Why this site is smaller
A personal website should leave room for the person, not bury them under a product stack.
The old shape
My previous website had grown into a product. It had accounts, data stores, dashboards, metrics, client-side state, and enough infrastructure to make publishing a short note feel like maintaining an application.
None of those tools are inherently bad. They were simply solving problems this website no longer has.
The new constraint
This version starts from a stricter question: what does a personal place on the web actually need?
For me, the answer is a small static site, files I can read in Git, and pages that remain useful without a client-side application. Astro renders the structure, MDX holds the writing, and CSS carries most of the visual character.
The constraint is not minimalism for its own sake. It keeps the operational surface proportional to the purpose of the site.
What remains
The important parts are still here:
- longer writing with room for uncertainty
- practical notes with enough context to be reused safely
- selected projects without turning them into sales material
- translations stored as ordinary files
- direct ways to contact me
There is no database to keep alive and no visitor profile to assemble. Publishing means editing a file, validating it, and deploying static output.
A quieter default
Software tends to accumulate capability. A personal website can choose a different direction.
It can be understandable. It can load quickly. It can respect attention. Most importantly, it can feel like a place maintained by a person rather than a funnel operated by a product.