Personal Portfolio (V1)

Problem

A personal engineering presence has to do two jobs at once: show the work and show how you think about systems. For v1 that meant a freeCodeCamp-compliant portfolio (fixed navbar, welcome hero, project tiles, profile link) that still read as deliberate architecture - not a theme dump or a framework demo I could not defend.

I did not yet need a blog, typed collections, or a multi-environment CDN. I did need:

• A constrained stack I could own end-to-end (vanilla HTML/CSS/JS)
• A build-time content seam so projects and profile data were not hand-copied into markup
• A design-system surface that documented tokens and patterns alongside the product
• Written decisions - ADRs and quality attributes - so future-me (and reviewers) could see why the stack looked the way it did

The risk of skipping that discipline was clear: a pretty single page that could not grow, could not explain itself, and would force a full rewrite the moment content or SEO became real requirements.

Solution

I built prj--personal-portfolio--v1 as a static site with an explicit architecture contract: vanilla frontend, Webpack 5 + Handlebars as a lightweight SSG, JSON content merged at build time, and GitHub Pages as the sole hosting path.

The product is two HTML outputs from one pipeline: the portfolio (index) - hero, about, technical arsenal, projects, experience, contact - and a design system page that documents colors, typography, components, and UI patterns (terminal, skill cloud, timeline, competency matrix). Multi-entry *.entry.js bundles keep each UI area's CSS/JS co-located with its Handlebars partial. Nine ADRs lock the framework, build, content, hosting, navigation, structure, Sass, and Babel choices.

Architecture

src/data/*.json          <- profile, projects, pages, skills, …
src/markup/*.hbs         <- index + design_system + partials/
src/styles/**/*.scss     <- tokens, reset, themes, components
src/scripts/**/*.entry.js
        │
        ▼
 Webpack 5
   HandlebarsPlugin  ->  dist/*.html   (all JSON merged into context)
   multi-entry JS/CSS ->  named bundles
   Sass -> MiniCssExtract -> minified CSS
   Babel + Terser -> production JS
        │
        ▼
 GitHub Actions (push main)
   npm ci -> npm run build -> peaceiris/gh-pages -> dist/
        │
        ▼
 GitHub Pages
   paulalexserban.github.io/prj--personal-portfolio--v1/

Approach

As architect and lead implementer, I treated a "simple" portfolio as a system with boundaries - content, composition, assets, and delivery - and wrote the decisions down before the stack could calcify by accident.

Platform boundaries first

• Vanilla by ADR, not by default - ADR-001 rejects React/Vue/Bootstrap so the site demonstrates fundamentals and stays cheap to host; complexity cost is an accepted trade-off, not an oversight.
• Webpack + Handlebars as SSG - ADR-002/003: pages are templates; content is JSON merged into the Handlebars context at build; output is plain HTML/CSS/JS with no runtime server.
• Modular build config - webpack.config.cjs stays thin; build/{paths,loaders,plugins,helpers}.cjs own the seams so the bundler remains evolvable.
• Multi-entry "component bundles" - only *.entry.js become Webpack entries; partials pull their own CSS/JS. That is a design-system instinct without a framework.
• Design system as a product page - design_system.hbs ships tokens, components, and patterns next to the portfolio so UI language is documented, not tribal.

Product surfaces

• Portfolio (index) - fixed navbar with theme toggle and scroll spy; terminal-style hero; about + animated stats from profile.json; technical arsenal; project cards filtered to status === "Done" from projects.json; experience timeline; contact with social links and email obfuscation (encode helper + decode on interaction).
• Design system - colors, Inter + JetBrains Mono type, buttons/cards/forms, terminal / skill-cloud / timeline / competency-matrix patterns, and usage guidelines.
• Responsive + themed - Sass breakpoints and scale; runtime light/dark via [data-theme] CSS custom properties and localStorage.
• freeCodeCamp as ASRs - welcome section, navbar, projects, and profile link treated as architectural constraints, not afterthoughts.

Architecture knowledge management

• Nine ADRs covering framework, build tools, content, hosting, responsive strategy, navigation, folder structure, Sass, and Babel.
• ASRs and fitness-function notes - performance and maintainability written as requirements; Performance API probes in the base template as a lightweight runtime fitness signal.
• Docs as part of the deliverable - vision, goals, technical requirements, and improvement backlog live in-repo so the case for the next version is already evidence-based.

Stack

Design decisions that mattered

• Constraint as architecture. Choosing vanilla was a recorded decision with accepted risks (UI complexity ceiling, later refactor) - the same discipline later used when v2 chose Next.js and v3 chose SQLite-at-build.
• Content at build, not copy-paste HTML. Even with incomplete JSON->UI binding on some sections, the pattern (data files in, HTML out) is the direct ancestor of v2's ContentRepository and v3's ingest pipeline.
• Two surfaces, one pipeline. Portfolio + design system from the same Webpack graph proves the site is a small product platform, not a single landing file.
• ADRs on a personal project. Decision logs are leadership practice: future changes argue against written rationale instead of reinventing the stack.
• GitHub Pages only. Correct for v1 cost and FCC scope; named the hosting ceiling early (ADR-004) so v2's dual preview/prod path was a deliberate upgrade, not a surprise.
• Trade-off named up front. No blog, no typed multi-collection model, no SEO sitemap/IndexNow, no content/app repo split, no tests - accepted for v1, listed as the problem statement that justified v2.

What shipped

• Live static portfolio on GitHub Pages
• Two built pages: portfolio showcase and design-system documentation
• JSON-at-build content for page shells, profile, and projects (with data stubs ready for coursework / arsenal / experience expansion)
• Multi-entry Webpack asset graph with Sass themes and light/dark toggle
• CI deploy on main, Dependabot, and a nine-ADR decision log
• The foundational static-SSG practice that Personal Portfolio V2 and the later content pipeline evolved

Outcome

V1 established an online presence and, more importantly, a habit of platform thinking on a small surface: content separated from markup, build as a contract, design system as a first-class page, decisions written as ADRs. Its limits - co-located content, incomplete data binding, single hosting path, no typed collections or SEO release seam - are exactly what v2 was designed to fix. The line from this Webpack/Handlebars site to a multi-surface content platform is continuous, not a rewrite from zero.

Predecessor to the platform

This is the first generation of the personal engineering site. Related successors:

• Personal Portfolio V2 - Next.js SSG, private MDX/JSON content repo, tags, SEO (sitemap + IndexNow), GitHub Pages preview + AWS prod
• Content Pipeline SSG Platform - SQLite artifact feeding four surfaces in v3
• AWS multi-subdomain hosting - production edge for the current platform
• Local Traefik HTTPS stack - local domain parity for v3