A website that builds itself
This site is generated by an agent from one file. The code was the easy half.
Every page here comes out of content/site.json. An agent reads it, writes the HTML, and refuses to ship if the result breaks a rule.
The rules are boring and specific. The build fails if an em dash appears anywhere, or if my employer's name shows up, or on a handful of phrases I never want a stranger to read. None of that is style preference. They're things I'd otherwise have to remember at eleven at night, which means eventually I wouldn't.
That's the whole trick, and it's not really about websites. I spent years as a designer carrying rules in my hands. Ask a good designer why a layout works and you get a shrug. The knowledge is real, it's just never written down anywhere a machine could reach it.
So the work moved. Instead of making the page, I wrote down what makes a page correct, and something else made the page. The output is only as good as the rules, which means the rules are now the craft.
I can change the color of this entire site by editing one number. I can't change what it claims about me without failing a check I wrote when I was thinking clearly. That tradeoff feels right.