Ship small Node.js sites without the guesswork

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Deploy Express to Cloud Run from source

A minimal, production-ready way to run an Express app on Cloud Run: the Dockerfile, reading PORT, a deploy script in package.json, scaling to zero with a small memory limit, and the mistakes that cost the first hour.

Custom domain on Cloud Run with Cloudflare

How to map your own domain to a Cloud Run service when DNS lives on Cloudflare: verify the domain with Google, create the mapping, add the A and AAAA records and the www CNAME as DNS-only, and wait for the managed certificate without breaking it with the Cloudflare proxy.

Markdown blog with Express and EJS

Build a content site where each article is a Markdown file with front matter, parsed once at startup and rendered with EJS. Covers a tiny front-matter parser, a marked renderer that marks external and sponsored links, reading-time estimates for languages without spaces, and generating sitemap.xml.

Build an EPUB from Markdown with Node.js

Generate a valid EPUB 3 from a folder of Markdown chapters using marked and jszip: the required files, why mimetype must be stored uncompressed and first, converting HTML to XHTML, the nav.xhtml table of contents, content.opf metadata, and adding a cover.

The Cloud Run /healthz gotcha

On Cloud Run, a request to exactly /healthz is answered by Google's front end with its own 404 and never reaches your app, while /healthz/ and /health work. How to tell an edge 404 from an app 404 using response headers, and a naming convention that avoids the trap.

CRLF line endings on Windows and Node

Git Bash tools on Windows read files in text mode and hide carriage returns, so grep reports zero CRLFs in a CRLF file and string replacements that span lines never match. How to detect line endings reliably with Node, and a read-normalise-replace-restore pattern that keeps files consistent.

• Markdown blog with Express and EJS Build a content site where each article is a Markdown file with front matter, parsed once at startup and rendered with EJS. Covers a tiny front-matter parser, a marked renderer that marks external and sponsored links, reading-time estimates for languages without spaces, and generating sitemap.xml. 3 min read

• Deploy Express to Cloud Run from source A minimal, production-ready way to run an Express app on Cloud Run: the Dockerfile, reading PORT, a deploy script in package.json, scaling to zero with a small memory limit, and the mistakes that cost the first hour. 2 min read
• What a small Cloud Run site really costs How Cloud Run bills a low-traffic Node.js site, why min-instances 0 keeps it near zero, what a cold start costs you in latency, how memory and max-instances settings change the bill, and the small charges people forget: image storage, egress and the build. 3 min read
• The Cloud Run /healthz gotcha On Cloud Run, a request to exactly /healthz is answered by Google's front end with its own 404 and never reaches your app, while /healthz/ and /health work. How to tell an edge 404 from an app 404 using response headers, and a naming convention that avoids the trap. 2 min read

• Custom domain on Cloud Run with Cloudflare How to map your own domain to a Cloud Run service when DNS lives on Cloudflare: verify the domain with Google, create the mapping, add the A and AAAA records and the www CNAME as DNS-only, and wait for the managed certificate without breaking it with the Cloudflare proxy. 3 min read

• CRLF line endings on Windows and Node Git Bash tools on Windows read files in text mode and hide carriage returns, so grep reports zero CRLFs in a CRLF file and string replacements that span lines never match. How to detect line endings reliably with Node, and a read-normalise-replace-restore pattern that keeps files consistent. 2 min read

• Resize, crop and compose images with sharp Practical sharp recipes from a publishing pipeline: resizing a generated image to the exact sizes stores require, extracting a region to remove a border, compositing an SVG overlay with text and gradients, and JPEG settings that keep web images small without visible loss. 2 min read
• PDF from HTML with headless Chrome Use the Chrome binary you already have to turn an HTML file into a print-ready PDF or a pixel-exact PNG, without installing Puppeteer: the flags, a throwaway user-data-dir so you never touch the real profile, @page CSS for A5 books, page-break rules, and the file URL escaping that bites on Windows. 2 min read
• Build an EPUB from Markdown with Node.js Generate a valid EPUB 3 from a folder of Markdown chapters using marked and jszip: the required files, why mimetype must be stored uncompressed and first, converting HTML to XHTML, the nav.xhtml table of contents, content.opf metadata, and adding a cover. 2 min read

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