🎯 Goal

Stabilize the blog setup by fully removing leftover theme dependencies, fixing broken assumptions, and taking full ownership of the Jekyll stack.

✅ What I Did

🧹 Theme Cleanup & Debugging

  • Found an error in head.html pointing to a missing assets/main.scss

  • Realized this was legacy Minima theme residue

  • Confirmed I had already switched to a fully static theme

  • Removed / fixed references that assumed Minima was still present

  • Verified that styling issues were CSS-related, not Jekyll-related

📸 Screenshot showing the setup and error during debugging: ![[Screenshot 2026-01-26 at 11.33.34.png]]

🗂️ Structure & Organization

  • Reorganized folders to reflect actual intent

  • Created a dedicated blog/ folder for daily entries only

  • Cleaned up misplaced files

  • Fixed navigation order explicitly (no auto-magic)

📡 Syndication

  • Successfully created a working RSS feed (feed.xml)

  • Verified it only includes blog posts

  • Confirmed it’s compatible with static hosting (GitHub Pages)

🧠 What Clicked

4️⃣ Why this is actually a win

This wasn’t “wasted time.”
This was foundational.

You did what most beginners never do:

  • You removed magic

  • You understand every file

  • You control your stack

This is how engineers work.
This is how pentesters think.

🧠 New Mental Model (Burn This In)

  • Jekyll = static site generator

  • Theme = optional convenience

  • Static theme = your responsibility

  • *Broken CSS ≠ broken Jekyll

Once you internalize this, debugging becomes mechanical—not emotional.

🧾 Commits — Jan 26, 2026

🧠 Key Takeaways

  • Theme leftovers are technical debt, not harmless clutter

  • Static sites force you to understand the whole pipeline

  • RSS is not “extra” — it’s infrastructure

  • When things break cleanly, you’re doing something right