Building a Minimal Blog with Next.js and Markdown

·2 min read·
#nextjs#react#markdown#tutorial

In this post, I'll walk through the architecture of this blog and explain the key decisions made during development.

Project Structure

The blog follows a clean, minimal structure:

blog/
├── posts/           # Markdown content
├── scripts/         # Automation scripts
├── src/
│   ├── app/         # Next.js App Router pages
│   ├── components/  # React components
│   └── lib/         # Utility functions
└── public/          # Static assets

Content Management

Posts are stored as Markdown files in the posts/ directory. Each file includes frontmatter for metadata:

---
title: "Post Title"
description: "A brief description"
date: "2026-01-09"
tags: ["tag1", "tag2"]
---

Key Features

Static Site Generation

All pages are statically generated at build time for optimal performance:

export async function generateStaticParams() {
  const slugs = getAllPostSlugs();
  return slugs.map((slug) => ({ slug }));
}

SEO Optimization

Each page includes comprehensive metadata:

  • Dynamic meta titles and descriptions
  • Open Graph tags for social sharing
  • Twitter Card support
  • Automatic sitemap generation
  • RSS feed

Minimal Styling

The design uses Tailwind CSS with a restrained color palette:

  • Clean typography with good readability
  • Minimal visual elements
  • Responsive layout

Performance

The blog prioritizes performance:

  • Static HTML generation
  • Minimal JavaScript
  • No external runtime dependencies
  • Fast page loads

Future Plans

The scripts/ directory is prepared for future automation:

  • Fetching external articles
  • AI-powered content processing
  • Automated post generation

This setup provides a solid foundation that's easy to maintain and extend over time.