Building this site as a performance showcase
Why I built waldi.dev with Astro + React islands instead of a heavier framework — and what that buys in speed and SEO.
A portfolio should practice what it preaches. If I’m claiming I care about performance and clean architecture, the site making that claim had better be fast.
The core bet: islands over a monolith
Most portfolios ship a full client framework to render what is, mostly, static content. That’s a lot of JavaScript for a page that doesn’t change. I went with Astro: HTML and CSS render on the server, and I hydrate only the few interactive pieces — the theme toggle, the command palette, the easter eggs — as React islands.
// astro.config.mjs — interactivity is opt-in, per component
integrations: [react(), mdx(), sitemap(), icon()],What it buys
- Near-zero JS by default — great LCP and INP out of the box.
- React where it earns its cost — and it’s the skill I want to demonstrate.
- Type-safe content — Zod schemas validate every project and post at build time.
More posts on the architecture and my AI-assisted workflow are on the way.