Mastering Primary

Anonymous personal blog at masteringprimary.com. Astro + Vercel + Buttondown.

Stack

• Astro (static site, content collection in markdown)
• Vercel (hosting, deploys on git push)
• GoDaddy (domain, with WHOIS privacy)
• Buttondown (email subscriptions — to be wired up)

Writing flow

# new post
cp src/content/blog/_template.md src/content/blog/my-new-post.md
# edit the frontmatter and body, then:
git add . && git commit -m "post: title here" && git push

Vercel rebuilds on push. Frontmatter draft: true keeps a post out of the build, RSS feed, and homepage. Set to false (or remove) when ready.

Local dev

npm install
npm run dev          # http://localhost:4321
npm run build        # production build
npm run preview      # preview the build

Deployment (one-time setup)

1. Create a private GitHub repo (any name, e.g. masteringprimary). Do not make it public — even though there is no identifying information in the code, keeping the repo private removes any chance of someone correlating commits to a real identity.
2. Push this code to the repo.
3. Vercel: sign in with GitHub, import the repo, accept defaults. The @astrojs/vercel adapter is already configured.
4. Custom domain on Vercel: add masteringprimary.com and www.masteringprimary.com, then update the GoDaddy DNS records as Vercel instructs (usually an A record on root and a CNAME on www).
5. GoDaddy WHOIS privacy: confirm domain privacy is on (free with most GoDaddy plans).
6. Buttondown: create an account with a burner email, then edit src/pages/subscribe.astro and set BUTTONDOWN_USERNAME to your Buttondown handle.
7. Old Ghost site: once the new site is live and DNS has cut over, cancel the Ghost subscription.

Anonymity checklist

• WHOIS privacy on at GoDaddy
• GitHub repo set to private
• No analytics installed (intentional — never add any)
• No social links anywhere on the site (intentional — never add any)
• Burner email used for Buttondown
• No real names, no client/employer detail, no day-to-day specifics in posts

File layout

src/
├── components/        # Header, Footer, BaseHead, FormattedDate
├── content/blog/      # Markdown posts (one file per post)
├── layouts/           # BlogPost layout
├── pages/             # index, archive, about, subscribe, blog/[...slug], rss.xml
└── styles/global.css  # All site styles, single file

Design rules

• One column, ~640px content width, system serif body
• Black ink on white background, no accent colour
• No images on posts unless explicitly added (and added rarely)
• No JavaScript on the client (Astro ships zero JS by default; keep it that way)