Under the hood

How this site is built. The decisions, the stack, the trade-offs. Source is public on GitHub — fork freely.

Stack

Framework None. Plain HTML, CSS, JavaScript. No build step. Type system None. Vanilla JS for the small surface area we need. Styling Hand-written CSS with custom properties for theming. Typography Inter (Google Fonts), system-ui fallback. Hosting Vercel (static), CDN-backed, served from the Bombay edge. Domain sunejaux.space ($1.99 promo on .space TLD). Source control github.com/hsuneja5s/Harshit_Portfolio_2026 Deploy Auto-deploy on push to main via Vercel-GitHub integration. Analytics Vercel Web Analytics + Speed Insights (script-tag, no SDK). Search Submitted to Google Search Console with sitemap.xml. Built with Claude Code (Sonnet 4.6) — in pair-programming mode, not autopilot.

Decisions

Why no framework? A senior PD's portfolio is one page plus a handful of deep pages. React, Next.js, even Astro — all overkill. The "no build step" decision means I can edit any HTML file in any editor, push to main, and have it live in 20 seconds. The framework I'd need to learn would cost more time than I'd ever save.

Why Vercel over Framer / Webflow / Squarespace? Static hosting + per-push deploys + Edge CDN, all free. I considered Framer (visual builder + hosting) but the static-HTML route gives me full control over the spine of every case study. For a Design Engineer angle, the medium is the message.

Why CSS variables instead of a CSS-in-JS solution? Theming with data-theme="dark" + variable swap is one line per token. CSS-in-JS would require a build step and a runtime. Custom properties have been browser-native since Chrome 49 (2016).

Why Claude Code as the build partner? Pair-programming with Claude is faster than solo for the boring parts (HTML scaffolding, repeating layouts) and equally fast for the interesting parts (deciding what content goes on a page). I write the strategy; Claude writes the boilerplate. Reviewing diffs is the new typing.

Performance budget

No external JavaScript bundles beyond two analytics scripts (each defer-ed)
One Google Font request for Inter (subset, display=swap)
Each page ships in < 15KB of HTML
Aggressive caching of static assets (CSS, JS, images) via vercel.json — 1 year immutable
Target: full first-paint < 1s on 4G in India

What I'd add next

A real Open Graph image (1200×630, generated programmatically from page metadata)
Deep-pages for each AI plugin with embedded demo videos
A writing/notes section once I have 3-5 pieces drafted
Webmentions-style guestbook (if I want one — undecided)

Fork it

The whole codebase is public. If you want to use this layout for your own portfolio, fork the repo, swap the content, redeploy. Credit appreciated but not required.

github.com/hsuneja5s/Harshit_Portfolio_2026 →

If you want to chat about the build, reach me at hsuneja.suneja7@gmail.com.