laughing-man

Laughing Man is a command-line tool that turns Markdown files into a newsletter. The idea is that a writer can use whatever editor they already like, such as Obsidian or VSCode, to write newsletter issues in plain Markdown format. The tool then converts those files into two things: a static website that serves as an archive, and HTML formatted for email delivery.

Hosting is handled through Cloudflare Pages, a free static site hosting service, and emails are sent through Resend, an email delivery service. Both have free tiers, so for a small newsletter there is no ongoing cost. There is no database, no content management system, and no custom code required beyond the configuration file.

Setup involves running a few commands. First, you initialize a configuration file in your Markdown folder, which holds settings like your newsletter name, author details, and API keys for Cloudflare and Resend. Then a setup command creates the hosting project and configures DNS records. After that, deploying the website and sending an issue each take a single command.

The tool also includes a local preview server so you can see how the newsletter website and email template will look before publishing anything.

This project is aimed at writers who want full ownership of their subscriber list and newsletter archive without paying for a hosted newsletter platform. The trade-off is that it requires a domain name and some comfort with command-line tools to get started.