Comments

InkStone supports opt-in comments via Giscus — a lightweight comment system backed by GitHub Discussions. When enabled, a comment section appears at the bottom of every post and book page.

How it works

Giscus stores comments as GitHub Discussions in a repository you choose. Visitors log in with their GitHub account to comment. No database, no ads, no tracking beyond what GitHub itself does.

Setup

1. Prepare your GitHub repo

The repo that holds discussions must be:

• Public
• Have the Discussions feature enabled (Settings → Features → Discussions ✓)

You can use your site's source repo or a dedicated repo for discussions.

2. Get your IDs from giscus.app

Go to giscus.app, enter your repo, choose a mapping (Pathname is recommended), and select a discussion category. The page will give you:

• Repo — e.g. you/your-site
• Repo ID — a base64 string starting with R_
• Category ID — a base64 string starting with DIC_

3. Set environment variables

Add the three values to your .env (local) or deployment environment:

GISCUS_REPO=you/your-site
GISCUS_REPO_ID=R_kgDO...
GISCUS_CATEGORY_ID=DIC_kwDO...

When all three are set, InkStone automatically injects the Giscus embed at the bottom of post.html and book.html. If any variable is missing, comments are not shown.

Theme sync

Giscus automatically follows InkStone's dark/light mode toggle. When you switch themes, the comment section updates instantly — no page reload required.

Disabling comments per-post

There is no per-post opt-out at the moment. Comments are shown on all posts and books when the env vars are set. If you need to suppress comments on specific pages, leave the env vars unset (site-wide off) or open a feature request.

See also

• Deployment — full environment variable reference
• Post Types — which templates show the comment section (post.html, book.html)