Kohack is a blogging website built on top of Jekyll, a static website generator. You write your contents in simple Markdown format, and Jekyll will automatically transform them into a static website.

Hence, those who wish to write and post a blog can do so by simply submitting a Markdown file; they seldom need to worry about decorating their blog post.

For those who wish to contribute to the foundation of the site (such as creating a page layout for others to use), we suggest starting with Jekyll’s official documentation page.

We welcome you to hack Kohack away, whether it be by adding interesting blog posts or by helping in maintaining the site. But before you start can hacking Kohack, you need to fork Kohack first.

Fork Kohack

Before you can start contributing or adding a new blog post to Kohack, you first need to fork the kohack.github.io repository on GitHub. This will create a forked repository – a carbon copy of the Kohack git repository down to its minute historical details – under your GitHub account.

Ensure that you have successfully forked the repository by visiting https://github.com/username/kohack.github.io, where username is, well, your GitHub username.

You can then clone the forked repository to your local machine:

git clone https://github.com/${GITHUB_USERNAME}/kohack.github.io

This should create a folder with the name kohack.github.io in your current working directory. Inside that folder, run the following docker command to run Kohack locally:

docker compose up

Open your web browser, visit http://localhost:4000, and ensure that Kohack is running as expected.

Congratulations! You’ve run Kohack locally and can now do whatever you want with it. We suggest you start by adding a blog post.

Submitting a Blog and Contributing

Whether you want to add a blog or contribute to Kohack, the workflow is similar to most ways people contribute to open-contribution projects on GitHub:

  1. Fork the Kohack repository on GitHub
  2. Make your changes to Kohack (e.g., add new blog post)
  3. Create a Pull Request to Kohack

Creating a blog post

Adding a blog post with Jekyll is simple since a post is simply a plaintext file written in Markdown. As a hacker, rejoice, as this means you’re able to do all your blogging work from editing to submitting your blog using all of your favorite and familiar tools: Git and GitHub, your favorite text editor, and your favorite shell and terminal.

Here is the list of steps you need to do to create a blog post:

  1. Run Kohack locally by running docker compose up.
  2. Add a Markdown file with a YYYY-MM-DD date format, e.g., 2022-05-26.md.
  3. Write your blog content in Markdown format. There are many flavors of Markdown, and most of them share a common basic syntax. Since Kohack is based on Jekyll, it’s worthwhile to skim through Jekyll’s Markdown guide.
  4. Review your changes at http://localhost:4000. Rinse and repeat until you’re satisfied with your blog post.

Once you’re ready to share your blog, create a Pull Request on our Kohack repository.

Join Our Discord

If you need help, or just want to chat, don’t hesitate the find us at our discord server:

https://discord.gg/Xdmbk3mk