Building with Astro, first impressions

When I started building this version of my site, I knew I wanted to use Astro. Mostly to learn it, as most things I build are motivated by that. But also because it felt like the right tool. A content-driven site, mostly static, lots of markdown files. It made sense.

The thing that has impressed me most is content collections. You define a schema, Astro generates the types, and you can apply those schemas to a group of files directly in your IDE. I have a single content directory where my experience and project data live as JSON files, fully typed and validated. To add a new job or project, I create a new file and it shows up. No database, no CMS, nothing extra.

My last website went stale because updating it meant touching component code. You keep postponing it, and before you know it the content is a year out of date. When it is just a file, you actually do it. There is something satisfying about that, which makes you want to keep things current rather than dreading it.

That is probably not unique to Astro, but it is the first time a setup has actually felt this way for me.