Library of GigaChad

A complete, expanded, self-contained mirror of the Library of Chadnet (wiki.chadnet.org) — every category, every subcategory, every hosted article, PDF and audio file — plus a lot more:

New categories — 3D Printing & Fabrication (printers, materials, CAD, DIY firearms, workshop), Physical Culture (strength, bodyweight, combat, mobility), Homesteading & Off-Grid (food preservation, water, power, livestock), Engineering & Radio (electronics, embedded, ham radio, right-to-repair).
Expanded existing categories — many new curated resources under Computers & Internet (self-hosting, distros, command line, privacy), Practical Skills (metalworking, blacksmithing, auto, gardening), Health, History and Science.
Same spirit, same do-it-yourself, self-reliant viewpoint. No sign-up, no JavaScript required to read.

Why every page is a `.html` file

The original site uses extensionless URLs, which causes many static hosts (and the local dev server) to offer the page as a download instead of rendering it. This build names every page name.html and rewrites all internal links to .html, so clicking any category or article renders it on any host — no server rewrites needed. PDFs and media keep their real filenames and still open/download normally.

The name

Working title is "Library of GigaChad" (keeps the original's "Library of …" feel while standing on its own). To change it anywhere, edit the two constants in tools/generate.py:

SITE_NAME = "Library of GigaChad"
SITE_SHORT = "GigaChad"

…then re-run the generator. Other name ideas if you want a different flavour:

The Omega Library
Library of the Sovereign
The Chad Compendium
Lexicon of Chad

Structure

repo root            ← deploy this directory to any static host
  index.html         homepage
  about.html, donate.html, theme.html
  <category>.html    every category & subcategory (renders normally)
  <page>.html        every hosted article (renders normally)
  *.pdf, *.jpg, …    hosted files (open/download normally)
  /files/*, /icons/*  embedded media and theme assets
  tools/
    crawl.py         fetches the full Chadnet site into site_data.json + mirror/
    generate.py      builds this site from site_data.json + content_extra.py
    content_extra.py all new curated categories and expansions (easy to edit)
    site_data.json   the crawled link catalog (structure + every link)

Deploy / host

Point any static host or web server (Netlify, GitHub Pages, nginx, Caddy, Cloudflare Pages…) at the repo root. Everything is relative, so it works on any domain or subpath.

Size note

The repository is ~14 GB because it includes the full original media collection (248 audio files ~11 GB, plus PDFs). If your host has a repo size limit or you'd rather keep the code light, either:

use Git LFS for *.mp3, *.pdf, *.jpg, *.png, *.mp4, or
drop *.mp3 from the repo and re-push them straight to your web root (the files stay hot-linked by their names).

Rebuild

# crawl the latest Chadnet (only needed when mirroring new content)
python3 tools/crawl.py
python3 tools/scan_embedded.py          # fetch images inside hosted articles

# regenerates the whole site from the captured catalog
python3 tools/generate.py

Credits

The Library of Chadnet (and all original hosted works, articles, PDFs and recordings) is the work of its original author and contributors. This project is an expanded mirror; we link back to the originals and hold no copyright over the mirrored content.

3.6 KiB Raw Blame History