I leveraged Astro in my Spec Driven Development project to create a fast, scalable web application that serves content efficiently. I evaluated the benefits of Astro, considering if an AI would be able to build the site using it and if the result would be satisfactory for a personal content site. Astro’s approach to static site generation and component-based architecture made it a reasonable choice for this project. This post explores what makes Astro unique and how it enables developers to build fast, content-focused websites.

Why Astro?

Traditional frameworks often ship too much JavaScript to the browser, leading to slower load times and poor user experience. Astro renders HTML on the server and only hydrates interactive components when needed. This results in faster load times and better performance, especially important for a personal site focused on content. Further, Astro has a built in content management system allowing me to write posts in Markdown with rich metadata.

Key Benefits

  1. Zero JavaScript by default - Pages load instantly
  2. Content collections - Built-in content management
  3. Excellent performance - this site has a Lighthouse score of 100 for performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO

Content Collections

One of Astro’s standout features is its content collections system:

// src/content/config.ts
import { defineCollection, z } from 'astro:content';

const posts = defineCollection({
  type: 'quote',
  schema: z.object({
    title: z.string(),
    quote: z.string(),
    sourceType: z.enum(['book', 'article', 'video', 'other']),
    source: z.string().optional(),
    context: z.string().optional(),
    publishedAt: z.date(),
    author: z.string().optional(),
    tags: z.array(z.string()).optional(),
  }),
});

export const collections = { posts };

This leads to quotes on this site being stored as Markdown files with Frontmatter:

---
title: 'Be True to Yourself'
quote: 'I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.'
publishedAt: 1845
tags: ['authenticity', 'courage', 'self-acceptance']
author: 'Frederick Douglass'
sourceType: 'book'
source: 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'
context: 'Prioritize your own values and integrity over the opinions of others or the pursuit of money. Embracing authenticity leads to greater self-respect and fulfillment.'
---

Building for Performance

Astro’s architecture naturally leads to better performance:

  • Static by default - No unnecessary JavaScript
  • Partial hydration - Only interactive parts use client-side code
  • Image optimization - Built-in responsive images
  • CSS optimization - Automatic critical CSS inlining

“Astro lets you build faster websites with less complexity” - The Astro Team

Conclusion

Astro worked out well for building my personal site. Because the AI was able to do all the setup for me, I was able to get the site running including a full test suite within 2 days. The result is a fast, content-focused website that performs well on all metrics.