How I Built This Portfolio Site

Why static#

A portfolio should be fast and reliable. No backend, no database — the page is complete the moment it loads, and there is almost nothing to maintain.

Structure#

Content lives in /zh, /en and /ja directories, with the same pages in all three languages and a one-click switcher in the header. build.py renders the Markdown and templates into static HTML, giving every page its own URL for sharing and search engines.

Markdown-first writing#

Adding a post means creating one .md file:

---
title: Post title
date: 2026-08-07
tags: tag
---

Body here...

Later I added a lightweight admin backend (server/admin_server.py) that reads and writes those same Markdown files and triggers a rebuild from the browser. So day-to-day updates don't require SSH — and the source stays plain Markdown. Static and maintainable aren't mutually exclusive.

One-command deploys#

bash scripts/publish.sh builds the site, then atomically swaps dist/ into /var/www/portfolio, rolling back automatically on failure. Because the deploy path is fixed and repeatable, I can change content any time without worrying about breaking the live site.

Automation: the daily briefing#

Part of the blog is automated: ai-design-daily archives feed into scripts/daily_to_blog.py, which turns them into trilingual posts. The machine drafts, I polish, then it goes through the same build-and-publish pipeline. The tools do the repetitive work; I do the judgment.

Deployment#

The server only needs Nginx serving static files. The ICP filing has been approved and the domain huxuancheng.top is now bound to the server; HTTPS is live as well, so the whole site is served over https.