Sleepingbot started as a widget embedded in the homepage. It now has its own page at /sleepingbot. Here’s what changed and how it works.

what’s new

The dedicated page is a Hugo layout — layouts/_default/sleepingbot.html — activated by a content stub at content/sleepingbot.md with layout: sleepingbot in the frontmatter. No new section, no new content type.

The homepage widget still exists with a small “open full page →” link in its header.

the page layout

The chat container is centered, max-width 680px, with a zoom-in animation on load (scale(0.96) + translateY(12px) → natural position over 0.35s). No wrapping box — message bubbles float directly on the page background. The message area is taller (520px vs 400px on the homepage widget).

Navigation: “random” was replaced by “sleepingbot” in config.yml.

markdown rendering

Bot responses are now parsed with marked.js before being injected into the DOM. User messages are HTML-escaped. This means the bot can return links, bold text, and lists and they’ll render correctly. <p> margins inside bubbles are zeroed out so spacing stays tight.

conversation history

The frontend keeps a rolling array of up to 8 messages. On each send, the prior exchanges are included in the POST body as history. The backend formats them as alternating user/assistant messages before the current question, so the bot has full within-session context.

When the cap is hit, the input locks and a “start fresh” button appears above it. The conversation stays visible until the user explicitly clicks it — nothing is wiped silently.

typewriter effect

Streaming responses don’t render directly — they feed into a raw buffer. A 20ms interval drains the buffer 3 characters at a time (6 if it’s falling behind) and displays plain text while typing. When the stream ends and the typewriter catches up, the full response is swapped to markdown-rendered output.

loading indicator

While waiting for the first bytes, the bot bubble shows three bouncing dots (staggered CSS animation). They disappear the moment the typewriter starts.