The Device Layer

An independent, essay-led publication about where technical security meets human judgment — trust at the boundary between people and interfaces, software and physical devices, self-custody and institutions, human intent and cryptographic authorization. Written by illithics (@illithicKeepKey).

Stack

Static HTML + CSS + a little vanilla JS. No framework, no build step, no trackers, no dependencies.

index.html            # homepage: proposition, featured essay, latest, topics, subscribe
essays.html           # chronological archive (Editions 1–8)
posts/*.html          # one page per edition
topics/*.html         # five topic pages + index
about / standards / corrections / privacy / disclosure / contact / subscribe / search
posts.json            # edition manifest (drives search; keep in sync when publishing)
feed.xml              # full-text RSS (generated, see below)
sitemap.xml, robots.txt, .well-known/security.txt
css/style.css         # design system: dark default + light theme, article typography, print
js/main.js            # theme toggle, reading progress, section anchors, newsletter form
js/search.js          # client-side full-text search over posts.json + essay pages

Every essay page carries: edition/topic/date/reading-time metadata, an "argument in one sentence," Article JSON-LD (datePublished/dateModified/author), an inline conflict disclosure, and a Trust Ledger (claims checked, primary sources, commercial interests, confirmed vs. uncertain, review dates, corrections).

Publishing a new edition

1. Copy an existing file in posts/, replace the content, metadata, JSON-LD, disclosure, and Trust Ledger; update the prev/next links on it and its neighbors.
2. Add the edition to posts.json, essays.html, the homepage (featured/latest), and its topic page(s).
3. Regenerate the feed/sitemap (script lives in session scratchpad; or append the <item> by hand — full essay HTML goes in content:encoded).
4. Log any date/content corrections on corrections.html.

Email subscription

The signup form is intentionally unwired: js/main.js shows an honest "not live yet" message until data-endpoint on the .subscribe-form elements is set to a newsletter service's subscribe URL (e.g. Buttondown/Listmonk). Set it in index.html and subscribe.html.

Develop

python3 -m http.server 8000   # → http://localhost:8000

Deploy

.github/workflows/deploy.yml publishes the repo root to GitHub Pages on push to main (enable Settings → Pages → Source: "GitHub Actions" once). If the site moves to a custom domain, update the absolute URLs in feed.xml, sitemap.xml, robots.txt, canonicals, and JSON-LD.