The Inner Struggle of a Public Repository
[! note] When I learned that Cloudflare Pages requires a public GitHub repository for the free tier, I felt genuinely conflicted…anybody could just clone my garden and it would be theirs!
One of the biggest mental hurdles I faced wasn’t technical - it was philosophical. Making the repository public.
Cloudflare Pages requires a public GitHub repository for the free tier, I felt genuinely conflicted. “So anyone can just clone my entire works?” I asked. The idea felt odd - why would anyone want to, but still, it made me uncomfortable.
Reality check: what they’d actually get is just my Markdown files and folder structure. The same content that becomes my public website anyway. But seeing it laid out as downloadable source code felt different, more exposed somehow.
The breakthrough came with a reframe: most digital gardeners embrace the open approach. It’s not just about sharing thoughts - it’s about sharing methods, structure, even the setup. Someone might learn from how I’ve organised my garden, not just what I’ve planted in it.
An analogy stuck with me: it’s like a published book - anyone can buy it, photocopy it, but they can’t claim they wrote it. The content, the voice, the unique perspective - that’s authentically mine and can’t be cloned.
There’s actually something liberating about this transparency. My thoughts and voice are already public by choice through the website. The technical scaffolding being visible just adds another layer of “learning in public” - showing not just what I think, but how I’ve chosen to structure and share those thoughts.
The odd comfort: knowing that my setup might help someone else start their own garden feels good. It’s part of the digital gardening ethos - sharing not just ideas but methods.
Still feels weird, but the right kind of weird.