Building This Site: From HTML Portfolio to Hugo Engineering Notebook

Why I Rebuilt It

My old site was a static HTML portfolio built on the HTML5 UP Hyperspace template — a few pages showcasing college projects and a PDF resume. It looked fine, but it was a dead end. Adding content meant editing raw HTML. There was no way to blog, organize by topic, or search.

I wanted something I could actually grow with: a place to write notes, document learning, and publish posts without touching HTML. The inspiration was pbrazeale.github.io — an engineer who maintains a public notebook of weekly logs, technical deep-dives, and learning notes.

The tool I used to plan and execute the migration: Claude Code, running as an agentic engineering assistant. Fitting, given that agentic engineering is one of the main topics I want to write about here.

Tech Stack

Layer	Tool
Static site generator	Hugo
Theme	PaperMod
Hosting	GitHub Pages
Deployment	GitHub Actions
Content format	Markdown

Why Hugo?

Fast: Builds hundreds of pages in under a second
No runtime: Outputs pure static HTML — no Node, no server
Markdown-first: Write posts as .md files, Hugo handles the rest
Active ecosystem: Large theme library, good docs, frequent releases

Why PaperMod?

Built-in search (JSON index, no external service)
Dark/light mode toggle
Table of contents on posts
Reading time estimates
Code copy buttons
Archive and tag pages out of the box

Prerequisites

Git
A GitHub account with a <username>.github.io repository
Hugo extended edition (see install below)

Setup: Fresh Install

1. Install Hugo (Windows)

winget install Hugo.Hugo.Extended

Restart your terminal, then verify:

hugo version
# hugo v0.157.0+extended ...

Mac/Linux: Use brew install hugo or see the Hugo install docs.

2. Initialize the Hugo site

If you're working in an existing git repo (like a GitHub Pages repo), use --force to initialize Hugo without needing an empty directory:

hugo new site . --force

This creates the following structure:

.
├── archetypes/       # Templates for new content
├── content/          # Your markdown posts and pages
├── data/             # Optional data files
├── hugo.toml         # Site configuration
├── i18n/             # Internationalization (optional)
├── layouts/          # Custom layout overrides
├── static/           # Static files (images, fonts, etc.)
└── themes/           # Installed themes

3. Add the PaperMod theme

Add PaperMod as a git submodule so it can be tracked and updated independently:

git submodule add --depth=1 https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod.git themes/PaperMod

4. Configure `hugo.toml`

Replace the default config with your own. Here's the config used for this site:

baseURL = "https://ktncodes.github.io/"
languageCode = "en-us"
title = "ktnCodes"
theme = "PaperMod"
paginate = 10

[params]
  author = "Kevin Nguyen"
  description = "Engineering notebook — agentic engineering, embedded systems, and software development"
  env = "production"
  defaultTheme = "auto"         # Follows OS dark/light preference
  ShowReadingTime = true
  ShowPostNavLinks = true
  ShowBreadCrumbs = true
  ShowCodeCopyButtons = true
  ShowToc = true
  TocOpen = false

  [params.homeInfoParams]
    Title = "ktnCodes"
    Content = "Engineering notebook on agentic engineering, embedded systems, and building things."

  [[params.socialIcons]]
    name = "github"
    url = "https://github.com/ktnCodes"

  [[params.socialIcons]]
    name = "linkedin"
    url = "https://www.linkedin.com/in/itskevtrinh/"

  [[params.socialIcons]]
    name = "rss"
    url = "/index.xml"

[menu]
  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "posts"
    name = "Posts"
    url = "/posts/"
    weight = 10

  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "tags"
    name = "Tags"
    url = "/tags/"
    weight = 20

  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "about"
    name = "About"
    url = "/about/"
    weight = 30

  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "archives"
    name = "Archives"
    url = "/archives/"
    weight = 40

  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "search"
    name = "Search"
    url = "/search/"
    weight = 50

[outputs]
  home = ["HTML", "RSS", "JSON"]   # JSON is required for the search feature

5. Create required PaperMod pages

PaperMod's Archives and Search features require dedicated content files:

content/archives.md

---
title: "Archives"
layout: "archives"
url: "/archives/"
summary: "archives"
---

content/search.md

---
title: "Search"
layout: "search"
url: "/search/"
summary: "search"
placeholder: "Search posts..."
---

6. Create a `.gitignore`

# Hugo build output
public/
resources/
.hugo_build.lock

# OS
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db

# IDE
.vs/
.vscode/
.idea/

7. Set up GitHub Actions for deployment

Create .github/workflows/hugo.yaml:

name: Deploy Hugo site to Pages

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write

concurrency:
  group: pages
  cancel-in-progress: false

defaults:
  run:
    shell: bash

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      HUGO_VERSION: 0.157.0
    steps:
      - name: Install Hugo CLI
        run: |
          wget -O ${{ runner.temp }}/hugo.deb https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v${HUGO_VERSION}/hugo_extended_${HUGO_VERSION}_linux-amd64.deb \
          && sudo dpkg -i ${{ runner.temp }}/hugo.deb

      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          submodules: recursive   # Required to pull in PaperMod theme
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Setup Pages
        id: pages
        uses: actions/configure-pages@v5

      - name: Build with Hugo
        env:
          HUGO_CACHEDIR: ${{ runner.temp }}/hugo_cache
        run: |
          hugo \
            --gc \
            --minify \
            --baseURL "${{ steps.pages.outputs.base_url }}/"

      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
        with:
          path: ./public

  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

8. Enable GitHub Actions in repo settings

In your GitHub repository:

Go to Settings → Pages
Under Source, select GitHub Actions (not "Deploy from a branch")
Save

This is the step people most commonly forget. Without it, the workflow runs but nothing deploys.

How to Use It: Day-to-Day Workflow

Writing a new post

hugo new posts/my-post-title.md

This creates a new file at content/posts/my-post-title.md using your archetype template. Edit it with your content:

---
title: "My Post Title"
date: 2026-03-14T00:00:00Z
draft: true
tags: ["agentic-engineering", "notes"]
summary: "One sentence description for the post list."
ShowToc: true
---

Your content here.

When you're ready to publish, set draft: false.

Preview locally

hugo server -D

The -D flag includes draft posts. Open http://localhost:1313 in your browser. The server hot-reloads on file changes — no refresh needed.

Build the site (optional, CI does this automatically)

hugo --gc --minify

Output goes to public/. Don't commit this folder — GitHub Actions builds it fresh on every push.

Publish

git add .
git commit -m "Add post: my post title"
git push origin main

GitHub Actions picks up the push, builds the site, and deploys it to https://ktncodes.github.io/. Takes about 30-60 seconds.

Update the PaperMod theme

git submodule update --remote themes/PaperMod
git commit -m "Update PaperMod theme"
git push

Content Organization

Posts live in content/posts/. Tags are the primary way to organize content — there are no categories. Any tag you add to a post's front matter automatically gets a tag page at /tags/<tag-name>/.

Useful tags to start with:

Tag	Use for
`agentic-engineering`	Posts about AI agents, Claude, agentic workflows
`notes`	Short knowledge captures
`meta`	Posts about the site itself
`portfolio`	Legacy project write-ups
`embedded-systems`	Hardware and low-level work

Final Structure

ktncodes.github.io/
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── hugo.yaml         # Auto-deploy on push to main
├── archetypes/
│   └── default.md            # Template for new posts
├── content/
│   ├── about.md
│   ├── archives.md
│   ├── search.md
│   └── posts/
│       ├── hello-world.md
│       ├── building-this-site.md
│       └── ...
├── themes/
│   └── PaperMod/             # Git submodule
├── .gitignore
└── hugo.toml