Website Remodeling: A Modern Tech Stack Transformation

The digital landscape evolves rapidly, and keeping up with modern development practices is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. Recently, I embarked on a comprehensive remodeling of my website's tech stack, focusing on three key areas: content management, code organization, and deployment automation. Here's how I transformed my website using content-collections, monorepo architecture, and GitHub CI/CD.

The Challenge: Growing Complexity

As my website grew in complexity and content volume, I encountered several challenges:

• Content Management: Managing blog posts, portfolio items, and other content was becoming increasingly cumbersome
• Code Organization: Multiple related projects were scattered across different repositories
• Deployment Process: Manual deployment processes were time-consuming and error-prone
• Scalability: The existing structure was hindering further development and expansion

Solution 1: Content-Collections for Streamlined Content Management

What Are Content-Collections?

Content-collections represent a modern approach to content management, allowing developers to define typed content schemas and manage content as data rather than just files. This approach bridges the gap between traditional CMS systems and developer-friendly workflows.

Implementation Benefits

Type Safety: Every piece of content is now strongly typed, reducing runtime errors and improving developer experience.

// Example content schema
const blogSchema = {
  title: z.string(),
  category: z.string(),
  featured: z.boolean(),
  excerpt: z.string(),
  tags: z.array(z.string()),
  date: z.string(),
  // ... other fields
}

Automated Validation: Content is validated at build time, ensuring consistency across all posts and pages.

Better Developer Experience: IntelliSense and auto-completion work seamlessly with content, making updates faster and more reliable.

Flexible Querying: Content can be queried and filtered programmatically, enabling dynamic features like related posts, tag filtering, and advanced search functionality.

Solution 2: Monorepo Architecture for Better Organization

Why Monorepo?

Moving to a monorepo architecture was a game-changer for organizing my growing collection of related projects and packages.

Key Advantages

Unified Development Environment: All related projects now live in a single repository, making it easier to maintain consistency and share code.

Shared Dependencies: Common packages and utilities are shared across projects, reducing duplication and improving maintainability.

Simplified Versioning: Coordinated releases across multiple packages ensure compatibility and reduce integration issues.

Enhanced Collaboration: Team members can work on different parts of the system while maintaining visibility across the entire codebase.

Structure Overview

webforma/
├── apps/                  # Application projects
│   └── kjaneczekpl/      # This website
├── packages/             # Shared packages
│   ├── common/          # Common utilities
│   ├── common-classic/  # Classic design system
│   ├── common-elegant/  # Elegant design system
│   └── core/           # Core functionality
├── templates/           # Project templates
└── docs/               # Documentation

Solution 3: GitHub CI/CD for Automated Excellence

Continuous Integration Pipeline

The implementation of GitHub Actions transformed my development workflow from manual processes to a fully automated pipeline.

Key Features

Automated Testing: Every commit triggers comprehensive testing across multiple environments:

• Unit tests with Vitest
• Integration tests for API endpoints
• End-to-end tests with Playwright
• Type checking with TypeScript

Quality Assurance: Automated code quality checks ensure consistent standards:

• ESLint for code style
• Prettier for formatting
• Dependency vulnerability scanning
• Performance testing

Multi-Environment Deployment: Automated deployment to different environments:

• Preview deployments for pull requests
• Staging environment for testing
• Production deployment on merge to main

Deployment Workflow

# Simplified CI/CD workflow
name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'
      - run: npm install
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm run build

  deploy:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to production
        run: # deployment commands

Results and Impact

Performance Improvements

Build Time: Reduced build times by 40% through optimized dependencies and build caching.

Development Speed: Faster development cycles with hot-reloading and improved tooling.

Content Updates: Content updates now take minutes instead of hours, thanks to automated validation and deployment.

Reliability Enhancements

Error Reduction: Type-safe content management eliminated content-related runtime errors.

Consistent Deployments: Automated CI/CD pipeline ensures consistent, reliable deployments every time.

Rollback Capability: Easy rollback mechanisms provide confidence when deploying new features.

Developer Experience

Streamlined Workflow: Developers can focus on building features rather than managing infrastructure.

Better Collaboration: Monorepo structure facilitates better code sharing and collaboration.

Automated Quality: Automated testing and quality checks maintain high code standards without manual intervention.

Lessons Learned

What Worked Well

1. Gradual Migration: Implementing changes incrementally allowed for thorough testing and reduced risk.
2. Documentation: Comprehensive documentation of the new processes helped team adoption.
3. Monitoring: Implementing monitoring early helped identify and resolve issues quickly.

Challenges Overcome

1. Learning Curve: Team members needed time to adapt to the new tooling and processes.
2. Legacy Integration: Integrating new systems with existing legacy components required careful planning.
3. Performance Optimization: Fine-tuning the CI/CD pipeline for optimal performance took several iterations.

Future Enhancements

The modernization journey doesn't end here. Future improvements include:

• Advanced Analytics: Implementing comprehensive analytics for content performance
• Internationalization: Adding multi-language support using the new content system
• Progressive Web App: Enhancing the user experience with PWA features
• Edge Computing: Leveraging edge computing for improved global performance

Conclusion

The website remodeling project successfully transformed my tech stack from a traditional approach to a modern, scalable, and maintainable architecture. The combination of content-collections, monorepo organization, and automated CI/CD has not only improved the development experience but also enhanced the overall quality and reliability of the website.

This modernization serves as a foundation for future growth and innovation, enabling rapid development of new features while maintaining high standards for quality and performance.

Key Takeaways:

• Modern tooling significantly improves developer productivity
• Automated processes reduce errors and save time
• Proper architecture enables scalability and maintainability
• Investment in developer experience pays dividends in the long term

The journey of continuous improvement continues, and I'm excited to see how these foundational changes will support future innovations and growth.