Integration showcase: Markdown, LaTeX, Mermaid, and embeds

This unlisted page is a private smoke-test for the richer publishing features supported by the Astro blog. It should be reachable by direct URL, but absent from the homepage, RSS feed, topic pages, author pages, API listings, and search index.

Markdown basics

A paragraph can include bold text, emphasis, inline code, and links such as the Netherlands eScience Center.

A blockquote should feel calm and editorial, not like a loud callout.

Lists should remain readable:

• research software;
• reproducible workflows;
• public knowledge archives.

Code blocks

def estimate_reading_time(words: int, words_per_minute: int = 225) -> int:
    return max(1, round(words / words_per_minute))

print(estimate_reading_time(900))

Inline and block LaTeX

Inline math should render inside a sentence: the third power of two is $2^3 = 8$.

Block math should render centered and readable:

$$e^{i \theta} = \cos \theta + i \sin \theta$$

A slightly more research-flavoured example:

$$\operatorname{softmax}(x_i) = \frac{e^{x_i}}{\sum_j e^{x_j}}$$

Mermaid diagram

graph LR
  Markdown[Markdown source] --> Astro[Astro build]
  Astro --> HTML[Static HTML]
  HTML --> Pages[GitHub Pages]
  HTML --> Search[Search index]
  HTML --> RSS[RSS feed]

Mermaid sequence diagram

sequenceDiagram
  participant Author
  participant GitHub
  participant Actions
  participant Pages
  Author->>GitHub: Push Markdown post
  GitHub->>Actions: Trigger deploy workflow
  Actions->>Actions: bun install && bun run build
  Actions->>Pages: Upload dist artifact
  Pages-->>Author: Published static site

Native HTML details

Expandable technical note

This uses raw HTML inside Markdown. It is useful for lightweight editorial affordances without building a custom component.

YouTube embed

The blog can embed external media when needed. This example intentionally uses a privacy-enhanced YouTube URL.

Interactive iframe embed

Generic website iframes are often blocked by X-Frame-Options or frame-ancestors policies, so this example uses an Observable embed that explicitly allows framing.

Table

Feature	Status	Notes
Markdown	✅	Default Astro content pipeline
LaTeX	✅	remark-math + rehype-katex
Mermaid	✅	Client-side rendering from fenced code blocks
Embeds	✅	Raw HTML iframe support
Listed publicly	❌	unlisted: true excludes this page from indexes

Image path sanity check

This uses a repository-managed asset through the same /assets/... convention as migrated Medium posts.

End of test page

If every section above renders cleanly, the content pipeline is ready for more technical editorial posts.