How this site is made, what runs it, and which tools are part of its workflow
This site is where I write about technology, media, and digital products — and occasionally document independent projects and experiments. It serves as both a professional notebook and a publishing outlet, with a deliberate focus on tools, engineering decisions, and the systems that shape how digital experiences are built.
What follows is a transparent account of how this site is made, what powers it, and which tools are part of its day-to-day operation.
An Informative Pipeline
Content does not write itself — but the tooling around it matters. The pipeline below reflects how information flows from raw input to published output, with each tool serving a specific role rather than overlapping ones.
| Tool | Role |
|---|---|
| Obsidian | Personal knowledge warehouse. Captures notes, web sources, and AI chat excerpts. The starting point for most articles and ideas. |
| Claude | Research partner, editorial assistant, and content editor. Used to check sources alongside Google Search, and to refine and fix published texts. |
| Google Search | Primary source verification and fact-checking layer, paired with Claude for research tasks. |
| Google Gemini | Image generation via the Gemini Nano Banana model. Produces illustrations and visuals for posts. |
| Figma | Design environment for UI concepts and visual exploration. Used to prototype interface ideas before translating them into code. |
| Jupyter Notebooks | Data exploration and analysis environment, run through Visual Studio Code. Used to query, crunch, and visualise datasets when the work calls for it. |
| Claude Code | AI-powered code assistant. Handles both code editing and content tasks directly within the development environment. |
| Visual Studio Code | Primary code and content editor. Used in tandem with Claude Code for all site development and writing. |
| Social media syndication channel. Published articles are distributed here to reach a broader audience. | |
| Chrome | Default browser for development and research. Used across the full workflow — from local previews to source exploration. |
Stack
The site is built for simplicity, performance, and low operational overhead. The choices reflect a preference for tools that get out of the way and let the content speak.
- Astro — A modern static site generator optimised for content-driven sites. Astro’s island architecture means JavaScript is shipped only where strictly necessary, keeping pages fast and lean. Markdown content, component-based layouts, and file-based routing make it a natural fit for a personal publishing workflow.
- Cloudflare — Serverless hosting and global edge delivery. Pages and Workers handle deployment and any dynamic functionality without the overhead of managing infrastructure. Combined with Astro’s static output, this results in near-zero cold starts and globally consistent performance.