Building This Blog: Hugo + Forgejo CI + GitHub Pages

Why Not Self-Host?

My homelab runs 90+ Flux-managed applications across a 3-node Proxmox cluster. Adding another service means more maintenance, more updates, more things that can break at 2 AM.

For a simple blog? Overkill.

The Stack

How It Works

1. Push markdown to main branch in Forgejo
2. Forgejo CI builds the site with Hugo
3. Built files pushed to gh-pages branch
4. Forgejo mirror syncs to GitHub automatically
5. GitHub Pages serves the content

The entire pipeline runs in under a minute.

Key Decisions

Why not Cloudflare Pages? GitHub Pages is simpler for this use case - just push to a branch.

Why Forgejo mirror? I already use Forgejo mirrors for backup. The gh-pages branch syncs automatically alongside the main branch.

Why Hextra? Modern Tailwind-based theme with FlexSearch, Mermaid diagrams, and dark mode out of the box.

CI/CD Workflow

The Forgejo Actions workflow (.forgejo/workflows/deploy.yaml):

name: Deploy Hugo

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build-deploy:
    runs-on: grunt
    steps:
      - uses: checkout@v6
        with:
          fetch-depth: '0'  # Needed for Git info (lastmod dates)

      - name: Build Hugo site
        run: devbox run -- hugo --minify

      - name: Deploy to gh-pages branch
        run: |
          # Clone gh-pages, replace content, force push
          git clone --branch gh-pages --depth 1 origin /tmp/gh-pages
          rm -rf /tmp/gh-pages/*
          cp -r public/* /tmp/gh-pages/
          cd /tmp/gh-pages && git add -A && git commit -m "deploy" && git push --force

Hugo Configuration

Theme switching via Hugo environments (config/_default/hugo.yaml):

baseURL: "https://hai.wxs.ro/"
title: "Homelab Adventures"

module:
  imports:
    - path: github.com/imfing/hextra

params:
  theme:
    default: system
    displayToggle: true
  search:
    enable: true
    type: flexsearch

Forgejo Mirror Setup

The mirror syncs both main and gh-pages branches to GitHub:

1. Forgejo repo settings → Mirror → Add push mirror
2. Target: https://github.com/username/repo.git
3. Auth: GitHub personal access token
4. Sync interval: On push

Directory Structure

hai/
├── content/           # Markdown content
│   ├── _index.md      # Homepage
│   ├── about/
│   ├── guides/
│   └── ...
├── config/
│   ├── _default/      # Production (Hextra)
│   ├── hextra/
│   └── lotus/         # Alternative theme
├── .forgejo/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── deploy.yaml
└── devbox.json        # Hugo + Go versions

Comments with Giscus

Giscus uses GitHub Discussions for comments—readers authenticate with GitHub, and you get notifications on new comments.

params:
  comments:
    enable: true
    type: giscus
    giscus:
      repo: your-username/your-repo
      repoId: R_kgDO...
      category: General
      categoryId: DIC_kwDO...

Setup: Enable Discussions on your GitHub repo, install the Giscus app, grab config values from giscus.app.

Local Development

Using Devbox for reproducible environments—both locally and in CI. The Forgejo runners use the same devbox.json to install Hugo and Go, so what works on my machine works in the pipeline (devbox.json):

{
  "packages": {
    "hugo": "0.154.5",
    "go": "1.25.5"
  }
}

# Start dev server with drafts
devbox run -- hugo server -D

# Build production
devbox run -- hugo --minify

Analytics with Umami

Using Umami Cloud (free tier) for privacy-friendly analytics — lightweight, GDPR-compliant, no cookies.

Hextra has native config support. Add to hugo.yaml:

params:
  analytics:
    umami:
      serverURL: https://cloud.umami.is
      websiteID: your-website-id
      scriptName: script.js  # Umami Cloud uses script.js, not umami.js

Curious what the data looks like? Browse the live analytics dashboard - page views, referrers, devices, all without a single cookie.