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scottclark.io

Personal website for Scott Clark. Built with Astro, hosted on AWS (S3 + CloudFront).

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 22+ (see .nvmrc; use nvm use if you have nvm installed)

Quick Start

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start development server (http://localhost:4321)
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Preview production build locally
npm run preview

Writing Blog Posts

# Create a new blog post
npm run new-post -- "My Post Title"

# This creates src/content/blog/my-post-title.mdx with frontmatter template
# Edit the file, set draft: false, commit, and push to publish

Blog posts are MDX files in src/content/blog/. They support standard Markdown plus embedded Astro components.

Frontmatter

---
title: "Post Title"
description: "A brief description for SEO and previews"
date: 2026-02-27
tags: ["tag1", "tag2"]
image: "/images/post-image.jpg"  # optional
draft: false                      # set true to hide from production
---

Adding Other Content

Content is organized into typed collections in src/content/:

Directory Format Description
blog/ .mdx Blog posts (Markdown + components)
publications/ .yaml Research papers and academic work
talks/ .yaml Conference talks and presentations
articles/ .yaml Press mentions and articles about you
projects/ .yaml Projects and open source work
patents/ .yaml Granted US patents as named inventor

See example files in each directory for the required schema.

Deployment

All AWS infrastructure is provisioned by terraform/. Once that's applied, every push to main auto-deploys via .github/workflows/ (build → S3 sync → CloudFront invalidate).

The ACM cert, S3 bucket, CloudFront distribution, Route 53 alias records, and GitHub OIDC IAM role are all created by Terraform — no separate aws CLI commands. See terraform/README.md for the per-resource breakdown.

First-time AWS provisioning (one-time, ~30 minutes)

This assumes the Route 53 hosted zone for scottclark.io already exists with MX/TXT/CNAME records mirrored from the previous registrar, and the registrar's nameservers point at Route 53.

1. Confirm the new nameservers have propagated. Don't run Terraform until at least one major resolver shows the AWS nameservers (otherwise ACM cert validation will sit and retry):

dig +short scottclark.io NS @8.8.8.8
dig +short scottclark.io NS @1.1.1.1
# Expect 4 × ns-XXXX.awsdns-XX.{com,net,org,co.uk}; not iwantmyname.net

2. Install Terraform (≥ 1.7) if not present:

wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install terraform
terraform version

3. Apply. From the repo root:

cd terraform/
terraform init      # downloads providers, generates .terraform.lock.hcl (commit it)
terraform plan      # ~20 resources to add, review the diff
terraform apply

Wall-clock 15–30 minutes. The slow steps:

  • aws_acm_certificate_validation: waits for ACM to validate the DNS-01 challenge against Route 53 (5–15 min after NS propagation).
  • aws_cloudfront_distribution: waits for the distribution to deploy globally (10–20 min).

If you see aws_iam_openid_connect_provider.github: already exists because another project already added the GitHub OIDC provider in this AWS account, import it instead:

terraform import aws_iam_openid_connect_provider.github \
  arn:aws:iam::$(aws sts get-caller-identity --query Account --output text):oidc-provider/token.actions.githubusercontent.com
terraform apply

4. Push the three Terraform outputs into GitHub Actions secrets. Still inside terraform/:

gh secret set AWS_ROLE_ARN -b "$(terraform output -raw github_secret_AWS_ROLE_ARN)"
gh secret set S3_BUCKET    -b "$(terraform output -raw github_secret_S3_BUCKET)"
gh secret set CLOUDFRONT_DISTRIBUTION_ID -b "$(terraform output -raw github_secret_CLOUDFRONT_DISTRIBUTION_ID)"

(Or paste them via the UI at https://github.com/sc932/scottclarkio/settings/secrets/actions.)

5. Trigger the first deploy. Either commit + push to main, or kick the workflow directly:

cd ..
gh workflow run "Build & Deploy"
gh run watch

6. Verify. When the workflow shows green:

curl -sI https://scottclark.io                # 200, TLS via ACM, HSTS header
curl -sI https://www.scottclark.io            # 301 → https://scottclark.io/
curl -sI https://scottclark.io/about          # 301 → https://scottclark.io/
curl -s  https://scottclark.io/llms.txt | head
curl -s  https://scottclark.io/sitemap-index.xml

Optional — confirm structured data + cards:

Ongoing deploys

Push to main. The workflow builds (npm run build), syncs dist/ to S3 with the right Cache-Control headers, and invalidates /* on CloudFront. Done.

Manual deploy (fallback)

If GitHub Actions is unavailable, you can deploy from a local AWS-CLI-authed shell:

cp .env.example .env
# Set S3_BUCKET=scottclark.io and CLOUDFRONT_DISTRIBUTION_ID=<from `terraform output`>
npm run deploy

Tearing down

terraform destroy from terraform/. Bucket versioning blocks delete until you empty the versioned objects:

cd terraform/
aws s3api delete-objects --bucket scottclark.io --delete "$(aws s3api list-object-versions \
  --bucket scottclark.io --query '{Objects: Versions[].{Key:Key,VersionId:VersionId}}')"
aws s3api delete-objects --bucket scottclark.io --delete "$(aws s3api list-object-versions \
  --bucket scottclark.io --query '{Objects: DeleteMarkers[].{Key:Key,VersionId:VersionId}}')"
terraform destroy

CloudFront distribution disable + delete takes ~30 minutes; that's the long pole.

Cost expectations

~$0.50–$2/month. Route 53 hosted zone $0.50; CloudFront free tier covers 1TB egress; S3 pennies; ACM free; IAM/OIDC free.

Project Structure

src/
  components/     Reusable UI components (.astro)
  content/        Content collections (blog, publications, talks, articles, projects)
  content.config.ts  Content collection schemas
  layouts/        Page layouts
  pages/          Routes (file-based routing)
  styles/         Global CSS
public/           Static assets (images, resume, favicon)
scripts/          Shell scripts (deploy, new-post)

Editing Guide

This is where most of the home-page editorial copy lives. Open src/lib/site-content.ts first.

Single source of truth: src/lib/site-content.ts

What Field
Top nav links navLinks array — five items: CV / Talks / Projects / Research / Press. The "Scott Clark" wordmark links to / separately.
One-line tight byline (under the H1, above the lede) byline template literal
Editorial intro paragraph (right column under the name) lede template literal
Three bullets — Researcher / Founder / Operator bullets array of {label, html}
Experience rows (Distributional, Intel, SigOpt, Yelp) experience array of {period, org, title, body}
Education rows (Cornell, OSU) education array of same shape
Home <title> and <meta description> pageTitle, pageDescription

These fields use HTML inside template-literal strings — <strong> for bolded signals (a16z, Two Sigma, paper counts), <em> for venue/deal names, <a href="..."> for inline links. Use &amp; instead of &; ' is fine inside backticks.

Per-page map

/ — src/pages/index.astro

  • Tiny file. Just imports fonts + HomeContent + v2Theme.
  • All visible copy comes from site-content.ts (above) except the social-row handles (GitHub sc932, LinkedIn sc932, Scholar label, ORCID 0009-0007-0478-7129, X @DrScottClark, email).
  • Social row markup lives in src/components/HomeContent.astro — search for <ul class="socials">. Each row has the SVG icon + <span>handle</span>. Edit the <span> text and href= to change handles or platforms.
  • Photo: public/images/scott-clark.jpg. Path referenced in HomeContent.astro as /images/scott-clark.jpg.

/cv — src/pages/cv.astro

The CV-only sections are inline at the top of the file (lines ~9–145). Six arrays:

  • awards — Forbes, Young Alumni, DOE CSGF, Sage Fellowship, NERSC, etc.
  • advisory — OMSI Board, OSU Board of Advisors, OSU Industry & Innovation Council
  • focusAreas — flat dot-separated chip list (currently 20 entries)
  • selectedPubs — 4 highlight publications
  • selectedTalks — 5 highlight talks/podcasts

The Experience and Education blocks on /cv reuse the same arrays from site-content.ts — change there, both home and CV update. CV-only fields are inline so you can curate independently. Page title and description are in the frontmatter at the very top.

/talks — src/pages/talks.astro

  • Page only contains the layout + sort. Talk content is one YAML file per talk in src/content/talks/.
  • Schema (in src/content.config.ts): title, event, date, videoUrl?, slidesUrl?, description. All strings except date (yaml date) and the optional URLs.
  • To add a talk: create a new .yaml in src/content/talks/. To remove: delete the file. To edit: edit the file. Sort order is automatic (newest first by date).
  • Page title / description are in the <PreviewBase> props at the top of talks.astro.

/projects — src/pages/projects.astro

This page renders two sections: Projects and Patents.

Projects. One YAML per project in src/content/projects/. Currently: distributional.yaml, sigopt.yaml, ale.yaml, moe.yaml, yelp-dataset-challenge.yaml, resume.yaml.

  • Schema: title, description, url?, repo?, image?, tags[].
  • Sort order is manual — defined in projects.astro near the top as a const order array. Anything not in that list goes alphabetically at the end. Edit the array to reorder.

Patents. One YAML per granted US patent in src/content/patents/. ~20+ entries; filenames follow us-<number>-<short-name>.yaml.

  • Schema: title, patentNumber (e.g., "US 12,505,027"), date (yaml date), inventors[], url?, abstract?.
  • Sort: descending by date, automatic.
  • Most patents in the dossier are catalogued at year-level granularity only — entries currently use Jan 1 of the issuance year as a placeholder date. Update date to the actual issuance date when verified against patents.google.com.

/publications — src/pages/publications.astro

  • One YAML per publication in src/content/publications/.
  • Schema: title, authors[], venue, year, url?, doi?, abstract?.
  • The authors[] array auto-bolds your name when it sees Scott C. Clark exactly — see formatAuthors in publications.astro line 13. Variant spellings won't be bolded.
  • Sort: descending by year, automatic.
  • Top-of-page note (the "1,200+ citations / h-index 16" line) is in the .page-head markup of publications.astro.

/press — src/pages/press.astro

  • One YAML per article in src/content/articles/.
  • Schema: title, publication, date, url, excerpt?.
  • Sort: descending by date, automatic.

Shared chrome (every page)

Masthead — wordmark "Scott Clark" + nav. src/components/SiteLayout.astro. Wordmark is hardcoded; nav links come from navLinks in site-content.ts.

Endnote / footer — bottom of src/components/SiteLayout.astro, search for <footer class="endnotes">. Currently:

Resume: PDF · Source: github.com/sc932/resume © 2026 Scott Clark

Edit text or links directly here.

Resume PDF — lives at public/resume/scott-clark-resume.pdf. Drop in a new file with the same name to update — no code change needed. (Per CLAUDE.md, don't edit the PDF in place; rebuild from ~/dev/resume/ScottClarkResume.tex and re-copy.)

Theme colors and fonts — src/lib/site-theme.ts exports v2Theme. Edit hex values to shift the palette site-wide.

VSCode-specific tips

  • Open the workspace at ~/dev/scottclarkio/ so paths resolve.
  • TypeScript will autocomplete the content schemas if you hover/Cmd+click into content.config.ts.
  • After editing YAML or .ts, the dev server hot-reloads at localhost:4321; you usually don't need to restart it.
  • If you add a YAML file with a malformed date or missing required field, Astro will throw at the dev URL with a clear error message — useful as a fast schema check.

License

Code is MIT licensed. Content (blog posts, publications, images) is copyright Scott Clark, all rights reserved.

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My personal website and blog.

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