Welcome to Project Therese

A Simple Markdown Blog with Project Isidore Styling

Last Updated 2025-09-10

Welcome!

Project Therese is a static site generator inspired by the design of Project Isidore - but instead of diving deep into Common Lisp web development, it goes the 'little way', using Node.js and markdown.

Write markdown, run npm run build, get a complete website. No complex configuration, no decision fatigue - just elegant simplicity for bloggers who want their content to shine.

The Philosophy

• Single file architecture - the entire system is comprehensible in minutes
• Minimal configuration - basic site config, works beautifully out of the box
• Opinionated beauty - classical typography over endless customization
• Responsive design - looks great on desktop and mobile
• Batteries included - RSS and sitemap out of the box

Why Project Therese?

In a world of complex static site generators with hundreds of configuration options, Project Therese takes a different approach:

• Content-first design - Your writing gets beautiful typography and layout without any design decisions on your part
• Zero configuration fatigue - One build file, sensible defaults, no plugin ecosystem to navigate
• Readable codebase - The entire generator fits in a single file you can understand and modify in an afternoon
• Deployment anywhere - Generate static files that work on any web server, CDN, or hosting platform

Unlike heavyweight frameworks that can generate any type of site, Project Therese does one thing exceptionally well: turning markdown into elegant reading experiences.

Getting Started

Project Therese follows the 'little way' - do small things with great love:

1. Clone the repo: git clone https://www.github.com/samuelstranges/project_therese.git
2. Write your markdown files in the content/ directory
3. Run npm run build to generate your site
4. Use npm run dev to build and serve locally on port 3000

That's it. Just basic site configuration in build.js, no complex setup, no decision fatigue.

What You Get

Project Therese is built using several excellent tools:

• Beautiful typography - Cinzel and Palatino fonts
• Syntax highlighting - grayscale theme for code blocks
• RSS feeds - automatically generated from your posts
• Sitemaps - SEO-friendly XML sitemaps
• Responsive design - looks great everywhere
• Security - HTML sanitization prevents XSS attacks

The entire system is designed to be lightweight, fast, and easy to customize while maintaining the elegant aesthetic that makes reading a pleasure.

Technical Architecture

Built with:

• marked.js - markdown processing
• gray-matter - frontmatter parsing
• highlight.js - syntax highlighting
• DOMPurify - security sanitization
• feed & sitemap - content generation

The entire build system lives in a single, readable file - no hidden complexity.

The 'Little Way' Promise

Writing should be a joy, and reading should be a pleasure. Project Therese focuses on doing one thing perfectly: transforming your markdown into something beautiful.

No feature creep. No endless configuration files. Just elegant simplicity that honors both your content and your readers.