Architecture — the blueprint, in the open
This site is the argument. This page is the blueprint — how it's built, and how you'd build your own.
The thesis
For a proof-of-engineering site, the code is the pitch — so the honest thing is to show the machine, not just its output. This is the whole build, in the open: the architecture below, the decisions that shaped it (each one recorded as an ADR), and the reusable layer that lets you replicate it. I build this the way I want to be hired to build — AI-native development (Claude Code, Kiro, an AI-DLC / Loop Engineering loop) with the SDLC rigor most AI work skips. The site is that loop's public output.
The shape
A fully static SPA — React + Vite + TypeScript — served from S3 behind CloudFront, with a small CloudFront Function rewriting clean URLs. No backend: no server, no database, no auth. Cost near-zero, attack surface minimal, nothing to keep running at 3am. (→ ADR-0002 fully static / no backend · ADR-0013 S3 + CloudFront)
Content is markdown in the repo, resolved at build
Every page's content — the CV, this page, the articles — is markdown or typed data in the repo. Each route is prerendered at build (a headless snapshot) so the OG/SEO tags and crawlable HTML land in the served files — no SSR, no edge rendering. The downloadable CV PDF is printed from the live /me by the same step. (→ ADR-0004 build-time render · ADR-0005 every URL OG-complete · ADR-0034 the CV PDF)
The dev-loop is the product
The interesting part isn't the stack — it's how it's built: agent-led verification, human-residual. The agent proves "done" with mechanical gates and real evidence (lint, types, tests ≥85%, a green build, SonarCloud, functional E2E, a fresh-context reviewer); the human keeps the irreversible and architectural calls. That loop lives in a separate reusable plugin — tadeumendonca-skills — so it's a methodology you can adopt, not something bespoke to this site. (→ ADR-0003 trunk-based single-environment · ADR-0018 the CI gates)
The decision record IS the documentation
No separate architecture doc that drifts. Every load-bearing decision — and the reversed ones, kept as history — is an Architecture Decision Record, read through the keystone ADR-0001: lean by design, calibrated to strategy. The real "why" behind anything above is there, dated, with its trade-off.
Replicate it for your own context
It's all public — two repos, no secrets:
- tadeumendonca-io — this site and its infrastructure (
iac/: Terraform for S3/CloudFront/OIDC). - tadeumendonca-skills — the reusable dev-loop plugin: the principles, the agent personas, the permission guards.
The bar: a project only earns the portfolio when it clears docs/catalog-ready.md — the proof-of-engineering gate. Hold your own work to it.
Start here: fork the two repos, read the ADRs (start at 0001), adopt the skills plugin as your loop, then swap in your own content and positioning. The structure carries; the words are yours.
One honest limitation
This is a single-author site, tuned to one person's positioning — not a general-purpose template, and not battle-tested across many hands yet. Take the pattern, not the specifics. What's next, deferred on purpose: a richer visual blueprint and a step-by-step replicate walkthrough — this page is the map, not yet the guided tour.