harryjohn.org Website Migration

Project to recover my old blog at harryjohn.org using the archive from Wayback Machine, and republish its content to the original URLs.

Project overview

This project involves migrating an old WordPress website (harryjohn.org) to something modern, probably a static site generator like Hugo. I'll be using Cursor AI to assist, but with rules in place to ensure the AI assistance prioritises teaching me along the way.

Repository Strategy

Current approach: All migration work (WordPress backup, converted content, Hugo site) is kept in this single repository until the site is ready for publishing.

Future approach: Once the Hugo site is complete and ready for deployment, we'll create a separate repository containing only the Hugo site files for deployment to Cloudflare Pages.

Current state

Source materials

• Original WordPress Site: harryjohn-org-wayback/ - Downloaded backup of the original harryjohn.org website
• Converted Content: content/posts/ - Markdown files converted from WordPress using pandoc
• Hugo Site: hugo/ - New Hugo site with PaperMod theme and working content

Requirements

Minimum viable product requirements (Must Have)

1. Readable articles: Posts display properly with good typography
2. Images: Images from original posts are included and display correctly
3. Basic navigation: Home page and individual post pages work
4. Clean, original URLs: Proper URL structure for posts, and the original URLs are restored (with a redirect if neccessary)

Nice-to-have

• Tags and categories ✅
• Comments system
• SEO optimization
• Search functionality
• Dark mode

Implementation plan

Phase 0: Planning ✅

1. ✅ Define requirements for hosting
2. ✅ Compare options Done - see docs/planning.md

Phase 1: Hugo site setup ✅

1. ✅ Understand hugo basics
2. ✅ Configure basic site
3. ✅ Set basic theme (PaperMod)
4. ✅ Create some basic content
5. ✅ Run the site locally

Phase 2: Content migration ✅

1. ✅ Add front matter to hugo content pages
2. ✅ Cleanup and process markdown conversion
3. ✅ Fix assets/images/URLs
4. ✅ Import remaining WordPress posts
5. ✅ Add comments system with data-driven approach

Progress: ✅ Successfully imported all 6 WordPress posts with proper front matter, clean markdown, working images, and comments system. Content migration complete!

Phase 3: Publishing ✅

1. ✅ Create separate Hugo-only repository for deployment
2. ✅ Connect the Hugo repo to Cloudflare
3. ✅ Publish the site to harryjohn.dev
4. ✅ Setup redirects and forwarders for old links at harryjohn.org

Progress: ✅ Successfully deployed the Hugo site to Cloudflare Pages. The site is now live at both harryjohn.dev and harryjohn.org with all content, comments system, and proper configuration.

Repository: The live Hugo site is maintained in harryjohn-dev for clean deployment to Cloudflare Pages.

🎉 Project Complete!

The harryjohn.org website migration has been successfully completed! The site is now live and accessible at:

• Primary domain: harryjohn.dev
• Original domain: harryjohn.org (with redirects)

All original WordPress content has been preserved and enhanced with modern Hugo features including:

• ✅ Clean, responsive design with PaperMod theme
• ✅ All original blog posts with proper formatting
• ✅ Working images and assets
• ✅ Comments system
• ✅ Tags and categories
• ✅ SEO optimization
• ✅ Fast loading static site