My homepage has a new “Currently reading” widget including the cover of the book I’m reading, the title and author beside it, and a thin red progress bar hanging under the cover. The bar is updated every night but not how you expect. Here is the real one, sharing its data with the homepage:

A tiny file holds the book title, author, Amazon link, and path to a cover image in the repo. Starting a new book is a one-line commit and a cover drop, the same way my books page works.

The progress changes every night using an iOS Shortcut. This is my favorite part because the backend integration is three simple actions in the shortcut:

1. Ask for Input asks one question: how far along am I? The Kindle shows the percentage at the bottom of the screen making this step quick.
2. Get Contents of URL POSTs that number as JSON to /api/reading on this site, with an Authorization: Bearer header carrying a secret only my phone and the server know.
3. Show Notification displays the server’s response, so I get a tiny receipt that the number landed.

One more detail I enjoy: the progress bar is borrowed from my photo lightbox, where the same 2px accent bar tracks video playback. One progress design is used for the entire site.

I experimented with about a dozen layouts for the widget in my private lab before landing on this one. Sometimes the twelfth try is the one.