I built Minitest Rails to teach testing step by step. Along the way I needed more than a pile of Markdown files. I wanted a site that felt like a product: a landing page, ordered chapters with a sidebar, a blog for practical tips that didn't fit inside the guide, contact form, newsletter signup, and dynamic preview social images per guide/blog so I didn't have to add images manually and the preview looked good whenever shared in the social media.

I have put a lot of time and effort to make this free guide ([Minitest Rails](/)) and along the way I have added a lot features listed above. What I didn't want was all these features staying locked inside just the Minitest Rails. I wanted it to be used by others as well, and that's how the idea of [Chapter Zero](/chapter-zero/) was born, why not just make it an open-sourced goodie?

Chapter Zero is the shell and foundation the Minitest Rails is running on top of. Now, extracted and open sourced for everyone to use. Think of it as chapter 0 in a book: the layout, navigation, and marketing pages you need before lesson one; while you bring the curriculum and make it alive.

## What you get

Chapter Zero is built on [Bridgetown](https://www.bridgetownrb.com?utm_source=minitestrails.com), with DaisyUI and Tailwind for a dark, component-based UI. Fork it and you're not starting from a blank Bridgetown site. Here is what ships in the template:

| Piece | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Guide system | Ordered Markdown chapters, left sidebar nav, chapter index, and next-chapter flow |
| Landing page | Centered hero, audience cards, testimonials, and author bio, all driven from YAML |
| Blog | Dated posts with index and post layouts for updates outside the main guide |
| OG images | 1200×630 PNGs generated at build time for chapters and posts |
| Marketing | ConvertKit newsletter, contact form (powered by Netlify), and support banner components |
| Deploy | Plain static output with Netlify config included |

If you write long-form technical content and you're tired of re-wiring the same layout every time you start a new guide, this is for you.

## Quick start

Few commands and you're previewing locally:

```bash
git clone https://github.com/minitestrails/chapter-zero.git my-new-guide
cd my-new-guide
bundle install
yarn install
bin/bridgetown start
```

That's enough to see the template in your browser. When you're ready to go deeper, the [full setup guide on GitHub](https://github.com/minitestrails/chapter-zero?utm_source=minitestrails.com#readme) walks through configuration, content structure, deployment, and customization.

The repo is MIT licensed: [github.com/minitestrails/chapter-zero](https://github.com/minitestrails/chapter-zero?utm_source=minitestrails.com). Fork it, update `src/_data/site_metadata.yml`, add chapters under `src/_guide/`, and start writing Chapter 1.

If it saves you a weekend of layout work, a star on the repo helps other developers find it.

## What is next

Minitest Rails will keep growing here. Chapter Zero will evolve as its own repo so you can adopt the layout and template without pulling in testing content you don't need.

Questions or ideas? [Get in touch](/contact?subject=<%= ERB::Util.url_encode("Chapter Zero - Questions / Ideas") %>) or open an issue on the [Chapter Zero repository](https://github.com/minitestrails/chapter-zero/issues?utm_source=minitestrails.com).

Happy Coding!