alexgaoth.github.io

Personal website repo for Alex Gao (alexgaoth). Two deployed surfaces:

Surface	Path	Stack	Host	Domain
Intro site	/	Static HTML/CSS/JS	GitHub Pages	intro.alexgaoth.com
Main site	/astro	Astro 5 (+ React islands)	Vercel	alexgaoth.com

app.alexgaoth.com is a legacy hostname that redirects to alexgaoth.com. The intro site is a deliberate doorway: it canonicalizes to alexgaoth.com and has no sitemap of its own.

Every page of the main site is static HTML at build time — full per-route meta, canonical, Open Graph, and JSON-LD in source, with interactivity hydrating as islands. See ADDITION-RULES.md for how to add content of any kind.

Repo layout

/
  index.html, css/, js/     Intro site (GitHub Pages)
  source/                   Intro site images
  robots.txt, CNAME         Intro host doorway config
  resume.pdf                Intro-site copy of the resume
  .nojekyll                 REQUIRED — GH Pages must not run Jekyll over /astro
  scripts/                  audit-raw-html.mjs (SEO audit), send-thought-notification.py
  workers/gallery-list/     Cloudflare Worker listing the gallery R2 bucket
  .github/workflows/        Buttondown email on new thought

/astro                      The main site (Vercel, root directory = astro)
  src/pages/                One file per route; rss.xml/sitemap.xml/llms.txt are endpoints
  src/layouts/BaseLayout.astro   Site-wide head: meta, canonical, OG, base JSON-LD
  src/islands/              React islands (now board, regents scene, gallery grid, ink canvas)
  src/data/                 content.js, profileData.js, homeRailData.js, nowData.js,
                            poetryData.js, thoughts/*.md (content collection)
  src/lib/                  thoughts/gallery/projects/supabase helpers
  src/config/site.js        SITE constants, APP_ROUTES, NAVIGATION_ITEMS — single source for URLs/nav
  public/                   Static assets; profile.json is the canonical "now" data

Main site routes

/ · /about · /resume · /projects · /projects/:slug (featured) · /thoughts · /thoughts/:slug · /writing · /quotes · /now · /art · /gallery · /regents · /poetry · /poetry/en · /ci · /ci/en

Development

cd astro
npm install
npm run dev     # local dev server
npm run build   # static build into astro/dist (validates thought frontmatter)

Guest slips on /now need astro/.env with PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL and PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY (same values live in the Vercel project settings).

Verify a build the way a crawler sees it:

node scripts/audit-raw-html.mjs astro/dist index.html:/ about.html:/about
node scripts/audit-raw-html.mjs https://alexgaoth.com / /about /thoughts   # against production

Deployment

Push to master deploys both halves: GitHub Pages serves the repo root (intro), Vercel builds /astro (root directory astro, cleanUrls on). If a GitHub Pages build wedges in "building", re-kick it: gh api -X POST repos/{owner}/{repo}/pages/builds.

SEO upkeep (monthly, ~1h)

• Search Console: indexed-page counts, not-indexed reasons, sitemap health, Core Web Vitals.
• Only bump a thought's modified frontmatter on meaningful edits — it drives sitemap lastmod.
• Add internal links when publishing; keep titles specific; keep structured data matching visible text.
• Quarterly: test a few identity/topic prompts in AI search surfaces (Google AI Mode, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot) and note whether site pages get cited.