Show HN: TinyBones

Show HN TinyBones
Sep 30th By BadDeveloper

Show HN: TinyBones

TinyBones is a minimalist, batteries‑included blog template built with Astro. It focuses on:

  • Speed: ships almost zero JS by default on content pages
  • Accessibility: includes a dyslexia‑friendly font toggle and high‑contrast theming
  • Writing ergonomics: clean typography, MD/MDX support, TOC, code copy, and sensible defaults

Why I built it

Most blog starters are either too heavy or too bare. I wanted a tiny, readable baseline that I could deploy quickly without sacrificing quality of life features (TOC, search, comments). TinyBones started as my personal starter and is now a tidy template you can clone and ship.

Highlights

  • Minimal and fast: Built with Astro for optimal performance and minimal JavaScript
  • SEO-friendly: Sitemap, RSS feed, and Open Graph protocol support out of the box
  • Accessible: System, dark, and light mode support with keyboard navigation
  • Developer-friendly: TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and modern tooling
  • MDX support: Write interactive blog posts with custom components including built-in InfoBox admonitions
  • Comments system: Built-in support for Giscus comments
  • CLI tool: Create and manage blog posts and projects from the command line

Quick start

  1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/itzcozi/tinybones.git
cd tinybones
pnpm install
pnpm dev

Then open http://localhost:4321.

  1. Create your first post
src/content/blog/my-first-post/index.md

---
title: "My first post"
description: "A short hello."
publicationDate: 2025-09-30
tags: [Hello]
authors: ["BadDeveloper"]
---

Write your content here.

TinyBones CLI

Ship content faster with the built-in TinyBones CLI. It helps you:

  • Scaffold new blog posts (MD or MDX) and projects
  • List existing posts/projects
  • Safely update your blog to the latest TinyBones template (with backups)

Install

From your project root:

# Prefer this in this repo (runs a helper script)
pnpm run setup-cli

# After linking, the `tinybones` command is available globally

Alternatively, you can navigate into the CLI folder and link it manually:

cd scripts/tinybones-cli
npm install
npm link

Use

You can run the CLI either via the npm script or directly if globally linked:

tinybones --help

Common commands:

# Create a new blog post (interactive: title, description, MD/MDX)
tinybones -- create new-post

# Create a new project page (interactive)
tinybones -- create new-project

# List content
tinybones -- list posts
tinybones -- list projects

# Update to the latest TinyBones template (backs up content, creates a branch)
tinybones -- update

Notes:

  • New posts/projects are created under src/content/blog/ and src/content/projects/ with an index.md(x) file and sensible frontmatter.
  • The update command backs up your src/content, public, and src/siteConfig.ts by default, fetches the latest template, restores your content, installs deps, and checks out a new branch for review.
  • If you prefer global usage, replace tinybones -- with tinybones (for example, tinybones create new-post).

What’s inside

  • src/content/ — your posts (MD/MDX), validated with a Zod schema
  • src/components/ — SEO, TOC, search, share, toggles, MDX UI (tabs, infobox)
  • src/pages/ — blog listing, tag and author routes, RSS, Open Graph images
  • public/ — favicons and the dyslexia font assets

Performance

Astro renders static HTML by default, so content pages ship minimal JS. Interactive bits like search and theme/dyslexia toggles hydrate only where needed.