Frontmatter fields

Every post starts with a YAML block between --- lines. Available fields:

---
layout: post.njk          # always this for posts
title: "Your title"       # shown in the header and feed card
date: 2026-03-19          # creation date (YYYY-MM-DD)
last_tended: 2026-03-19   # last edited — used for feed sort order
stage: seedling           # seedling | budding | evergreen
confidence: speculative   # speculative | possible | certain
description: "One sentence shown on the feed card."
tags:
  - tagname               # shown as chips; used for filtering
draft: true               # remove this line (or delete it) to publish
---

Fields only used in Veranda (book notes):

author: "Author Name"
finished: 2026-03-19
rating: 4                 # renders as ★★★★
status: reading           # reading | finished | abandoned

Headings

# Heading 1    ← don't use this — the post title is already an h1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Paragraphs and line breaks

Just write text. A blank line starts a new paragraph.

One blank line between these two makes them separate paragraphs.

To force a line break without a new paragraph, end the line with two spaces (hard to see but it works).

Emphasis

*italic* or _italic_
**bold** or __bold__
***bold and italic***
~~strikethrough~~

italic, bold, bold and italic, strikethrough

Links

[link text](https://example.com)
[link with title](https://example.com "hover tooltip")

Example link, with tooltip

Images

Standard Markdown image:

![alt text](/obs-assets/my-image.png)

Obsidian embed (works automatically — just paste from Obsidian):

![[my-image.png]]
![[my-image.png|optional alt text]]

Images are stored in site/obs-assets/ and served at /obs-assets/. When you paste an Obsidian embed, the site converts it automatically.

Wikilinks

Link to another page on the site using its title. If the page exists, it becomes a link. If not, it renders as a broken-link span.

[[deep-work]]                        ← links by slug
[[deep-work|Deep Work by Cal Newport]] ← links with custom display text

[[deep-work|Deep Work by Cal Newport]] — try clicking this.

Blockquotes

> This is a blockquote.
> It can span multiple lines.
>
> And multiple paragraphs.

This is a blockquote. It can span multiple lines.

And multiple paragraphs.

Unordered lists

- Item one
- Item two
  - Nested item (indent with 2 spaces)
  - Another nested
- Item three

• Item one
• Item two
  • Nested item
  • Another nested
• Item three

Ordered lists

1. First
2. Second
3. Third

1. First
2. Second
3. Third

Inline code

Use backticks for `inline code` in a sentence.

Use backticks for inline code in a sentence.

Code blocks

Fenced with triple backticks. Add the language name for syntax highlighting.

```javascript
function greet(name) {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`
}
```

function greet(name) {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`
}

def greet(name):
    return f"Hello, {name}!"

npm run build
git push origin main

Horizontal rule

Three dashes on their own line:

---

Tables

| Column A | Column B | Column C |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Cell 1   | Cell 2   | Cell 3   |
| Cell 4   | Cell 5   | Cell 6   |

Alignment:

| Left     | Center   | Right    |
|:---------|:--------:|----------:|
| text     | text     | text      |

Raw HTML

Since content is rendered with | safe, you can use HTML directly:

<details>
  <summary>Click to expand</summary>
  Hidden content revealed on click.
</details>

<mark>highlighted text</mark>

<kbd>Cmd</kbd> + <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>1</kbd>

highlighted text

Cmd + Shift + 1

What does NOT work

• ==highlight== — not standard Markdown, use <mark> instead
• ^superscript^ — use <sup>text</sup>
• Obsidian callouts (> [!note]) — renders as a plain blockquote
• Embedded Obsidian canvas or PDF files — only images work
• [[wikilink]] to pages outside the content globs (templates, etc.)

• Veranda — book notes and reflections
• Garden — active projects being worked on
• Greenhouse — early fragments not ready for full posts
• Cellar — a time-indexed log of what happened when
• Workshop — tools I use or built
• Well — resources and links worth drawing from

Stack: Eleventy 3.x for static site generation, Vite + React for tools embedded as iframes. No JavaScript framework on the site itself — just HTML and CSS served fast.

Why dacha? The metaphor maps well to how content actually works: a dacha has different spaces for different purposes — a veranda for reading, a garden for active work, a greenhouse for fragile seedlings, a cellar for archives. Some things are fully grown (evergreen), some are being actively tended (budding), and some are just seeds (seedling).

Current status: Local MVP complete. Domain purchased (digitaldacha.com). Next: self-host on Raspberry Pi 5.

The core argument: Shallow work — logistical, non-cognitively demanding tasks — crowds out deep work. Email, meetings, and social media train the brain toward distraction. The antidote is deliberate scheduling of uninterrupted cognitive time.

What stuck:

• The "shutdown ritual" — a fixed phrase that signals the end of work. Closes open loops mentally.
• Attention residue: switching tasks leaves cognitive residue that impairs the next task. Batch tasks; don't context-switch.
• Embrace boredom. Don't reach for your phone every idle moment — train the capacity to tolerate unstructured thought.
• Four philosophies of deep work scheduling: monastic, bimodal, rhythmic, journalistic. Rhythmic (same time every day) works best for most people.

Personal application:

Building this farm in focused 2-hour blocks, no notifications. The creation of this very site is an exercise in what the book advocates.

Writing in markdown makes me think in structured prose. Writing in a spreadsheet makes me want to quantify. Writing in a notes app makes me fragment.

The timestamp tracker I built makes me think in intervals. Now when I do something, I instinctively think: should I be timing this?

This is concerning and clarifying in equal measure. Maybe the right question isn't "what's the best tool" but "what kind of thinking do I want to encourage?"

The "Vite writes directly to _site/" strategy for the iframe tool eliminated the race condition that would have existed with passthrough copy. Clean separation: Eleventy never sees Vite's output mid-build.