Create a Blog

In this guide you will set up a fully functional Markdown blog hosted on Lifestream Vault.

By the end you will have:

• A dedicated blog vault that acts as your site's content store
• A public profile that makes your vault browsable at a stable URL
• Individual posts published with SEO metadata
• An optional custom domain (e.g. blog.example.com) pointing to your vault
• A local sync workflow so you can write in your favourite editor and push changes automatically

Everything is managed through the Lifestream Vault UI, the SDK, or the lsvault CLI — use whichever fits your workflow.

A vault is an isolated container for documents. Each vault gets its own URL namespace and can be published independently, making it the right unit for a blog.

Via the UI: open Settings → Vaults → New Vault, enter a name (e.g. My Blog) and a URL-friendly slug (e.g. my-blog), then click Create.

Alternatively, use the SDK or CLI below.

import { LifestreamVaultClient } from '@lifestreamdynamics/vault-sdk';

const { client } = await LifestreamVaultClient.login(
  'https://vault.lifestreamdynamics.com',
  'you@example.com',
  'your-password',
);

// The slug is generated from the name — you do not pass it.
const vault = await client.vaults.create({
  name: 'My Blog',
});

console.log('Vault created:', vault.id, '— slug:', vault.slug);

Your profile slug becomes the first segment of every published URL. Set it once and it applies to all vaults you publish.

1. Open Settings → Profile
2. Enter a profile slug (e.g. jane) — lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only
3. Click Save Profile

Your slug is also used on your public author page, which lists all published vaults.

https://vault.lifestreamdynamics.com/{profileSlug}/{vaultSlug}

Blog posts are standard Markdown files stored inside your vault. A posts/ folder keeps things organised, but any path works.

Lifestream Vault reads YAML frontmatter at the top of each file to populate metadata. The supported fields are:

A minimal post looks like this:

---
title: Hello, World
date: 2026-03-01
tags: [intro, meta]
description: My first post on Lifestream Vault.
---

# Hello, World

Welcome to my new blog powered by Lifestream Vault!

const content = `---
title: Hello, World
date: 2026-03-01
tags: [intro, meta]
description: My first post on Lifestream Vault.
---

# Hello, World

Welcome to my new blog powered by Lifestream Vault!
`;

const doc = await client.documents.put(
  vault.id,
  'posts/hello-world.md',
  content,
);

console.log('Document created:', doc.id);

Vault publishing makes the entire vault publicly browsable — visitors can navigate your posts, use the built-in search, and view your profile page.

Enabling vault publishing does not publish individual documents automatically; it makes the vault visible as a site. You control which posts appear in the listing by publishing them individually (see the next section).

Via the UI: open your vault, go to Settings → Publishing, and toggle Enable vault publishing.

// publishVault.publish is positional: (vaultId, params). slug and title
// are required; the rest are optional site-configuration fields.
await client.publishVault.publish(vault.id, {
  slug: 'my-blog',
  title: 'My Blog',
});

console.log('Vault is now public!');

Publishing a document gives it a canonical public URL and exposes optional SEO fields:

A published post becomes accessible at:

https://vault.lifestreamdynamics.com/{profileSlug}/{docSlug}

Via the UI: open the document, click the Publish button in the toolbar, fill in the SEO fields, and click Publish Now.

// publish.create is positional: (vaultId, documentPath, params)
const published = await client.publish.create(
  vault.id,
  'posts/hello-world.md',
  {
    slug: 'hello-world',
    seoTitle: 'Hello, World — My Blog',
    seoDescription: 'My first post on Lifestream Vault.',
    ogImage: 'https://cdn.example.com/hello-world-og.png',
  },
);

// The public URL is built from your profile slug and the post slug:
//   https://vault.lifestreamdynamics.com/{profileSlug}/{published.slug}
console.log('Published with slug:', published.slug);

Point blog.example.com (or any subdomain) to your vault with two DNS records:

Step 1 — TXT record for ownership verification:

The verification token is returned when you create the domain (see below).

Step 2 — CNAME to route traffic:

DNS propagation typically takes 1–60 minutes. Once the TXT record resolves, verification runs automatically via the background domain-verification worker — no manual trigger is needed. Monitor domain status in Settings → Custom Domains or via the SDK/CLI.

// Step 1 — register the domain (returns verification token)
const domainRecord = await client.customDomains.create({
  domain: 'blog.example.com',
});

console.log('Add this TXT record:', domainRecord.verificationToken);
// Verification happens automatically via the background domain-verification worker.
// Poll the domain status to check progress — get(domainId) is positional:
const status = await client.customDomains.get(domainRecord.id);
console.log('Domain status:', status.status); // 'pending' → 'verified'

The lsvault sync commands let you write posts in any local editor (VS Code, Obsidian, Neovim, etc.) and push changes to your vault automatically.

Workflow options:

First, initialise sync for the vault by pointing it at a local directory:

# Link your local ./blog directory to the vault.
# init prints a sync config ID — use it with push/watch below.
lsvault sync init <VAULT_ID> ./blog --mode push

# <SYNC_ID> is the config ID printed by 'sync init'
lsvault sync push <SYNC_ID>

Folder Structure

Keep posts under a posts/ directory and static assets (images, attachments) under assets/. A clean layout makes bulk operations easier:

my-blog/
├── posts/
│   ├── 2026-03-01-hello-world.md
│   └── 2026-03-15-second-post.md
└── assets/
    └── hello-world-og.png

Frontmatter Best Practices

• Always include title, date, and description — they drive listing pages and SEO
• Use ISO 8601 dates (YYYY-MM-DD) so sorting works correctly
• Prefix filenames with the date for natural filesystem ordering

Tags as Categories

Tags are first-class citizens in Lifestream Vault. Visitors can filter the vault listing by tag, so use consistent, lowercase tags (e.g. typescript, tutorial, release-notes).

Enable Full-Text Search

In Settings → Vault → Search, enable full-text indexing so visitors can search your posts instantly via the built-in search bar.

Webhooks for Build Triggers

If you run a static site generator alongside your vault, configure a webhook (Settings → Webhooks → New) on document.created and document.updated events to trigger an external build pipeline automatically.

Image Hosting

Lifestream Vault does not host binary assets. For images referenced in posts, use a CDN (Cloudflare R2, Cloudinary, or a public GitHub repo with raw.githubusercontent.com URLs).

You now have a live Markdown blog backed by Lifestream Vault. Here are some places to go next:

• SDK Publish Reference — full API surface for client.publish, client.publishVault, and client.customDomains
• CLI Publish Commands — all lsvault publish-vault and lsvault publish flags
• Custom domains are configured in Settings → Domains.
• Automate Your Vault — fire outbound HTTP events on document publish, update, and delete
• Sync with Cloud Storage — conflict resolution, .lsvaultignore patterns, and bidirectional sync
• SEO metadata is configured in the vault's publish settings.