GoBlog

A personal blogging platform built with Go — no frameworks, just the standard library plus a handful of well-chosen packages. Built as a learning project to explore Go web development from a Django background.

Features

• Auth — Register, login, logout with bcrypt-hashed passwords and server-side sessions
• Posts — Create, edit, delete, and publish posts with Markdown support
• Tags — Comma-separated tags with filtered listing pages
• Draft / Published — Save posts privately before publishing
• Live Search — HTMX-powered search with no page reload
• Cover Images — Optional file upload per post (local dev only — see note below)
• Read Time — Auto-calculated estimated reading time
• Dashboard — Personal view of all your posts regardless of status

Tech Stack

Concern	Tool
Language	Go 1.22+
Router	net/http (stdlib, Go 1.22 method routing)
Database	PostgreSQL via github.com/lib/pq
DB Queries	github.com/jmoiron/sqlx
Password Hashing	golang.org/x/crypto/bcrypt
Sessions	UUID tokens via github.com/google/uuid
Markdown	github.com/gomarkdown/markdown
Env Variables	github.com/joho/godotenv
Templates	html/template (stdlib)
CSS	Tailwind CSS (compiled locally)
Interactivity	HTMX
Fonts	Playfair Display, Source Serif 4, JetBrains Mono
Deployment	Leapcell

Project Structure

goblog/
├── main.go                   — entry point, routes, middleware chain
├── db.go                     — DB init, schema, migrations, session cleanup
├── go.mod / go.sum
├── .air.toml                 — Air live reload config (go install air@latest)
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── Info.md
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
├── handlers/
│   ├── auth.go               — Register, Login, Logout, Settings handlers
│   ├── helpers.go            — render(), renderWithTitle(), renderPartial(), templateFuncs
│   ├── middleware.go         — CSRFMiddleware, AuthMiddleware, RequireLogin, sessions
│   ├── posts.go              — all post/tag/search/bookmark/reaction handlers
│   └── storage.go            — object storage toggle (local disk vs Leapcell S3)
├── models/
│   ├── post.go               — Post/Tag structs, all queries, AttachTags, pagination
│   └── user.go               — User struct, CRUD, auth helpers
├── static/
│   ├── css/
│   │   ├── goblog.css        — all custom styles (extracted from base.html)
│   │   └── tailwind.css      — compiled Tailwind output
│   └── js/
│       └── htmx.min.js
├── tailwind/                 — Tailwind compilation toolchain (Node, not served)
│   ├── src/styles.css
│   ├── tailwind.config.js
│   ├── postcss.config.js
│   ├── package.json
│   └── package-lock.json
└── templates/
    ├── base.html             — layout, nav, CSRF forms, footer
    ├── index.html            — homepage with live search + infinite scroll
    ├── post.html             — post detail with reactions, bookmarks, flash
    ├── form.html             — create/edit post form with tag counter
    ├── dashboard.html        — author dashboard with metrics
    ├── profile.html          — public profile page
    ├── bookmarks.html        — reading list
    ├── tag.html              — tag-filtered post listing
    ├── settings.html         — profile + password forms
    ├── login.html
    ├── register.html
    ├── 404.html
    └── partials/
        ├── post_list.html    — shared infinite scroll post rows + sentinel
        └── search_results.html — HTMX search results dropdown

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go 1.22 or higher
• PostgreSQL running locally
• Node.js (for Tailwind CSS compilation)

Installation

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/brandnova/goblog.git
cd goblog

# Install Go dependencies
go mod tidy

# Install Tailwind dependencies
cd tailwind
npm install
cd ..

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the project root:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:yourpassword@localhost:5432/goblog?sslmode=disable
PORT=8080

Use any online PostgreSQL database you know. Leapcell Database service is a good example example. For local PostgreSQL setup on Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install postgresql postgresql-server
sudo postgresql-setup --initdb
sudo systemctl start postgresql
sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE goblog;"

Running in Development

Open two terminals:

Terminal 1 — Tailwind watcher:

cd tailwind
npx tailwindcss -i ./src/styles.css -o ../static/css/tailwind.css --watch

Terminal 2 — Go server:

go run .

Visit http://localhost:8080

The database schema is created automatically on first run via initDB(). There is no default user — register via /register.

Building for Production

go build -o goblog .
./goblog

Notes

• Sessions expire after 7 days
• Cover image uploads work in local development but are not supported on Leapcell's serverless plan — the filesystem is read-only in that environment. Cloudflare R2 is the recommended path for production image storage.
• See Info.md for the full deployment guide and feature roadmap

License

MIT