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Building a Minimal Portfolio with TanStack Start

·3 min read

When building a portfolio site, it's easy to over-engineer. You start with a simple idea, then add animations, complex layouts, and before you know it, you've built something that takes seconds to load and is hard to maintain.

I wanted something different. Something that loads instantly, looks clean, and focuses on the content.

The Stack

This portfolio is built with TanStack Start, a full-stack React framework with file-based routing and server-side rendering. For styling, I'm using Tailwind CSS v4 and Shadcn/ui components.

The entire site is written in TypeScript and built with Vite. Blog posts are simple markdown files, parsed with gray-matter and rendered using react-markdown.

Typography

After starting with monospace fonts, I moved to a three-font system: Crimson Pro for headings and blog content, Inter for UI text, and JetBrains Mono for dates and code.

Performance

The site scores 100 across all Lighthouse metrics. Server-side rendering ensures instant initial paint, and optimized font loading keeps things fast.

What's Next

I plan to write more about building products and technical challenges. The system is simple enough for plain markdown but can handle more complex content when needed.

Sometimes the best solution is the simplest one.