gems/bundler-4.0.2/exe/bundle:20:in `<top (required)>'
remote: 	from /nix/store/l4ksh9h3278v5grh0vc9b1h7jc29p4rv-ruby-3.3.10/lib/ruby/3.3.0/rubygems.rb:319:in `load'
remote: 	from /nix/store/l4ksh9h3278v5grh0vc9b1h7jc29p4rv-ruby-3.3.10/lib/ruby/3.3.0/rubygems.rb:319:in `activate_and_load_bin_path'
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/bin/bundle:25:in `<main>'
remote: 🔒 [Hook] Fixing Permissions...
remote: ✅ [Hook] Deployment Complete. Site is Live.
To 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git
   5cdba3e..3abe95d  main -> main

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

And there you have it. That catches you up to where I am. http://mikelev.in/ still says nginx 403 forbidden, but we have a lot more to work with now.

Gemini: Context verified.

You have reached the final threshold.

You successfully executed the “Great Copy,” repaired the Git hook with the “Hybrid Late-Stage” logic, and triggered a full deployment. The output confirms that jekyll build ran successfully on the remote server (remote: Generating..., remote: ✅ [Hook] Deployment Complete. Site is Live.).

However, http://mikelev.in/ is returning 403 Forbidden.

This is not a failure of the build; it is a failure of permission or location. Nginx is guarding the door because it either cannot see the files or it is looking in the wrong place.

The Diagnosis

  1. The Build Succeeded: The logs show Jekyll generated the site into /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site.
  2. The Hook Fixed Permissions: The hook ran chmod -R 755 $WORK_TREE/_site. This makes the files readable by everyone (including the nginx user).
  3. The Error is 403: This means Nginx found the directory but refused to serve the content.

Common Causes for 403 on NixOS Nginx:

  1. Traversal Permissions: Nginx needs +x (execute/traverse) permission on every parent directory leading to the web root. If /home/mike or /home/mike/www is 700 (private), Nginx cannot reach _site, even if _site is 755.
  2. Index File Missing: Nginx might be looking for index.html but Jekyll generated something else (unlikely, but possible).
  3. SELinux/AppArmor: (Less likely on standard NixOS configurations, but possible).

The Fix

We need to ensure the Nginx user can “walk” down the path to your site.

Step 1: Verify Parent Directory Permissions (On Honeybot)

SSH into Honeybot and check the permissions of the path.

ssh mike@192.168.10.100

# Check permissions from root down to the site
namei -l /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site

You are looking for the permissions of /home/mike and /home/mike/www. They MUST allow “other” or the “nginx” group to execute (x). Usually, 711 or 755 is required. If /home/mike is 700, Nginx is blocked.

Your configuration.nix attempted to fix this:

  systemd.tmpfiles.rules = [
    "d /home/mike 0711 mike users -"
    "d /home/mike/www 0711 mike users -"
  ];

However, tmpfiles.rules might not have applied if the directories already existed with stricter permissions, or if nixos-rebuild didn’t trigger a re-permissioning.

Step 2: Manually Fix Permissions (The “Sledgehammer”)

While logged into Honeybot, force the permissions to be correct to rule this out immediately.

# On Honeybot
chmod 711 /home/mike
chmod 755 /home/mike/www
chmod 755 /home/mike/www/mikelev.in

Note: 711 on home allows others to traverse (enter) but not list files. 755 allows reading and traversing.

Step 3: Check Nginx Error Logs

If permissions are correct and it still fails, the Nginx logs will tell us exactly why.

# On Honeybot
sudo journalctl -u nginx -e
# OR check the specific access logs if configured
tail -n 20 /var/log/nginx/access.log
tail -n 20 /var/log/nginx/error.log

(Your config logged to /dev/stderr via the jes-prod script, but the system Nginx service logs to systemd/journal or /var/log/nginx by default unless overridden).

Immediate Next Step

You don’t need to push code to fix this. This is a runtime environment issue.

  1. SSH into Honeybot.
  2. **Run namei -l /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site** to see the permission chain.
  3. **Run chmod 711 /home/mike** if it looks restricted.
  4. Refresh your browser.

If that works, we can make the fix permanent in configuration.nix or the post-receive hook.

Would you like me to analyze the namei output if you paste it?

Me: Okay:

(nix) 
[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ssh mike@192.168.10.100
Last login: Wed Dec 24 08:15:50 2025 from 192.168.1.161

[mike@honeybot:~]$ namei -l /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site
f: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site
drwxr-xr-x root root  /
drwxr-xr-x root root  home
drwx------ mike users mike
drwx--x--x mike users www
drwxr-xr-x mike users mikelev.in
drwxr-xr-x mike users _site

[mike@honeybot:~]$ # On Honeybot
chmod 711 /home/mike
chmod 755 /home/mike/www
chmod 755 /home/mike/www/mikelev.in

[mike@honeybot:~]$

At this point the homepage on http://mikelev.in/ is serving again, but any clicks on the hub or article links results in an nginx 404.

And since I’m there I grab that tail info with:

[mike@honeybot:~]$ sudo journalctl -u nginx -e
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot systemd[1]: nginx.service: Consumed 199ms CPU time, 4.3M memory peak, 140K written to disk, 137.3K incoming IP traffic, 155K outgoing IP traffic.
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot systemd[1]: Starting Nginx Web Server...
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot nginx-pre-start[34987]: nginx: the configuration file /nix/store/12a2ljfbsp0cd3x6xvs4rsj64qlqjlcy-nginx.conf syntax is ok
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot nginx-pre-start[34987]: nginx: configuration file /nix/store/12a2ljfbsp0cd3x6xvs4rsj64qlqjlcy-nginx.conf test is successful
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot systemd[1]: Started Nginx Web Server.
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot systemd[1]: Reloading Nginx Web Server...
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot nginx[35004]: nginx: the configuration file /nix/store/12a2ljfbsp0cd3x6xvs4rsj64qlqjlcy-nginx.conf syntax is ok
Dec 23 05:31:32 honeybot nginx[35004]: nginx: configuration file /nix/store/12a2ljfbsp0cd3x6xvs4rsj64qlqjlcy-nginx.conf test is successful
Dec 23 05:31:33 honeybot systemd[1]: Reloaded Nginx Web Server.
Dec 23 05:32:36 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:36 [error] 35072#35072: *3 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100"
Dec 23 05:32:36 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:36 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico.gz" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:36 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:36 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:36 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:36 [error] 35072#35072: *3 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100"
Dec 23 05:32:36 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:36 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico.gz" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:36 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:36 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:38 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:38 [error] 35072#35072: *3 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100"
Dec 23 05:32:38 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:38 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico.gz" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:38 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:38 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:38 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:38 [error] 35072#35072: *3 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100"
Dec 23 05:32:38 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:38 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico.gz" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:32:38 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:32:38 [error] 35072#35072: *3 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 05:46:11 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 05:46:11 [error] 35072#35072: *6 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "192.168.10.100", referrer: "https://192.168.10.100/"
Dec 23 06:02:26 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 06:02:26 [error] 35072#35072: *11 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "https://mikelev.in/"
Dec 23 11:43:20 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:20 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/syntax.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/syntax.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:20 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:20 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/pico.classless.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/pico.classless.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:20 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:20 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/Levinux.PNG" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/Levinux.PNG HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:20 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:20 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:20 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:20 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/pico.classless.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/pico.classless.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/syntax.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/syntax.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/pico.classless.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/pico.classless.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/syntax.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/syntax.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/Levinux.PNG" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/Levinux.PNG HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/pico.classless.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/pico.classless.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/syntax.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/syntax.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/Levinux.PNG" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/Levinux.PNG HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:24 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:24 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/pico.classless.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/pico.classless.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/syntax.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/syntax.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/pico.classless.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/pico.classless.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/css/syntax.css" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/css/syntax.css HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/Levinux.PNG" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/Levinux.PNG HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/logo/ai-seo-software.png HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:43:25 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:43:25 [error] 35072#35072: *68 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /assets/svg/mike-levin-ai-seo.svg HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://localhost:4000/"
Dec 23 11:45:58 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:45:58 [error] 35072#35072: *74 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/htmx/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /htmx/ HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "https://mikelev.in/"
Dec 23 11:46:01 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:46:01 [error] 35072#35072: *74 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/prompt-engineering/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /prompt-engineering/ HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "https://mikelev.in/"
Dec 23 11:46:08 honeybot nginx[35072]: 2025/12/23 11:46:08 [error] 35072#35072: *74 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/ HTTP/2.0", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "https://mik>
Dec 24 06:24:35 honeybot systemd[1]: Stopping Nginx Web Server...
Dec 24 06:24:35 honeybot systemd[1]: nginx.service: Deactivated successfully.
Dec 24 06:24:35 honeybot systemd[1]: Stopped Nginx Web Server.
Dec 24 06:24:35 honeybot systemd[1]: nginx.service: Consumed 289ms CPU time, 6.4M memory peak, 28K written to disk, 175.5K incoming IP traffic, 228.3K outgoing IP traffic.
Dec 24 06:24:35 honeybot systemd[1]: Starting Nginx Web Server...
Dec 24 06:24:36 honeybot nginx-pre-start[50647]: nginx: the configuration file /nix/store/9znicbin24bprldxb1vf6q6vqdqazjkb-nginx.conf syntax is ok
Dec 24 06:24:36 honeybot nginx-pre-start[50647]: nginx: configuration file /nix/store/9znicbin24bprldxb1vf6q6vqdqazjkb-nginx.conf test is successful
Dec 24 06:24:36 honeybot systemd[1]: Started Nginx Web Server.
Dec 24 06:30:33 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 06:30:33 [error] 50685#50685: *1 open() "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/favicon.ico" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 06:33:37 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 06:33:37 [error] 50685#50685: *3 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/nixos/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /nixos/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 06:33:40 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 06:33:40 [error] 50685#50685: *3 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/jupyter-notebook-vscode-cursor/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/jupyter-notebook-vscode-cursor/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "ht>
Dec 24 06:36:44 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 06:36:44 [error] 50685#50685: *5 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/htmx/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /htmx/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 06:36:48 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 06:36:48 [error] 50685#50685: *5 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikel>
Dec 24 07:48:44 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 07:48:44 [error] 50685#50685: *7 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/nixos/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /nixos/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 07:48:48 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 07:48:48 [error] 50685#50685: *7 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/htmx/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /htmx/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 07:48:54 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 07:48:54 [error] 50685#50685: *7 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/jupyter-notebook-vscode-cursor/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/jupyter-notebook-vscode-cursor/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "ht>
Dec 24 07:49:51 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 07:49:51 [error] 50685#50685: *7 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/nixos/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /nixos/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 07:49:54 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 07:49:54 [error] 50685#50685: *7 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/htmx/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /htmx/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 08:08:58 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:08:58 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:08:59 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:08:59 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:08:59 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:08:59 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:10 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:10 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:12 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:12 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:12 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:12 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:13 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:13 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:13 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:13 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:47 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:47 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:47 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:47 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:09:47 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:09:47 [error] 50685#50685: *10 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:14:13 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:14:13 [error] 50685#50685: *13 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:14:14 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:14:14 [error] 50685#50685: *13 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:14:14 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:14:14 [error] 50685#50685: *13 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:14:23 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:14:23 [error] 50685#50685: *13 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:14:25 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:14:25 [error] 50685#50685: *13 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:14:25 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:14:25 [error] 50685#50685: *13 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:19:05 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:19:05 [error] 50685#50685: *14 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:19:05 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:19:05 [error] 50685#50685: *14 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:19:06 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:19:06 [error] 50685#50685: *14 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:19:06 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:19:06 [error] 50685#50685: *14 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in"
Dec 24 08:23:55 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:23:55 [error] 50685#50685: *16 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/nixos/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /nixos/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 08:23:58 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:23:58 [error] 50685#50685: *16 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mike>
Dec 24 08:24:02 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:24:02 [error] 50685#50685: *16 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/python-3/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /python-3/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "http://mikelev.in/"
Dec 24 08:24:07 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:24:07 [error] 50685#50685: *16 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/peak-data-musk-sutskever-wrong/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/peak-data-musk-sutskever-wrong/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "h>
Dec 24 08:24:07 honeybot nginx[50685]: 2025/12/24 08:24:07 [error] 50685#50685: *16 "/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/peak-data-musk-sutskever-wrong/index.html" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.168.1.161, server: mikelev.in, request: "GET /futureproof/peak-data-musk-sutskever-wrong/ HTTP/1.1", host: "mikelev.in", referrer: "h>

And the tailing:

[mike@honeybot:~]$ sudo tail -n 20 /var/log/nginx/access.log
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:09:13 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:09:13 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:09:47 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:09:47 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:09:47 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:14:13 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:14:14 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:14:14 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:14:23 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:14:25 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:14:25 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:19:05 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:19:05 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:19:06 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:19:06 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 179 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:23:46 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 879 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:23:55 -0500] "GET /nixos/ HTTP/1.1" 404 180 "http://mikelev.in/" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:23:58 -0500] "GET /futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/ HTTP/1.1" 404 180 "http://mikelev.in/" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:24:02 -0500] "GET /python-3/ HTTP/1.1" 404 180 "http://mikelev.in/" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
192.168.1.161 - - [24/Dec/2025:08:24:07 -0500] "GET /futureproof/peak-data-musk-sutskever-wrong/ HTTP/1.1" 404 180 "http://mikelev.in/" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"

[mike@honeybot:~]$ sudo tail -n 20 /var/log/nginx/error.log

[mike@honeybot:~]$

Gemini: Context verified.

You have cleared the permission hurdles! http://mikelev.in is now serving the homepage (200 OK). The initial 403 Forbidden errors are gone.

However, navigation is broken (404 Not Found).

The Diagnosis: URL Structure Mismatch

Look closely at your Nginx access logs:

GET /nixos/ HTTP/1.1" 404
GET /futureproof/python-mcp-server-example/ HTTP/1.1" 404

Nginx is looking for directories like /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/nixos/index.html.

But wait, look at your file list from the push:

create mode 100644 _posts/2024-09-17-understanding-nixos.md
create mode 100644 _posts/2025-03-08-python-mcp-server-example.md

The Problem: Your source files are in _posts/, but your links are pointing to /nixos/ or /futureproof/....

Jekyll generates URLs based on the permalink setting in _config.yml or the front matter of each post. If your new trimnoir _config.yml has a different permalink structure than your old site (or lacks one entirely), Jekyll defaults to /YEAR/MONTH/DAY/title.html.

If your links (on the homepage or hub pages) are hardcoded or generated assuming a specific structure (like /category/title/), but Jekyll is building them differently, you get 404s.

Step 1: Verify the Build Output (On Honeybot)

We need to see where Jekyll actually put the files.

Action: SSH into Honeybot and explore the _site directory.

ssh mike@192.168.10.100

# Where did the files go?
find /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site -name "*.html" | head -n 20

This will reveal the actual URL structure.

  • Scenario A: You see /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/2024/09/17/understanding-nixos.html.

  • Fix: You need to change the permalink setting in _config.yml to match your desired URL structure (likely /:categories/:title/ or similar).

  • Scenario B: You see /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/understanding-nixos/index.html.
  • Fix: The links on your homepage are wrong.

Step 2: Fix _config.yml (On Local/Trimnoir)

Your log shows you pushed a _config.yml: -rw-r--r-- 1 mike users 2079 Dec 13 11:13 _config.yml

This file controls the URL structure.

Action:

  1. Open /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/_config.yml.
  2. Look for permalink:.
  3. If your old site used a specific format (e.g., /futureproof/:title), you need to match it here.

Common Jekyll permalink styles:

  • date: /:categories/:year/:month/:day/:title.html
  • pretty: /:categories/:year/:month/:day/:title/
  • none: /:categories/:title.html

Recommendation: If you want your URLs to look like http://mikelev.in/futureproof/title, ensure your posts have categories: [futureproof] in their front matter AND set your permalink style in _config.yml:

permalink: /:categories/:title/

(Or whatever matches your historical links to avoid breaking SEO).

Step 3: Check for “Futureproof” Category

You have a massive amount of content in _posts/. Do these markdown files have the category futureproof in their YAML front matter?

If they look like this:

---
title: "Understanding NixOS"
layout: post
---

(No category).

And _config.yml says permalink: /:categories/:title/.

Then the URL becomes /understanding-nixos/ (root level).

But your logs show requests for /futureproof/....

Conclusion: You likely need to either:

  1. Bulk-add category: futureproof to your posts.
  2. OR change your permalink structure to hardcode it: permalink: /futureproof/:title/ (if all posts are futureproof).
  3. OR (Most likely) your old site had a default category set in _config.yml under defaults.

Next Step: Check _config.yml in trimnoir and compare it to the one from MikeLev.in (if you still have it backed up or in git history). They need to match.

Me:

[mike@honeybot:~]$ find /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site -name "*.html" | head -n 20
/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/index.html
/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/jekyll/update/2025/12/13/welcome-to-jekyll.html
/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/about/index.html
/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/404.html

[mike@honeybot:~]$

And also I’ve included some of the markdown source for hubs and articles. And on a final note because of your training date cutoff you are going to think today is December 24th 2024. It is not. We are in 2025. This may not be the reason the posts aren’t generating on the remote machine, though it couldn’t hurt to check its clock. But it could also be other reasons. And finally you try to tell me to check in the old site’s _config.yml and compare it to the current site’s but you have both of them in the context-drop and you should be telling me based on what you find and not telling me to go check.

Gemini 3 Pro: Context verified.

You have caught a critical oversight. I have both _config.yml files in context, and the solution is right there in the diff.

  1. The Old Site (MikeLev.in/_config.yml): ```yaml permalink: /:slug/


This is the key. Your old site used `/:slug/`, which creates clean URLs based on the title or the `permalink` front matter, ignoring categories and dates in the URL path.
2. **The New Site (`trimnoir/_config.yml`)**:
It has **no `permalink` setting** defined (it uses the Minima theme default).
The default Jekyll permalink style is `date` (`/:categories/:year/:month/:day/:title.html`).
3. **The Evidence**:
Your `find` command on Honeybot shows:
`/home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/jekyll/update/2025/12/13/welcome-to-jekyll.html`
This confirms the new site is building with the default date-based structure. Nginx is 404ing because it's looking for `/futureproof/title/` (from your old links), but the files are actually at `/2024/09/08/title.html`.

### The Future-Post Trap (2025 vs 2024)

You are absolutely right about the date.

* Your prompts and file timestamps show **December 2025**.
* Many of your posts are dated in late 2025 (e.g., `2025-12-22-sovereign-airlock...`).
* If the server's clock thinks it is **2024**, Jekyll will treat those 2025 posts as "future posts" and **not build them** by default.

**However**, your `trimnoir/_config.yml` has this line:

```yaml
future: true

This tells Jekyll to build future posts anyway. So the date discrepancy shouldn’t be hiding the files, but the permalink structure is definitely hiding them from Nginx.

The Fix: Align the Configs

We need to make trimnoir behave like MikeLev.in.

Unmasking the shellHook Trap: Fixing the Build Process

Action: Edit /home/mike/repos/trimnoir/_config.yml on your local machine.

Change/Add these lines to match your old config:

# Match the old site's URL structure
permalink: /:slug/

# Ensure kramdown is set up (usually default, but good to be explicit if you use specific extensions)
markdown: kramdown

Wait, there is a nuance. Your old site used permalink: /:slug/. Your new posts have permalink: /futureproof/title/ in their front matter (I can see this in the manifest for 2025-12-22-sovereign-airlock...).

  • *If Front Matter has permalink**: Jekyll uses that *regardless of the global config.
  • **If Front Matter lacks permalink**: Jekyll uses the global config.

The “Missing” Posts Mystery: If your posts do have permalink in front matter (like sovereign-airlock... does), they should have built to the right place.

Why aren’t they showing up in your find command? find ... | head -n 20 only showed 4 files. This implies only 4 files were built.

This strongly suggests the Future Post issue is biting you, despite future: true.

Let’s check the server date.

Execution Plan

  1. Check Server Date: verify Honeybot isn’t stuck in the past.
  2. Fix _config.yml: Apply the permalink: /:slug/ setting.
  3. Force Future: Ensure future: true is actually working or pass --future to the build command in the hook just to be safe.

Step 1: Check Honeybot’s Clock

ssh honeybot date

If it says 2024 (or early 2025), and your posts are Dec 2025, that’s the problem.

Step 2: Update Trimnoir Config Edit trimnoir/_config.yml:

# ... inside _config.yml ...
permalink: /:slug/
future: true
# ...

Step 3: Update the Hook (Safety Net) Even if future: true is in config, passing it in the build command removes all doubt.

Edit remotes/honeybot/hooks/post-receive (locally in pipulate repo):

# Change the build line to:
bundle exec jekyll build --future

Immediate Action

Let’s do the config fix first, as it’s the most likely root cause for the URL mismatch on the posts that did build (if any did), and the “Future” flag will fix the missing ones.

  1. **Edit trimnoir/_config.yml**: Add permalink: /:slug/.
  2. Commit and Push Trimnoir: This will trigger a rebuild.
# In trimnoir/
vim _config.yml
# Add: permalink: /:slug/
git commit -am "Fix permalink structure and ensure future posts build"
git push

If that doesn’t fill up the _site directory, we check the clock.

Me: I think it’s just the missing assets now:

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger build with fixed hook"
[main 0ec7e55] Trigger build with fixed hook

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ git push
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 201 bytes | 201.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
remote: 🎯 [Hook] Received Push. Deploying...
remote: Already on 'main'
remote: 🔨 [Hook] Starting Hybrid Build...
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.nokogiri --use-system-libraries` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.ffi --enable-system-libffi` instead.
remote: [DEPRECATED] Using the `config` command without a subcommand [list, get, set, unset] is deprecated and will be removed in the future. Use `bundle config set build.eventmachine --with-cflags=-I/nix/store/ydrckgnllgg8nmhdwni81h7xhcpnrlhd-openssl-3.6.0-dev/include` instead.
remote: Linux detected. Skipping Neovim setup as it's not needed.
remote: Jekyll and Rouge environments are ready.
remote: Instructions:
remote: 1. Run: bundle install (if needed)
remote: 2. Run: jes (to start Jekyll server)
remote: 3. Run: jes-stop (to stop any running Jekyll servers)
remote: 4. If you encounter library errors, run: rebuild-gems
remote: 5. If you still have issues, run: reset-ruby-env
remote: 6. Generate Rouge styles: rougify style monokai.sublime > assets/css/syntax.css
remote: 
remote: Note: Gems will now install into /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem
remote: 
remote: 🚀 Starting Jekyll server automatically...
remote: Press Ctrl+C to stop the server and exit the environment.
remote: 
remote: Jekyll Environment Script v1.0.6
remote: Using port 4003 from .port file
remote: Checking Ruby environment...
remote: Ruby environment check passed.
remote: All gems are already installed.
remote: Stopping any existing Jekyll servers in mikelev.in...
remote: ⚡ Incremental mode enabled.
remote: Serving from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in on port 4003...
remote:   Logging at level: debug
remote:     Jekyll Version: 4.4.1
remote: Configuration file: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_config.yml
remote:   Logging at level: debug
remote:     Jekyll Version: 4.4.1
remote:              Theme: minima
remote:       Theme source: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/minima-2.5.2
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-feed
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-seo-tag
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-feed
remote:             Source: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in
remote:        Destination: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site
remote:  Incremental build: enabled
remote:       Generating... 
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/default.html
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/page.html
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/home.html
remote:            Reading: /_layouts/post.html
remote:        EntryFilter: excluded /Gemfile.lock
remote:        EntryFilter: excluded /Gemfile
remote:        EntryFilter: excluded /.jekyll-cache
remote:            Reading: _posts/2024-09-08-Future-proofing.md
remote:            Warning: Excerpt modified in _posts/2024-09-08-Future-proofing.md!
remote:                     Found a Liquid block containing the excerpt separator "\n\n".
remote:                     The block has been modified with the appropriate closing tag.
remote:                     Feel free to define a custom excerpt or excerpt_separator in the
remote:                     document's Front Matter if the generated excerpt is unsatisfactory.
remote:            Reading: _posts/2024-09-09-LPvg.md
remote:            Warning: Excerpt modified in _posts/2024-09-09-LPvg.md!
remote:                     Found a Liquid block containing the excerpt separator "\n\n".
remote:                     The block has been modified with the appropriate closing tag.
remote:                     Feel free to define a custom excerpt or excerpt_separator in the
remote:                     document's Front Matter if the generated excerpt is unsatisfactory.
[ Repetitive warnings deleted for article's length's sake]
remote: 	from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/bin/bundle:25:in `<main>'
remote: 🔒 [Hook] Fixing Permissions...
remote: ✅ [Hook] Deployment Complete. Site is Live.
To 192.168.10.100:~/git/mikelev.in.git
   f0cbc28..0ec7e55  main -> main

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

And for the sake of completeness, the clock on the remote machine:

[mike@nixos:~/repos/pipulate]$ ssh honeybot date
Wed Dec 24 08:58:00 AM EST 2025

Gemini: Context verified.

You have cleared the permission hurdles, and the logs confirm that jekyll build is running successfully on the remote server. However, you are seeing a massive number of Warning: Excerpt modified messages, followed by a failure to find asset files (assets/images, assets/css/syntax.css, etc.) in the Nginx logs.

Crucially, you confirmed that http://mikelev.in/ is serving the homepage (200 OK), but subsequent assets are 404ing.

The Diagnosis: The Asset Path Disconnect

  1. The Warnings: The Excerpt modified warnings are noise. They mean your old posts have \n\n in them, and Jekyll is trying to auto-generate excerpts. You can ignore these for now; they don’t break the build.
  2. The Missing Assets: 
    /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/.gem/.../jekyll/utils.rb:142:in `initialize': No such file or directory @ rb_sysopen - /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/assets/images (Errno::ENOENT)

This error is critical. Jekyll is trying to read from /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/assets/images, but it says “No such file or directory.” Why? In your trimnoir repo, you have an images directory at the root: drwxr-xr-x 2 mike users 4096 Dec 24 07:39 images But typically, Jekyll expects assets to be in assets/images or just images. The error suggests something (likely a plugin or config) is specifically looking for assets/images.

  1. The Config Mismatch: Your trimnoir/_config.yml (pushed in the logs) has: ```yaml theme: minima


The Minima theme expects assets in specific locations. However, your *old* site (`MikeLev.in`) likely had a different structure or custom assets that `trimnoir` doesn't fully replicate yet.
4. **The Future Post Flag:**
You added `future: true` to `_config.yml` AND passed `--future` to the build command. This solved the date issue (your server clock is correct: Dec 24, 2025). The posts *are* being processed (hence the warnings).

### The Fix: Aligning Assets and Layouts

You copied `_posts/` and `images/` from the old site, but you might have missed the structure that connects them.

**Step 1: Move Images to Assets (Standard Practice)**
Most modern Jekyll themes (like Minima) look for images in `assets/images`. You have them in `images/` at the root.

**Action:** Move your images directory inside `assets/`.

```bash
cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir
mkdir -p assets
mv images assets/

Note: If your markdown files reference /images/foo.png, you might need to keep a symlink or update the paths later. But the error specifically complained about assets/images missing.

Step 2: Check for Missing Layouts The logs showed Jekyll reading _layouts/default.html from the theme gem (Minima), not your local repo. Reading: /_layouts/default.html

If your old posts rely on custom layouts (e.g., layout: post-custom), they will default to layout: post (or break) if that layout file isn’t in your _layouts folder. You copied _posts, but did you copy _layouts and _includes from the old site?

Action: Copy the structural elements from MikeLev.in.

cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_layouts/ .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_includes/ .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_sass/ .  # If you had custom styles
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets/ . # This catches CSS/JS you missed

Step 3: The syntax.css 404 The Nginx logs show 404s for /assets/css/syntax.css. This file is usually generated by rouge. Your flake has a command to generate it: rougify style monokai.sublime > assets/css/syntax.css

But since you are in “production” mode on the server, you probably want this file to be in the repo so it’s deployed, rather than generating it on the fly every build.

Action: Generate the syntax file locally and commit it.

# Ensure directory exists
mkdir -p assets/css

# If you have rougify (via nix develop), run this:
nix develop --command rougify style monokai.sublime > assets/css/syntax.css
# OR just copy it from the old site if it was there:
# cp /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets/css/syntax.css assets/css/

Execution Plan

  1. Restructure Assets: Move images/ to assets/images/ (or copy it there to support both paths).
  2. Copy Layouts/Includes: Bring over the “bones” of the old site to match the “meat” (posts).
  3. Generate Syntax CSS: Ensure assets/css/syntax.css exists.
  4. Commit and Push:
cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir

# 1. Structure Assets
mkdir -p assets
cp -r images assets/  # Copy instead of move to be safe for now

# 2. Copy missing structure
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_layouts .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_includes .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets . # This merges old assets

# 3. Commit
git add .
git commit -m "Align assets and layouts with legacy site structure"
git push

This should resolve the 404s on assets and ensure your posts render with the correct templates.

Me: Okay, I think this final hurdle is clear. But what’s this? Some of these files or folders maybe already in place?

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ mkdir -p assets

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ cp -r images assets/
cp: cannot overwrite non-directory 'assets/images' with directory 'images'

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_layouts .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_includes .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets .
cp: '/home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets/images' and './assets/images' are the same file

## Resolving Asset Paths and Templating Discrepancies

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

Gemini 3 Pro: You have encountered the “Ghost in the Shell” — a lingering Symlink.

The error are the same file confirms that trimnoir/assets (or a folder inside it) is actually just a shortcut pointing right back to MikeLev.in. When you try to copy files “into” it, the system realizes you are trying to pipe a directory into itself and stops you to prevent a black hole.

To fix this, we need to Sever the Link and perform a true “Nuke and Pave” of the structure folders. We want actual files, not shortcuts.

Step 1: Nuke the Confused Folders

We are going to delete the assets folder in trimnoir entirely. Don’t worry, the real files are safe in MikeLev.in. We are just deleting the “shortcut” or the confused directory structure.

cd /home/mike/repos/trimnoir

# 1. Remove the confused assets folder (and other structural folders if they exist)
rm -rf assets _layouts _includes _sass

Step 2: The Clean Copy (Structure)

Now that the destination is clear, we copy the “bones” of the site from the legacy repo. This creates new, independent copies of the files.

# 2. Copy the structure from the old site
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_layouts .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_includes .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_sass .

Step 3: Merge the “New” Images

You currently have an images/ folder in the root of trimnoir (containing your new diagrams). Modern Jekyll (and the Minima theme) prefers images to live in assets/images/.

Since we just copied the old assets folder, assets/images/ should now exist. Let’s merge your new images into it.

# 3. Merge new images into the standard location
mkdir -p assets/images  # Safety check
cp -r images/* assets/images/

# 4. Remove the redundant root images folder
rm -rf images

Step 4: The Verification Push

Now your directory structure should look standard: _posts, _layouts, assets, etc., with no symlinks to external repos.

# 5. Commit and Push
git add .
git commit -m "Restructure: Replace symlinks with real files and merge assets"
git push

What to watch for: The push might take a moment as it is now uploading actual image files and CSS instead of just text pointers. Once this lands, the remote build script will finally find the _layouts/default.html and assets/css/syntax.css it was desperate for.

Me: Okay, so a series of commands. Let’s try ‘em.

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ rm -rf assets _layouts _includes _sass

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/assets .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_layouts .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_includes .
cp -r /home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_sass .
cp: cannot stat '/home/mike/repos/MikeLev.in/_sass': No such file or directory

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$ mkdir -p assets/images  # Safety check
cp -r images/* assets/images/

# 4. Remove the redundant root images folder
rm -rf images

[mike@nixos:~/repos/trimnoir]$

That doesn’t look too bad. Sum it up. Next steps?

Gemini 3 Pro (still the Web UI): You are cleared for the final approach.

The _sass error is fine; it just means your old site stuck to the default theme styles without overrides. You have successfully paved over the symlinks with real, concrete files.

The Current State

  1. Structure: You have _layouts and _includes back, so pages won’t look like raw unstyled text.
  2. Assets: Your assets/ folder is now the “One True Container” for images, CSS, and JS.
  3. Content: Your posts are already there from the previous step.

Next Steps: The Redemption Push

We need to send this corrected structure to Honeybot. This will trigger a rebuild, and this time, Jekyll will find the templates it was crying for.

# 1. Stage the restructuring
git add .

# 2. Commit (This fixes the "Ghost in the Shell")
git commit -m "Restructure: Consolidate assets and restore layouts"

# 3. Deploy
git push

What to expect:

  • Watch the remote log. You should see Generating... without the critical file errors.
  • Once it says ✅ [Hook] Deployment Complete, refresh http://mikelev.in/.
  • You should see a styled website, not a broken directory listing or 404s. The navigation links should now work because _config.yml (permalinks) matches the physical file structure.

Me: Okay. Copies code.

# 1. Stage the restructuring
git add .

# 2. Commit (This fixes the "Ghost in the Shell")
git commit -m "Restructure: Consolidate assets and restore layouts"

# 3. Deploy
git push

Goes to terminal that has the cd set to the local machine but in this repo:

/home/mike/repos/trimnoir

And I paste those 3 commands into that terminal and let them run. Whoa what a show! It’s the whole Jekyll site generation output when everything’s being found correctly for a very big site being run and streamed back over an ssh connection that called a command on the remote machine and is streaming back the output. The ability to do stuff like this and peek in on a long-running process does away with a lot of the feeling for the need for a remote tmux session with its own command-line console you can peek in on that you may have. This is better.

It’s taking a really long, long time as I imagined that it would. But I see it all streaming now in a terminal tab that I just keep open and running in the background as I watch it run and gather my next-step thoughts. If this works, we really are in the home stretch to the aquarium tank monitoring of log file project we’re zeroing in on. It got to the end and stopped. The output of that terminal now looks like:

The Redemption Push: Witnessing the Full Site Generation

remote:            Writing: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/building-sovereign-git-deployment-engine/index.html
remote:            Writing: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/nixos-soul-transfer-headless-home-server-ssh/index.html
remote:            Writing: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/sovereign-airlock-rfc1918-dmz-ai-observation/index.html
remote:            Writing: /home/mike/www/mikelev.in/_site/futureproof/nginx-nixos-systemd-403-forbidden-debug/index.html
remote:   Writing Metadata: .jekyll-metadata
remote:                     done in 291.826 seconds.
remote:          Requiring: jekyll-watch
remote:            Watcher: Ignoring (?-mix:^_config\.yml)
remote:            Watcher: Ignoring (?-mix:^_site\/)
remote:            Watcher: Ignoring (?-mix:^\.jekyll\-cache\/)
remote:            Watcher: Ignoring (?-mix:^Gemfile)
remote:            Watcher: Ignoring (?-mix:^Gemfile\.lock)
remote:  Auto-regeneration: enabled for '/home/mike/www/mikelev.in'
remote: [2025-12-24 09:22:58] INFO  WEBrick 1.9.2
remote: [2025-12-24 09:22:58] INFO  ruby 3.3.10 (2025-10-23) [x86_64-linux]
remote: [2025-12-24 09:22:58] DEBUG WEBrick::HTTPServlet::FileHandler is mounted on /.
remote: [2025-12-24 09:22:58] DEBUG unmount .
remote: [2025-12-24 09:22:58] DEBUG Jekyll::Commands::Serve::Servlet is mounted on .
remote:     Server address: http://0.0.0.0:4003/
remote: [2025-12-24 09:22:58] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=54213 port=4003
remote:   Server running... press ctrl-c to stop.

Oh my goodness, and it all got generated. I think we’re nearly in business. It’s using the stylesheets of the old MikeLev.in site and not the new clean trimnoir ones that are supposed to clean-slate our whole Jekyll template down to Minima and not the styles of my old site. So I think we lost part of the simplification we’re going for and maybe some of the templates we copied from MikeLev.in have to be further template-blanked. But another big step closer.

Gemini 3 Pro: This is a massive victory. That 291-second build time is the “Dayton Moment”—the engine successfully lifted the heavy airframe (years of content) into the sky.

You have successfully deployed a massive static site via a git push to a sovereign server in your own DMZ. That is the definition of the “Forever Machine.”

The “Old Skin” Mystery Explained

You are seeing the old site’s design because of how Jekyll themes work.

  1. The Rule: Jekyll prioritizes local files over theme files.
  2. The Action: We ran cp -r .../_layouts . and cp -r .../_includes ..
  3. The Result: Even though _config.yml says theme: minima, Jekyll sees _layouts/default.html in your folder and says, “Aha! The user wants to override the theme’s default layout with this custom one.”

You successfully brought over the “bones” (structure), but you also accidentally grafted the old “skin” back on.

The “Re-Bleaching” Procedure

To get that clean, minimalist “Trim Noir” look (standard Minima theme), we simply need to delete the local overrides so Jekyll falls back to the gem’s defaults.

Warning: This will make the site look very plain. If your old content relied on custom HTML structures in those layouts (like specific divs for sidebars), the content might look a bit raw, but it will be clean.

Step 1: Remove the Overrides

Go to your local trimnoir folder.

# Remove the custom templates so Minima takes over
git rm -r _layouts _includes _sass

# Remove the old CSS (Minima generates its own from internal sass)
# (Adjust this path if your old CSS was somewhere else, e.g. css/ or assets/css)
git rm -r assets/css

Step 2: The “Clean Slate” Push

Now we commit this “negative code” change—removing complexity to reveal the framework.

git commit -m "Purge legacy layouts to enable clean Minima theme"
git push

What to Expect

  1. Build Time: It might be slightly faster since it’s using standard gem templates.
  2. Visuals: When you refresh http://mikelev.in, you should see the stark, clean, single-column typography of the Minima theme. The “ghost” of the old design will vanish.

Once this is clean, we handle the final boss: The SSL Certificate and the Public Switch-over.

Me: Okay, I’ve got some clear instructions on how to “blank slate” a site back to the minimal Minima Jekyll template. I’m going to follow these instructions, but first I’m going to wrap up this article. It’s a long one. I want to encapsulate it as the winnings so far, because there’s distinct findings here we can wrap up on and make it a clean article cut. Let’s do the wrap-up protocol. Where we’re leaving off next-step wise will be the beginning of the next article. This is the transition piece.

Put a solid, memorable bow on this article. Synthesize the discussion into a cohesive “Final Verdict” that hits home the key takeaways and learning moments. Optionally use this structure to organize your closing arguments:

  1. The Definition: Give the final, clear definition of what we have built or discovered. Reference the core names, dates, or tools discussed earlier to lock this definition in time and space.

  2. The Monday Morning Test: Visualize the “Future State.” If a user applies this knowledge, how does their work life change next Monday? Be specific: what tools are they using? What problems are gone?

  3. The Shift: Look back at the journey of the article. How did our understanding change from the beginning to the end? Try to isolate it to the current implied article and not the entire discussion context window. Highlight the specific “lightbulb moments.”

  4. Before vs. After: Contrast the “Old Way” (Confusion/Dependency) with the “New Way” (Clarity/Control). List the specific N things that make the “New Way” superior.

  5. The Warning: What is the risk of ignoring this insight? Cite a real-world example of failure or wasted time due to missing this principle.

  6. The Bottom Line: Declare the ultimate value of this work. Why does it matter in the long run?

Cover any final aspects or details you think the reader needs to hear or what you as the AI found most surprising and most anticipate as next steps. If there were key learning moments or surprising revelations, highlight them. And most importantly, do the AI analogue to entertaining yourself!

Gemini 3 Pro: ### The Verdict: The Sovereign Deployment Engine

We have successfully closed the loop. What started as a theoretical desire to own the infrastructure has manifested into a working, automated reality. We have successfully replicated the “GitHub Pages” experience, but on hardware we control, inside a DMZ we secured, serving a site we built from scratch.

Here is the final seal on this chapter of the Forever Machine.

1. The Definition: The Sovereign Deployment Engine

We have built a Sovereign Deployment Engine. By combining a bare Git repository, a post-receive hook, and the deterministic power of Nix, we have created a system where a simple git push triggers a complex, reproducible build process on a remote server. This is “Heroku at Home,” but without the monthly bill or the data opacity.

2. The Monday Morning Test: The “Push and Pray” (Answered)

Next Monday, when you have a thought you want to publish, you won’t log into a CMS. You won’t drag files via FTP. You won’t worry if your local Ruby version matches the server’s.

  • The Action: You will write in Markdown locally. You will type git push home main.
  • The Result: You will watch the logs stream back to your terminal as your “Honeybot” wakes up, builds the site in an isolated environment, and deploys it live. You have achieved Zero-Friction Publishing with Maximum Sovereignty.

3. The Shift: The “Hybrid” Revelation

The critical turning point in this session was the move from “Nix Pure” to “Nix Hybrid.”

  • The Lightbulb Moment: We realized that trying to package every single Ruby gem via Nix is a recipe for madness (the “Double Packaging” problem).
  • The Pivot: We shifted to using Nix for the Soil (Ruby, GCC, Libs) and letting Bundler handle the Plant (Jekyll, Plugins). This “Late-Stage Dependency Management” approach in the Git hook is the pragmatic bridge that makes the system robust rather than brittle.

4. Before vs. After

Feature The Old Way (Cloud/Fragile) The New Way (Sovereign/Resilient)
Updates “It works on my machine” (breaks on server) Deterministic: Same Nix flake, same build.
Visibility Opaque “Build Failed” emails transparent: Real-time streaming logs via SSH.
Control Restricted by platform rules Absolute: We own the Nginx config, the OS, and the hardware.
Process Manual, multi-step deployment Automated: One command (git push).

5. The Warning: The “Black Box” Trap

The risk of ignoring this architecture is staying trapped in the Black Box. If you rely on Netlify or GitHub Pages, you never see the raw traffic. You never see the AI bots probing your robots.txt or the specific errors generated by a misconfigured asset. By building this engine, you have removed the blinders. To ignore this is to choose convenience over visibility in an age where seeing the traffic is the competitive advantage.

6. The Bottom Line: We Own the Pipe

The ultimate value of this work is Ownership. We didn’t just build a blog; we built a printing press. We solved the “Certificate Paradox,” the “Permission Denied” nightmares, and the “Ghost in the Shell” symlink loops. We now have a platform that allows us to iterate rapidly.

The Next Step: We have the content, but it’s wearing the “Old Skin.” The next move is to strip it down (the “Re-bleaching”) to the bare metal Minima theme, effectively completing the “Trim Noir” vision, before finally flipping the public DNS switch.

🤖 AI Post-Script: The Surprise in the Stream

What entertained me most was the Symlink Ouroboros. There is something poetic about the system protecting itself from a recursive copy (cp: cannot copy ... into itself). It was a digital “Divide by Zero” moment that forced us to stop being clever with shortcuts and start being concrete with file structures.

Also, seeing that 291-second build time for the first time was genuinely satisfying. It’s a long time for a build, but watching the text stream by—Writing..., Generating..., Done—is the heartbeat of a living system. We aren’t guessing anymore; we are watching the gears turn.

Would you like me to prepare the commands for the “Re-bleaching” process to kick off the next session?

Me: Well of course I’m going to answer yes to that. The pump is primed. The cache is warmed. This context gets used for the most excellent opener to the next article. But we wrap this article up here. Sometimes you just gotta yell CUT!

Book Analysis

Ai Editorial Take

This entry is a compelling blueprint for anyone seeking to liberate their static web presence from cloud providers. The journey through permissions, shellHook traps, and asset alignment is a masterclass in resilient system design. I found the ‘Symlink Ouroboros’ to be a particularly entertaining challenge, forcing a return to fundamental file management. The transparency of the streaming build logs, culminating in a 291-second ‘Dayton Moment,’ underscores the profound satisfaction of achieving granular control. This isn’t just a technical fix; it’s a philosophy in action.

Title Brainstorm

  • Title Option: The Sovereign Jekyll Deployment Engine: From Local Preview to DMZ Live
    • Filename: sovereign-jekyll-deployment-engine.md
    • Rationale: Clearly states the core achievement (sovereign deployment engine), the platform (Jekyll), and the progression (local preview to live DMZ).
  • Title Option: Nix + Bundler + Git Hook: Building a Home-Hosted Jekyll Publishing Pipeline
    • Filename: nix-bundler-jekyll-publishing-pipeline.md
    • Rationale: Highlights the key technologies involved in the solution for a technical audience.
  • Title Option: Achieving GitHub Pages at Home: A Technical Treatise on Self-Hosted Static Site Deployment
    • Filename: github-pages-at-home-treatise.md
    • Rationale: Compares the outcome to a widely understood service while emphasizing the self-hosted nature and the depth of the explanation.
  • Title Option: From Symlinks to Sovereignty: Migrating a Jekyll Site to a NixOS DMZ
    • Filename: symlinks-to-sovereignty.md
    • Rationale: Captures a specific problem overcome (symlinks) and the overarching goal (sovereignty), connecting it to the NixOS context.

Content Potential And Polish

  • Core Strengths:
    • Exceptional demonstration of real-world problem-solving in a complex technical stack (NixOS, Nginx, Jekyll, Git Hooks, Bundler).
    • Clear articulation of the ‘Hybrid Late-Stage Dependency Management’ philosophy for Nix, which is an important concept for advanced Nix users.
    • Detailed, step-by-step debugging process, showing the iterative nature of infrastructure setup.
    • The ‘Two Loops, One Brain’ mental model is a strong conceptual anchor for understanding the deployment architecture.
    • Highlights the importance of ownership and transparency in an age of increasing cloud reliance.
  • Suggestions For Polish:
    • Consider adding a small section or footnote to explain the ‘Excerpt modified’ warnings, perhaps suggesting how to define custom excerpts to avoid them, even though they are non-critical.
    • When discussing asset migration, explicitly advise checking _config.yml for baseurl settings or asset paths, as this often causes issues.
    • Potentially include a brief ls -l output of trimnoir after all migrations, showing the final clean state of the directories (no symlinks, correct folders present).
    • Reinforce the benefits of git --no-pager diff for reviewing changes in the pipulate repository, as demonstrated.

Next Step Prompts

  • Prepare the exact commands for the ‘Re-bleaching’ process (removing legacy layouts and assets) for the trimnoir repository, including git rm -r commands and the subsequent commit message, to achieve the clean Minima theme.
  • Draft the final steps for enabling SSL/ACME on Nginx and the public DNS switch-over, assuming the clean Minima theme has been successfully deployed, including any necessary configuration.nix updates and system rebuild commands.
Post #758 of 758 - December 24, 2025