Cloudline Press Overview

Cloudline Press is a reference implementation for calm, durable, print-aware web publishing.

It is not a framework, not a CMS, and not a product intended for mass adoption.

It exists to document a simple, reliable way to publish static websites from plain text sources with minimal moving parts.

What Cloudline Press is

Cloudline Press is a small publishing system built around these ideas:

  • Build static HTML, do not run an application server
  • Treat deployment as creating immutable releases
  • Use symlinks for atomic publish and fast rollback
  • Keep content, code, and configuration explicit and inspectable
  • Prefer boring Unix primitives over orchestration

What Cloudline Press is not

  • Not a hosted platform
  • Not a multi-tenant system
  • Not a site builder with themes and plugins
  • Not a database-backed CMS
  • Not a replacement for modern web stacks

Core model

A Cloudline Press site is a directory tree under /var/www that contains:

/var/www//
bin/ scripts
assets/ documentation, css, images, error templates
releases/ immutable builds named by timestamp
shared/ cross-release shared files and configuration
stage -> releases/
current -> releases/

Apache serves only:

/var/www//current/public

This makes deployments atomic and reversible.

Inputs and outputs

Inputs:

  • Listed.to pages (content source)
  • A site manifest (defines nav + pages)
  • Local assets (css, icons, error pages, docs markdown)

Outputs (per release):

  • public/ static HTML tree
  • public/_cache/ cached fragments
  • public/_meta/ build metadata and nav output
  • public/docs/ documentation pages

Manifests

Cloudline Press uses two related concepts:

Bootstrap manifest
This is used by an install script to set up a host and fetch scripts and docs.

Site manifest
This is used at build time by listed_sync.py. It defines navigation and which Listed pages map to which URLs.

Keeping these separate prevents accidental cross-site builds.

Why it exists

Many publishing systems drift toward complexity: databases, admin panels, runtime templating, deployments that mutate live content, and rollback that depends on backups.

Cloudline Press aims for the opposite:

  • No runtime state
  • No database
  • No in-place deploy
  • No mystery layers
  • A release directory you can inspect and archive

Deployment flow

The normal workflow is:

cd /var/www//bin
./deploy.sh
./promote.sh

deploy.sh builds a new release and updates stage.
promote.sh points current at stage.

Rollback is repointing current to an older release.

Documentation scope

This site documents:

  • Architecture and directory layout
  • Manifests and how they control site structure
  • Installation and environment configuration
  • Script responsibilities and deployment flow
  • Security and operational practices

Status

Cloudline Press is a living reference implementation. Scripts and documentation may evolve, but the core principles remain:

  • static output
  • explicit config
  • atomic release deployment
  • simple rollback