Hello, World: How This Site Works

Welcome to the log. This first post doubles as documentation: everything you're reading is rendered from an .mdx file that lives in the site's git repo.

The stack

The whole site is intentionally boring under the hood:

• Next.js 14 (App Router) — the bio page, this blog, and ~/tools are just routes
• MDX — posts are Markdown files in content/posts/, parsed with gray-matter
• shiki — code highlighting with a custom terminal-green theme
• Vercel — git push → live in ~30 seconds

No CMS, no database. Publishing a post is:

git add content/posts/new-post.mdx
git commit -m "Post: something worth reading"
git push   # Vercel does the rest

Why MDX

Plain Markdown covers 95% of writing, but MDX means a post can embed real React components when it matters — interactive demos, custom callouts, maybe even the pixel pet from the home page.

export function Greeting({ name }: { name: string }) {
  const hour = new Date().getHours()
  const salute = hour < 7 ? 'zzz...' : `hello, ${name}`
  return <span className="glow">{salute}</span>
}

The rule for this blog: if a diagram or demo explains it better than prose, ship the demo inside the post.

What's next

• ~/tools will grow into a set of small utilities — first up, an academic paper revision skill
• RSS feed, tags filter, maybe search — when there are enough posts to need them

That's it. exit 0.