This Site (Yes, The One You're Reading Right Now)

So, you're reading a blog post... about the site you're reading it on. How delightfully meta of us. Welcome to peak navel gazing, my friend — except this time the navel is called lacorte.dev, not a green CRT cosplay.

The Project

This is my personal developer site. I built it. I'm writing about it. On it. It's still Inception-adjacent, but with fewer spinning tops and more browser tools.

I used to treat "portfolio" as code for "a blog with a dark theme." That wasn't enough. LinkedIn and GitHub prove you exist; a site like this proves you ship. So lacorte.dev is a learn-in-public journal plus small things people can actually use: tools, games, article and job feeds, and even anonymous chat. If you only came for the post, the rest of the nav is optional. If you came for a JSON formatter at 2 AM — you're welcome, internet.

Start at /about, skim /posts, or skip straight to /tools and /games.

The Tech Stack (Because Everyone Cares)

Why Not WordPress?

You might be wondering: "Why didn't you just use WordPress like a normal person?" Well — I do use WordPress. For e-commerce sites, client projects, and all that jazz. It's fine. It works. It gets the job done.

But I don't like it enough to park my personal brand on it. WordPress is the reliable coworker who ships fast and that HR loves — until the plugin zoo and "quick AI fix" turn the codebase into spaghetti. For clients who want WordPress? Sure. Their data, their call. For my site? I want a stack I can explain end to end. When it breaks, I know who to blame (spoiler: me).

Why Not Ghost CMS?

Ghost is beautiful, clean, and modern. It's also a lot of machinery for "Markdown in a folder." Great if you're running a media company. For a personal site that also hosts tools and games? Overkill. I tried it once; my server made noises I didn't know servers could make. lacorte.dev stays on Next.js instead — not because Ghost is bad, but because I want one app that does more than a glorified Blogspot.

Next.js, React, TypeScript

I chose Next.js (App Router) because it's actually a good fit: SSR and SSG where they help, API and cron routes for aggregators, and a deploy path that doesn't fight me. This site runs on Next.js 16, React 19, and TypeScript — because JavaScript alone wasn't confusing enough, and arguing with the IDE about string | null builds character.

Markdown for Posts

Posts still live as Markdown under src/content/blog/{en,pt}/. No fancy CMS. Write in the editor, commit, deploy. It's the 90s with better syntax highlighting — and a locale folder so Portuguese isn't an afterthought.

Supabase, PeerJS, and Friends

The site isn't static-only anymore. Supabase backs Postgres, RLS, auth (including anonymous sessions for favorites/recents), and realtime where it matters. PeerJS carries anonymous chat traffic; signaling goes through Supabase, not Firebase. Crons on Vercel keep article and job feeds from going stale. Optional Blob storage exists for assets when we need it.

Tailwind and Theme Toggle

UI is Tailwind with class-based light/dark mode — zinc-ish surfaces, a violet primary, Pretendard for type. No terminal flicker. No "hacking the mainframe" LARP. The old Fallout CRT aesthetic was fun for a weekend; for a site people use as a toolbelt, readable contrast and a theme toggle win.

Features (The Ones That Actually Exist)

Bilingual Public UI

English at /…, Brazilian Portuguese at /pt/…. Blog posts are translated where it matters. Admin and login stay English-only — ops don't need a second locale.

Blog and Comments

You're in the blog. Posts are Markdown per locale. Comments are wired through Supabase for posts that support them — not a guest room I pretend works on Vercel while it doesn't.

Tools and Games

Dozens of browser tools (JSON, regex, bcrypt, image helpers, timers, and friends) and a pile of small games. They're part of the product, not a sidebar afterthought.

Articles and Jobs

Aggregated tech/dev articles and IT job listings from company career pages — refreshed on a schedule so the site is more than my own writing cadence.

Anonymous Chat

Peer-to-peer chat with Supabase signaling. It lives under the tools-ish surface, not always screaming from the main nav — but it's real.

About, Contact, Privacy

Because a personal site without those is just a vibes folder. Email works the old-fashioned way when forms aren't the point.

SEO and Analytics

Sitemaps, robots.txt, Open Graph images, Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights. Will Google care? Maybe. Did I still wire it? Yes.

Deployment: Vercel

I deploy on Vercel because it fits Next.js, the free tier is honest enough for a personal site, and one push still feels like magic — with more environment variables and fewer rabbits.

Serverless has tradeoffs (ephemeral filesystems, cold starts, "just put that in Blob"). That's not a gotcha unique to Vercel; it's the model. For lacorte.dev, the tradeoff is worth it: previews, crons, Analytics, and a boringly reliable production alias at www.lacorte.dev.

What I Learned

1. Don't ship nostalgia as the whole design — Terminal green was cute; a usable light/dark UI is what people keep open.
2. Markdown is still your friend — Simple content wins. Locales make it twice as much work, and that's fine.
3. TypeScript will save you — Even when you hate it, it's saving you from yourself.
4. A "blog" can be a platform — Tools and games aren't scope creep if they're why people return.
5. i18n is a product decision — /pt from day one beats "we'll translate later."
6. Serverless is a contract — Design for it instead of fighting the filesystem.

The Reality Check

Is lacorte.dev over-engineered for "a place to write"? Probably. Could I have used Medium? Sure. Building your own site is still a rite of passage — and now it's also a playground for experiments I don't want to dump on a client.

Is it perfect? No. Will I keep tinkering? Absolutely. Will I ever be satisfied? Probably not. That's the job.

You can find the code for this mess here.