This is the meta-post. The one where I write about building the thing I'm writing on.

I have zero background in tech, code, or anything IT-related. Everything here was built with AI assistance — specifically Claude — and a clear sense of what I wanted the end result to feel like.

Why a digital garden and not a blog

I've tried maintaining a blog twice. Both times I abandoned it within two months. The problem wasn't discipline — it was pressure. Every post felt like it needed to be complete, polished, publishable.

A digital garden is different. The metaphor is better. Gardens grow slowly, unevenly, and that's the point. Some notes are seeds. Some are fully grown. They exist at different stages of development, and that's okay.

The design process

I worked with Claude Design to mock up the visual direction before writing a single line of code. We went through questions about layout, feel, color, typography. I described what I wanted as a feeling — a designer's sketchbook, something with texture and personality — and the AI translated that into a design system.

The best tools disappear. They stop being tools and become extensions of how you think.

Three variations. I picked the notebook spread. Then we iterated — adjusting the hero section, adding Facebook and Instagram to the footer, tweaking proportions until it felt right.

From design to code

Once the hi-fi design was approved, the spec was passed to Claude Code (a different tool — this one writes actual production code). The instructions were clear: recreate this pixel-perfect in Next.js, set up MDX so I can write posts myself, deploy to Vercel.

The result is what you're reading now.

What I actually do to publish a post

  1. Create a new .mdx file in content/notes/
  2. Fill in the frontmatter (title, date, tag, excerpt)
  3. Write the content in plain text with simple markdown
  4. Push to GitHub
  5. Vercel automatically deploys within about 60 seconds

That's it. No dashboard, no CMS login, no export steps. Just writing.

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The goal was always to make publishing feel like writing in a notebook. I think we got close.