aashishj.com

Personal site for Aashish Jagini — engineer turned PM, still building the tools he uses. Built on Astro + Tailwind. Deployed to Cloudflare (Workers Static Assets).

Four routes: /, /experience, /skills, /writing (plus one page per post). Also /rss.xml and /llms.txt. The homepage Brain section and the Brain write-up carry the AI story. No chatbot, no AI fit-checker — both were cut on purpose.

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Stack

Framework	Astro 5 (static output)
Styling	Tailwind CSS 3 + custom design tokens in src/styles/global.css
Content	MDX in src/content/writing/ via Astro Content Collections
Fonts	Self-hosted via @fontsource-variable — Source Serif 4, Inter, JetBrains Mono
Hosting	Cloudflare Workers Static Assets (wrangler.toml, no Worker script)
Package manager	pnpm 9 (pinned in package.json), Node 20

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Development

pnpm install
pnpm dev            # localhost:4321
pnpm build          # astro check + astro build → dist/
pnpm preview        # serve dist/ locally
pnpm check          # astro check (TypeScript + content schema)
pnpm refresh:brain  # pull fresh Brain numbers (see below)

pnpm build fails on type errors, because it runs astro check first.

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Project structure

.
├── astro.config.mjs              # integrations, site URL, trailingSlash: 'always'
├── tailwind.config.mjs           # colors via CSS vars, fonts
├── wrangler.toml                 # Workers Static Assets config (serves dist/)
├── public/
│   ├── favicon.svg               # AJ italic monogram
│   ├── og-default.png            # 1200x630 social share image
│   ├── llms.txt                  # plain-text summary for AI crawlers
│   └── robots.txt                # AI crawlers explicitly allowed
├── scripts/
│   └── refresh-brain.sh          # pulls Brain stats from the home server → JSON
├── src/
│   ├── content/
│   │   ├── config.ts             # writing collection schema (Zod)
│   │   └── writing/              # MDX posts
│   ├── components/               # Header, Footer, CommandPalette (⌘K, vanilla JS),
│   │                             # BrainStatus, PostCard, ChapterCard, Placeholder
│   ├── data/
│   │   └── brain-status.json     # Brain numbers, baked in at build time
│   ├── layouts/
│   │   ├── BaseLayout.astro      # site shell — head, JSON-LD, theme, view transitions
│   │   └── PostLayout.astro      # /writing/[slug] reading layout
│   ├── pages/                    # index, experience, skills, writing/, rss.xml.js, 404
│   └── styles/global.css
└── .github/workflows/
    ├── ci.yml                    # typecheck + build
    └── purge-cache.yml           # purge Cloudflare cache after each deploy

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Design system

Locked. Don't drift without an explicit ask.

Token	Light	Dark
paper (page bg)	#FAF7F0	#16181C
ink (body text)	#16181C	#F0EDE5
cream (section bg)	#F0EDE5	#1F2127
line (hairlines)	#E8E2D5	#2A2D33
muted (secondary text)	#5A5247 (AA on cream)	#A6ABB4
burnt (body accent)	#B23B0A (AA on paper)	#EA580C
burnt-strong (display italic)	#C2410C	#F97316

Fonts:

• Source Serif 4 Variable — body, headlines (display).
• Inter Variable — UI chrome, navigation, buttons, labels.
• JetBrains Mono Variable — kickers, dates, status tables, mono pull-quotes.

Italic display headlines use <em> and pick up burnt-strong via .h-display em in global.css.

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Adding a new post

1. Create src/content/writing/<slug>.mdx:

   ---
   title: "Your title here"
   description: "One-sentence description, 140-160 chars."
   pubDate: 2026-05-15
   tags: ["product-management", "ai"]
   draft: false
   ---
   
   Body in MDX. Use `**bold**`, regular paragraphs, `code`, fenced code blocks,
   and any imported components if needed.

2. Frontmatter schema (Zod-validated at build time, see src/content/config.ts):

   Field	Type	Required	Notes
   title	string	✓
   description	string	✓
   pubDate	date (YYYY-MM-DD)	✓	Coerced to Date.
   updatedDate	date		Shown on the post page if present.
   tags	string[]		Defaults to [].
   draft	boolean		Defaults to false. true hides from /writing index but the post is still reachable at /writing/<slug> for preview.
   canonicalUrl	URL string		If cross-posting elsewhere; sets <link rel="canonical">.
   ogImage	string		Per-post OG image override; falls back to /og-default.png.

3. Set draft: false to publish. The /writing index will pick it up automatically — no manual indexing.

4. Reading time auto-calculates from word count at build time (words / 200, rounded, min 1 minute).

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Brain numbers

The homepage Brain section shows real numbers (doc count, last capture, a "Tended" date). They are not live. They are baked in at build time from src/data/brain-status.json.

To refresh (monthly):

pnpm refresh:brain
git add src/data/brain-status.json
git commit -m "Refresh Brain status"
git push

refresh:brain needs SSH access to the home server, so only the owner can run it.

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Deploying

Push to main. Cloudflare builds and deploys in about 90 seconds.

Setting	Value
Build command	pnpm install --frozen-lockfile && pnpm build
Output directory	dist (served via the [assets] block in wrangler.toml)
Node version	NODE_VERSION=20

After each push, purge-cache.yml waits 2 minutes and then clears the Cloudflare cache. It needs two repo secrets: CLOUDFLARE_ZONE_ID and CLOUDFLARE_CACHE_PURGE_TOKEN.

Don't touch brain.aashishj.com. That subdomain belongs to a separate self-hosted server behind a Cloudflare Tunnel. This site owns only the apex domain (www redirects to it).

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Future work

• Per-post OG images. Build-time with satori + @resvg/resvg-js at src/pages/og/[slug].png.ts. Deferred.
• Search across writing. When posts pass ~20, add Pagefind as a post-build step.
• AI features. Cut on purpose (2026 clichés). If one comes back, it gets a real home — not a "coming soon" route. Adding a Worker means adding main = "src/worker/..." to wrangler.toml.

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Voice and content guardrails

• The employer is named: McKinsey (since 2026-07-16).
• The Gaps column on /skills is a feature. Specificity beats self-deprecation. Don't soften entries.
• No "passionate," "synergy," "10x," "leveraged."
• No generic openers. Start in the middle of a sentence if you have to.
• Specific numbers and proper nouns carry weight.
• One moment of dry self-awareness on the homepage is allowed and earned.

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License

All rights reserved. The content is Aashish's; the code structure can be referenced freely but please don't clone the design wholesale.