Release

HERON 0.1 is out

HERON 0.1 is the first version of the builder. It went through the beta channel on live sites first, and its changes are about one thing: a site that builds the same way on any machine and opens the same way on any server.

Below is what is inside, in plain words. The full list is in the changelog.

Build

Dates search engines trust

Publication and update dates go into the markup, the sitemap and the feed in the full international format with the time zone.

Source: The time of the last git commit of the page, or the date you write.
Checks: A date in the future or an update earlier than publication is a warning, and an error in a strict build.
Why it matters: Search engines use the update date to decide when to look at a page again; a correct date brings changes into results sooner.
What you do: Nothing: with git the dates come from history. Write date: only for the day a page first appeared.

nginx that starts on any server

Long Cyrillic addresses in redirects used to stop nginx on some processors. HERON now calculates the sizes nginx needs and writes them at the top of the config.

Checked twice: If nginx is on the build machine, the config is tested there; the site image workflow tests it again before sending the image.
Who it helps: Sites in Russian, Ukrainian or other languages with long addresses moved from an old site.
Turn it off: nginx: hash_sizes: off in site.yaml if your host sets these sizes itself; the report names the values.

Smaller builds

Pictures are cut only in the sizes the theme really uses, with one fallback file for old browsers.

Faster: Less to encode, less to store, the same sharp pictures.
Fallback: One JPEG or PNG width for browsers that do not read WebP or AVIF.
Cache: Cut pictures are kept between builds; the first build after the update does them again, later ones are quick.

Compression and cache

The nginx config now compresses text and sets caching: pages are always checked for freshness, pictures and styles are kept for a day.

Result: An edit shows up at once, repeat visits load faster.
Where: In dist/.heron-nginx.conf, written on every build; nothing to configure by hand.
Who gets it: The image and your own nginx server. Free static hosting uses its own cache rules.

A site image without cloning HERON

A site repository builds its own image with a ready workflow from the HERON repository: build, a check that the image opens, then the push to the registry.

What you write: A short .github/workflows/image.yml that calls the ready workflow; new sites get it from heron new.
The check: The image is started and asked for the home page, a missing page and redirects before it is pushed.
Guide: Publishing with git

Contract

Languages everywhere

Every block of site.yaml reaches the template in the language of the page: address_ru becomes address on Russian pages.

Own page fields

A theme reads its own fields with page.meta.get('field').

English by default

A new site starts with English as its main language.

Commands

heron new

Works in an empty folder or a git folder, asks questions in the terminal or takes them as flags.

Clear errors

What happened, where and what to do, without long technical traces.

heron --version

Shows the branch, commit and build time.

heron docs

The documentation of this exact version, inside the image. Docs in the terminal

Docs in the terminal

How to update

docker pull ghcr.io/fmstm/heron:prod && heron --version

Sites that name heron: ">=0.1,<0.2" in site.yaml build with it as they are.