Finally Did It! Blog Framework Renewal

I finally renewed my blog framework that I’ve been putting off for ages! This framework was actually built in 2020, and I’ve just been adding posts here and there, but problems were piling up.

Specifically, I had issues with overlapping content across different categories, messy date formats, and inconsistent organization. I kept thinking “I’ll fix this when I have time…” and today I finally tackled it.

But something amazing happened. I solved ALL the problems in just 1 hour! How was this possible? Thanks to Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Agent technology!

The Amazing Power of Claude 3.7 Sonnet + Agent

Claude has been one of the AI models I’ve been keeping an eye on lately. This new Claude 3.7 Sonnet from Anthropic is supposed to have incredible coding abilities, so I wanted to test it out.

I thought my blog’s issues would be a perfect test case, so I used the Agent feature to let it directly read and modify files.

At first I was skeptical - “Will this actually work?” But wow, I was blown away. Claude instantly understood my blog’s structure, identified the problems one by one, and provided solutions. What’s even more amazing is that it directly modified the code and ran Jekyll builds to show me the results immediately.

It quickly solved these issues:

1. File Collision Problems: Files in the ‘Daily’ category were conflicting with each other, so it added permalinks to give each file a unique URL.
2. Category Case Consistency: Categories like ‘deepthinking’ and ‘daily’ were lowercase while others like ‘TechSavvy’ were camelCase, so it standardized everything with proper capitalization.
3. Docker-Based Environment: Switched from local Ruby setup (which was a pain) to Docker so I can build in the same environment anywhere.

Why I Switched to Docker

Previously, setting up the local Ruby environment and running Jekyll was different on every OS, which was quite annoying. It was fine on macOS, but working on my company Windows laptop meant dealing with environment setup every time.

With Claude’s suggestion to adopt Docker, this problem completely disappeared. Now I can just run docker-compose up in any environment and the blog runs locally immediately. Plus, the build process is now standardized with docker-compose run build.

What I love most is that I’m now completely free from Ruby version and gem dependency issues. I can focus purely on writing without worrying about environment configuration.

The New Workflow

Here’s how my new Docker-based workflow looks:

# Start development server
docker-compose up

# Build the site
docker-compose run build

# Clean build artifacts
docker-compose run clean

Super simple and consistent across all platforms!

Claude’s Problem-Solving Process

What impressed me most was Claude’s systematic approach to problem-solving:

1. Analysis Phase: It first scanned through all my blog files and identified patterns and inconsistencies
2. Planning Phase: It created a comprehensive plan addressing each issue with specific solutions
3. Implementation Phase: It actually modified the files, showing me exactly what changed
4. Verification Phase: It built the site and verified that all issues were resolved

This is exactly how I would approach the problem myself, but Claude did it way faster and more thoroughly.

Technical Improvements Made

1. Permalink Standardization

Before:

# No permalink - causing conflicts
title: "2025-03-04 blog renewal"

After:

title: "2025-03-04 blog renewal"
permalink: "/posts/2025-blog-renewal/"

2. Category Naming Convention

Before:

categories: ["deepthinking", "daily"]  # Inconsistent

After:

categories: ["DeepThinking", "Daily"]  # Consistent PascalCase

3. Docker Configuration

Created a clean docker-compose.yml:

version: '3'
services:
  jekyll:
    image: jekyll/jekyll:latest
    ports:
      - "4000:4000"
    volumes:
      - .:/srv/jekyll
    command: jekyll serve --watch --drafts --incremental

What This Means for AI-Assisted Development

This experience really opened my eyes to what’s possible with modern AI coding assistants. Claude didn’t just provide suggestions - it actually understood the context, identified root causes, and implemented comprehensive solutions.

Key takeaways:

• Context Understanding: Claude grasped the entire project structure instantly
• Problem Identification: It found issues I hadn’t even noticed
• End-to-End Solutions: Not just advice, but actual implementation
• Quality Assurance: It verified its own work by building and testing

Future Plans

Now that the framework is solid, I’m planning to:

1. Write More Consistently: No more environment setup friction
2. Improve Content Organization: Better tagging and categorization
3. Add New Features: Maybe search functionality or better navigation
4. Mobile Optimization: Make sure it looks great on all devices

Reflection

This whole experience made me realize how much friction can kill productivity. I’d been putting off this blog renewal for literally years because the setup was annoying. With Docker and Claude’s help, what seemed like a weekend project became a 1-hour task.

It’s a great reminder that sometimes the right tools can completely transform how we approach problems. Instead of fighting with environment issues, I can now focus on what actually matters - writing and sharing ideas.

Now I have no excuse not to blog more often! 😅