Nick Buser
← Writing

How this site is built

A short tour of the content pipeline: MDX, zod-validated frontmatter, and interactive islands.

March 10, 2026 · 1 min read

Posts on this site are MDX files in the repo. Frontmatter is validated against a zod schema at build time, so a malformed post fails the build instead of shipping broken.

The interesting part is that prose and interactive components live in the same file. This chart is a d3 island embedded inline:

Everything around the islands is static HTML rendered on the server — only the islands ship JavaScript and hydrate. That keeps the reading experience fast while still allowing rich, bespoke interactivity exactly where the content earns it.

tip

The same <D3BarChart /> and <FlowDiagram /> components are available in any writeup. Add new ones by registering them in the MDX components map.

That's the whole idea: Medium-style writeups, but with real, custom visuals.