Layer5 Academy

Layer5 Academy is the official content repository for Layer5's learning platform, hosting all official learning paths, challenges, and certifications.
It is built with Hugo and integrated into a multi-repository architecture for rapid local preview and automated cloud deployment.

📚 Overview

• Role: Primary source of official Academy content
• Features:
  • Fully structured, production-ready reference
  • Rapid local preview loop for Markdown content changes
  • Integrated into the platform's build and deployment pipeline

Table of Contents

• Related Repositories
• Quick Start (Local Preview)
• Repository Structure
• Contributing
• Publishing
• Resources

Related Repositories

The Academy platform is composed of multiple repositories, each with a specific role:

• academy-theme – Controls the site’s layout, styles, typography, and shortcodes. Included automatically via Go modules.

• academy-example – Starter template for organizations to create their own content repositories following Academy standards.

• academy-build – Central build and deployment pipeline. Aggregates content from multiple repos with the theme to generate and publish the complete Academy site.

• For more detailed information: Academy / Platform Development

Quick Start (Local Preview)

Use this workflow for a fast preview loop when editing Markdown content.

# Clean up and verify Go module dependencies
go mod tidy

# Install necessary tools and modules
make setup

# Start the local Hugo development server
make site

Open your browser at: http://localhost:1313/academy. Note: The local preview uses the academy-theme. In production, content is wrapped by the Layer5 Cloud UI, so minor visual differences may occur. For end-to-end validation, test with the academy-build repository.

Repository Structure

layer5-academy/
├── content/         # All learning paths, challenges, and certifications (Markdown)
├── layouts/         # Shortcodes or layout overrides (if any)
├── static/          # Static assets (images, videos, etc.)
├── hugo.yaml        # Hugo site configuration
├── go.mod           # Go module dependencies (includes academy-theme)
└── Makefile         # Commands for local dev & build

Contributing

We welcome contributions to improve:

• Content accuracy and clarity
• Additional learning paths, challenges, or certifications
• Shortcodes, layouts, and formatting

Workflow:

1. Fork this repository.
2. Create a feature branch:

git checkout -b feature/your-feature

1. Commit changes:

git commit -m "Describe your change"

1. Push and open a Pull Request.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.

Publishing

• Official content: Merged changes are automatically integrated into the central academy-build pipeline and deployed to the Academy platform.
• Organization-owned content: Use academy-example as a starting point. After creating a release, the academy-build pipeline will fetch and publish your content to Layer5 Cloud (requires organization ID and token).

Resources

• Academy Documentation: https://docs.layer5.io/cloud/academy
• Content Creation Guide: https://docs.layer5.io/cloud/academy/creating-content
• Community Slack: https://slack.layer5.io