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How this site is built

A single Astro repository deployed to Netlify. Every page is static HTML generated at build time — no server rendering, no database, no CMS. The contact form posts to an Astro API route that runs server-side via a Netlify Function and calls Resend. That is the only runtime compute in the system.

React is used for exactly three islands: the animated code window in the hero, the contact form, and the mobile navigation drawer. Everything else — including all scroll animations and cursor effects — is vanilla JS and CSS. Framer Motion is bundled only with those React islands, never loaded on static pages.

Tech stack

  • Astro 5 Static output for all pages. Serverless API routes via Netlify Functions for the contact endpoint and OG image generation.
  • React 18 Interactive islands only — hero visual, contact form, and mobile navigation. Vite resolve.dedupe enforces a single React instance across all island bundles.
  • TypeScript Strict mode and noUncheckedIndexedAccess throughout. Service and content types defined in data files and shared across pages.
  • Tailwind CSS 3 Utility classes used sparingly alongside CSS custom properties. Most layout and component styles are plain CSS in scoped Astro style blocks.
  • Framer Motion 11 Used in two React islands: the floating code window in the hero (entrance + float loop) and the contact form success state transition.
  • Resend Transactional email from a server-side Astro API route. Rate-limited per IP. No database — stateless by design.
  • Netlify Hosting, edge CDN, and serverless functions. Static build with select server-rendered API routes.
  • Umami Privacy-first analytics. No cookies, no personal data collected, GDPR compliant without a consent banner. Script is deferred.

Typography

  • Syne Display typeface — hero and top-level headlines only. 800 weight. Preloaded in the document head.
  • Geist Sans Secondary display typeface — card titles, stat figures, and subheadings. 600 weight. Preloaded in the document head.
  • DM Sans Body and UI typeface — body copy, nav, buttons, labels. 400 weight. Preloaded in the document head.
  • DM Mono Monospace — kicker labels, badge text, code snippets, and data figures. 400 weight.

Motion system

Animation is layered — each layer handles a different concern and stays out of the others' way. Nothing animates unless prefers-reduced-motion allows it.

  • CSS transitions Hover states on all interactive cards — border, background, transform, and a cursor-tracked radial gradient spotlight (via CSS custom props updated in JS).
  • IntersectionObserver Scroll-reveal for sections and staggered list items (data-reveal + is-visible). Process timeline connector lines animate scaleY(0→1) after their step fades in.
  • Vanilla JS mouse events Hero orb parallax follows the cursor with counter-movement between the gold and steel orbs. Nav border intensifies on scroll. Card spotlights track exact cursor position.
  • Framer Motion React-island animations only — hero visual entrance and float loop, contact form success state. Framer Motion is not loaded on any static Astro page.
  • CSS keyframes Hero text stagger (hero-anim), service page hero stagger, work page stagger — all prefers-reduced-motion respecting.

Design decisions

All fonts are self-hosted via @fontsource packages. Syne 800, Geist Sans 600, and DM Sans 400 — the three above-the-fold weights — are <link rel="preload">'d in the document head, eliminating the flash of unstyled text before the stylesheet resolves.

The colour palette is a deep navy base (#050917) with a muted gold accent (#c49a3c) and steel blue (#7b8fab) for secondary elements. All colour values are CSS custom properties defined in tokens.css — one file controls the entire palette.

Service card spotlights and hero orb parallax use --sx / --sy CSS custom properties updated on mousemove — no JavaScript-driven style recalculation inside a render loop, just a single property set per event.

The work section hosts selected engagements — the systems, the stack, and the shape of the problem, written up honestly and without attributing numbers I don’t have permission to share.