How I Built This Website

I wanted a simple, fast, and maintainable personal website. After evaluating several options, I settled on a stack that's both powerful and developer-friendly. So I asked AI to build the whole thing. Not me!! All AI. In fact, this whole post was by AI :)

The Stack

Here's what powers this site:

Next.js - React framework with static export
Tailwind CSS - Utility-first styling
Markdown - For blog posts with frontmatter
GitHub Pages - Free, reliable hosting

Why This Stack?

Next.js Static Export

Next.js gives us the best of both worlds: a great development experience with React, and the ability to export everything as static HTML. This means:

Fast page loads - No server-side rendering needed
Free hosting - Static files can be hosted anywhere
Great DX - Hot reloading, TypeScript, and more

Markdown for Content

Blog posts are written in Markdown files with YAML frontmatter:

---
title: "My Post Title"
date: "2026-01-01"
description: "A brief description"
tags: ["tag1", "tag2"]
---

# Content goes here...

This approach means:

No database required
Version controlled content
Easy to write and edit
Portable to any platform

GitHub Pages

Deploying to GitHub Pages is automatic via GitHub Actions. Every push to main triggers a build and deploy. It's:

Free for public repositories
Reliable with global CDN
Easy SSL certificate management

The Design

I went with a dark theme because:

It's easier on the eyes
It looks modern and clean
It makes the accent colors pop

The typography uses a monospace font for headings (giving it a developer aesthetic) and a clean sans-serif for body text.

Open Source

The source code for this site is available on GitHub. Feel free to use it as a starting point for your own personal site!