Astro Digital Garden Architecture

Today I successfully ripped out the old complex setup and migrated the entire Digital Garden to Astro.

The goal was to have a lightning-fast, content-focused site without shipping megabytes of JavaScript to the client just to render static blog posts.

Key Technical Decisions:

• Astro Content Collections: Using zod for strict typing on all markdown frontmatter has been a lifesaver. No more runtime errors because I forgot a property in a markdown file.
• Tailwind CSS: Implementing a highly customized surface-container layered design system instead of relying on borders. It gives it a much cleaner, editorial feel.
• Algorithmic Scoring: Built a standalone utility to calculate weighted scores for food reviews based on the identity of the reviewer (Josie vs. Sammy) and the type of establishment.

Next step: setting up a headless CMS for easier editing!