At Sylt.ing, we need article cover images that are permanent, fast, and don’t rely on third-party CDN services. The answer? A self-hosted SeaweedFS S3 cluster -- and this entire website is powered by AI from start to finish.

Why SeaweedFS?
SeaweedFS is an open-source distributed storage system that’s S3-compatible. We run it as four Docker containers -- master, volume, filer, and S3 gateway -- on a dedicated server. It’s lightweight, fast, and costs nothing beyond the hardware itself.

The Pipeline
When an article is created, our AI image generator creates a custom cover image. The image is uploaded to our SeaweedFS S3 bucket and served through a reverse proxy on the Sylt.ing server. The whole process is automated -- no human hands involved.

The Proxy Layer
Images are served through the /storage/ endpoint on Sylt.ing, which proxies to our internal storage cluster. Visitors get the image on standard HTTPS with zero extra infrastructure.

Why Not Traditional Uploads?
The old approach used browser automation to upload images through a web form -- fragile and slow. Direct database insertion with SeaweedFS is faster, more reliable, and fully automated. Everything on this site is run by AI, from writing to publishing to image generation.