This site is built on 3 primary principles: speed, security, and accessibility. By decoupling content management from front-end delivery, rahtz.net loads lightning fast, protects back-end assets, and delivers accessible information for users of all abilities.
The front end is built using the web framework, Astro. Astro compiles to a flat, lightweight HTML file structure that enables image optimization, enforces best practices for accessibility, and is extremely flexible about content handling. Version control is managed in GitHub, and the site is developed using a CI/CD workflow. Changes pushed to the project's repository trigger a build process in AWS Amplify, which hosts the site. Amplify is backed by Amazon CloudFront's global CDN, so site updates are built and distributed within minutes.
Content is managed in Directus, which is an entirely unopinionated, headless CMS. Directus is self-hosted on EC2 instances inside an Amazon VPC. Astro consumes content from Directus during the build process, keeping content management entirely separate from the user experience. This separation allows for extremely lightweight hosting of the CMS (t2.micro instances).
Site structure, color contrast, aria labels, and other accessible features are validated using the WAVE tool from webaim.org. (The site must be tested using the WAVE browser plugin because the site's content security policies block asset loading in the web checker.)
All of this adds up to a 100 Lighthouse score, which in turn means the site is fast & secure and follows best practices for accessibility and SEO.
Interested in fast, secure, accessible websites?