Glyptodon is a personal website and blog theme built on Astro 5.12+ that generates a static site with dark/light mode, PWA offline support, and MDX content collections.
What is Glyptodon?
Glyptodon is a static-site template for personal blogs and portfolios, created by Tim Eaton and released under the MIT License. It takes Markdown or MDX files from src/content/posts/ and src/content/finds/, plus site configuration in src/config.ts, and produces a fully static website with an RSS feed, sitemap, robots.txt, and JSON-LD structured data. The theme is used on the author's own site at timeaton.dev.
Key Features
- PWA support — Includes a service worker for offline functionality and a web app manifest for installability on mobile devices.
- Dark/light mode — Manual toggle with system preference fallback, plus reduced-motion support for accessibility.
- MDX content collections — Blog posts and "Today I Found" microblog entries are defined as type-safe content collections, allowing validation and autocomplete in your editor.
- SEO tooling — Generates RSS feed, sitemap, robots.txt, Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags, and JSON-LD structured data for search engines.
- Performance optimization — Lazy loading for images, View Transitions API for smooth page changes, and Core Web Vitals monitoring; the theme reports a Lighthouse score of 95+ across all metrics.
- Developer experience — TypeScript strict configuration, Tailwind CSS integration, ESLint and Prettier for code quality, Vitest for unit testing, and Husky pre-commit hooks.
- Accessibility-first design — ARIA labels, keyboard navigation, and loading states for better perceived performance.
Who is it for?
- Developers who want a fully typed Astro blog with modern tooling pre-configured, including tests and linting.
- Independent writers and bloggers who want a clean, minimal reading experience with dark mode and offline capability.
- Portfolio seekers who need About and Now pages to present their work and current focus, with structured data for better search visibility.
What can you do with Glyptodon?
- Publish long-form content: Write posts in MDX and automatically get an RSS feed and sitemap for distribution.
- Share quick links: Use the "Today I Found" microblog format to post short found links with minimal overhead.
- Deploy anywhere: Build a static site with
npm run build that can be hosted on any static host, thanks to PWA caching and offline support.
How does Glyptodon work?
- Clone the repository and run
npm install to install dependencies.
- Start the development server with
npm run dev and write content in src/content/posts/ or src/content/finds/.
- Customize site metadata in
src/config.ts and styles in src/styles/global.css and tailwind.config.mjs.
- Build the production site with
npm run build and preview it with npm run preview.
FAQ
Is Glyptodon free?
Yes, the theme is released under the MIT License, so it is free to use and modify for personal or commercial projects.
What do I need to run Glyptodon?
You need Node.js and npm. The theme is built on Astro 5.12+ and has no database or server-side dependencies.
Does Glyptodon support dark mode?
Yes, it includes a manual dark/light toggle that falls back to the system preference. It also supports reduced motion for users with vestibular disorders.
Can I add a portfolio to Glyptodon?
Yes, the theme includes About and Now pages that can be adapted to showcase projects, and the blog can serve as a portfolio of writings.
