BlogTuner: A Tool to Eliminate Blogging Excuses

Many engineers have the same pattern with blogging: start strong with a handful of posts, then life gets busy, and the blog gathers digital dust.

The problem isn't usually a lack of ideas. It's friction. Most blogging platforms either feel like overkill or have users spending more time configuring than writing.

The Blogging Platform Paradox

There are plenty of excellent static site generators out there. Hugo, Zola, Jekyll, and Gatsby are all powerful tools with robust ecosystems. But for someone who just wants to write a simple tech blog, they introduce unnecessary complexity.

When looking at basic blogging requirements, they're embarrassingly simple:

Convert Markdown to HTML
Generate an index page
Create an RSS feed
Look decent without much styling effort

That's it. Most bloggers don't need themes, plugins, shortcodes, or complex taxonomies. They need a tool that gets out of the way and lets them focus on writing.

Birth of BlogTuner

After reading Simon Willison's thoughts over the years about the value of daily blogging, it became clear that solving this friction problem could help maintain consistency. If existing tools were too complex for simple needs, perhaps a more focused solution was needed.

The result is BlogTuner - a ridiculously simple static blog generator that converts Markdown to HTML with zero fuss.

# Create your post
echo "# My Thoughts Today" > today.md

# Generate your blog
uvx blogtuner build . _site

That's it. No config files (unless you want them), no complex commands, no learning curve. Just write and publish.

Why "No Excuses" Matters

The name "BlogTuner" comes from All Tuner Labs, but the tagline "Blog every damn day, no excuses" reflects the tool's philosophy.

The reality is that most of us don't need fancy features to start sharing valuable insights. We need to remove barriers. BlogTuner is built around a simple premise: if converting thoughts to a publishable format takes seconds, writers are more likely to do it consistently.

How It Works

Under the hood, BlogTuner is straightforward:

Find Markdown Files: It scans your source directory for .md files
Parse Metadata: It extracts frontmatter or generates it if missing
Convert to HTML: Each Markdown file becomes a clean HTML page
Generate Index: It creates a simple chronological list of posts
Build Feed: It generates an Atom feed for RSS readers

For organization, it can rename files to follow the YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md pattern, using Git-aware renaming to preserve history.

Git-Aware File Organization

One notable feature is the Git-aware file renaming. When BlogTuner normalizes filenames to the YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md format, it checks if the file is tracked in Git:

If it is, BlogTuner uses git mv to rename it, preserving Git history
If not, it falls back to a regular filesystem rename

This might seem like a small detail, but it's exactly the kind of friction-reducing feature that makes daily blogging more sustainable.

A Simple Workflow

The workflow with BlogTuner is about as simple as it gets:

Write a new post in Markdown
Run BlogTuner to generate the site
Push to GitHub Pages (or to whatever static site server you use)

That's it. No complex build pipelines, no headless CMS, no database. Just files and a simple tool to transform them.

Is BlogTuner Right for You?

BlogTuner isn't for everyone. If you need advanced theming, complex taxonomies, or dynamic features, you're better off with Hugo or a similar tool.

But if you want to focus on writing rather than configuring, it might be exactly what you need. BlogTuner is for people who:

Want to blog consistently without technical distractions
Prefer working with simple text files over complex systems
Value simplicity and speed over extensive customization
Need just enough features to publish thoughts effectively

What's Next

For now, BlogTuner does exactly what's needed for a simple tech blog. It's not about adding tons of features that would bloat it. The goal is to keep it focused on its core mission: making blogging frictionless.

That said, feedback on how others use it and what minimal additions might make it more valuable without compromising its simplicity would be valuable.

If you're interested in trying it out, you can install it with:

uv pip install blogtuner

Or use it without installation via uv:

uvx blogtuner build source_dir target_dir

Blog Every Damn Day

At the end of the day, the tools we use shape our behaviors. By using a tool like BlogTuner, the last excuse for not blogging consistently disappears.

Now comes the harder part: actually having something worth saying.