Practical notes on converting heavy WordPress sites into faster Astro front ends, using Valet for local development, and testing new ways to work with Claude, Codex, Fireworks, Kimi, MiniMax, and local models.
Sharing the patterns, tradeoffs, and practical decisions behind hybrid WordPress and Astro builds, plus the AI tools that actually help day to day.
Astro as the fast layer on top of WordPress
Claude, Codex, and model comparisons that inform real work
Valet, Zed, Ghostty, and tools that keep the loop fast
---
const WORDPRESS_API = 'https://example.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts';
const posts = await fetch(WORDPRESS_API).then((res) => res.json());
---
<div class="grid gap-6">
{posts.slice(0, 5).map((post) => (
<a href={`/blog/${post.slug}`} class="rounded-lg border p-4">
<h3>{post.title.rendered}</h3>
<p>{post.excerpt.rendered}</p>
</a>
))}
</div>Instantly dive into my latest posts, connect with real experiences, and build knowledge with flexible, future-ready insights—no fluff holding you back.
Part 10 of the Forge series: a dedicated Debian VM for client staging sites, the scripts that pull live WordPress sites down safely, and the wildcard-certificate limit that changed the hostname plan
Part 11 of the Forge series: the storage tiers earn their keep — Navidrome as the low-risk first media service, Immich for photos only after the backup posture deserved them, and a 44GB import done safely
Part 12 of the Forge series: a self-hosted identity provider for the platform — OIDC for the Immich apps, a worker with no Docker socket, break-glass accounts, and a restore proof before trust
Part 4 of the Forge series: choosing Docker-inside-LXC over a VM, the shared network decision that shaped everything after, and the day the root disk hit 97%
Part 5 of the Forge series: layering uptime checks and a full metrics stack over the platform — and the honest lesson that dashboards nobody looks at are not monitoring
Part 8 of the Forge series: exposing a homelab without opening a single router port — the tunnel-plus-Caddy pattern, Cloudflare Access as the front door, and the DNS toggle that took everything offline
Notes from trying new coding assistants, local models, prompt patterns, and orchestration tools. Some experiments stick, some don’t, but the useful ones end up here.
name: Draft article with Claude
on:
workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
draft:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Generate outline
run: node scripts/generate-blog.js
- name: Review and refine
run: echo "Edit the draft, then publish once the structure and examples are solid."