Building a Static Personal Site with Next.js

For a long time, my personal website was a traditional developer portfolio. It introduced who I was, listed my experience, showed a few projects, and linked to a resume.

That worked for a while. But over time, the site stopped matching the way I wanted to present myself.

I no longer want the website to be only a place for job-search material. I want it to become a small home on the internet for engineering notes, AI product exploration, and the early thinking behind future solo software businesses.

What changed

The biggest change is the purpose of the site.

The old version was closer to a portfolio. The new version is closer to a writing-first personal site.

That means removing a few things:

• No dedicated work/projects section
• No resume link
• No large contact section
• No list of small projects that no longer represent the kind of work I want to show

Instead, the new structure focuses on:

• who I am now
• what I am focused on
• what I am writing
• what I may build next

Why static-first

This website does not need a server.

Most of the content can be generated at build time:

• homepage
• blog index
• blog posts
• tags and categories
• sitemap
• RSS feed

A static-first architecture keeps the site simple, fast, and easy to deploy.

For this version, the blog posts live directly in the repository as MDX files. Publishing a post is just a matter of writing a new file, committing it, and pushing it to GitHub.

Why design tokens

I still want the site to keep the dark, focused feeling of the previous version, but I do not want the styling to become a pile of one-off Tailwind classes.

A small design token system gives the site a clearer visual language.

The first version only needs a few semantic tokens:

• background
• surface
• text
• muted text
• accent
• border
• section spacing
• card radius

That is enough to make the design feel intentional without turning a personal site into a design system project.

What I want this site to become

The goal is not to publish constantly.

The goal is to create a place where useful thinking can accumulate.

Some posts may be technical notes. Some may be reflections on frontend systems, BFF architecture, payments, or AI-assisted product development. Others may be small updates on ideas I am exploring.

A personal site does not need to be big to be useful. It just needs to stay alive.