since this is a zola site, and the markdown files are on github, I can just use the built-in editor to make changes and publish a post

this site's content is basically markdown hosted on github, and a github action deploys it to a cloudflare pages project. normally, that means that I would pretty much need to be at a computer with my editor, my ssh keys, etc. in order for me to add something to the site - but github.dev (which you can access from any github repository by pressing .) makes it super easy to post something when I'm not at my desk.

how to pick and choose between generous free tiers and get truly free hosting for you site

everything was pretty straightforward. basically:

• have a domain on cloudflare
• setup a pages project
• setup a custom domain
• setup cloudflare access over the *.project.pages.dev deploy domains (the ones for each git hash)
• setup a bulk redirect rule for project.pages.dev -> project.com

(basically following this)

the short list of the ones that looked good to me

(especially if you host it on a public repo... there are no time limits)

never used Github Actions before and I'm generally pretty new to CI/CD pipelines.

used a Github Action to deploy this site to Cloudflare Pages. pretty cool stuff.