The future is HTML-first

⎇ zanechee.dev · Published Jun 22, 2026

The future of my portfolio, at least.

This website, up until June this year, was a funny little markdown editor. Fancy Javascript, animations, everything and anything all bundled into one nice website. I've always emphasised on having joyful design, something flashy and fun.

But recently, I've shifted my approach to web development and design. Frontend in the agent era has always been aesthetics first, performance later - but an article I read recently shifted the tune for me. It's about being HTML-first, making sure that websites run on even the worst of devices, not just the latest iPhone.

There's two main inspirations for the switch to HTML-first:

The aesthetics of e-ink (and not burning your eyes)

I've always been enamoured by the prospect of using e-ink screens in everyday life - no blue light, no glare, and a decent enough recreation of what it's like to read with paper. To that end, this new website wants to follow the same principles of design: simple, user-friendly, and to achieve that I decided to do away with most of the animations altogether.

Every page is a simple HTML page with the Literata font, and some simple CSS for the spacing, highlights and hyperlinks. That's it. The e-ink aesthetic comes from a simple WebGL shader that goes on top. Static pages offer much faster load speeds and a smaller bundle, and loads lightning fast on all devices.

The bigger reason: agents

The second, bigger reason is that Javascript just doesn't work that well with agents. In the end, it's fair to say that the vast majority of traffic to my site will be agentic in nature, and I'd personally rather an agent be able to read the work that I'm proud of sharing, rather than encounter a brick wall that was my vibe-coded markdown editor. Besides, I don't think people trying to learn more about me lose much not having an editor to mess with.

If you do miss the markdown editor though, my former lead SWE Krishna from Hypotenuse built one inspired by it here: https://unfinal.page

Design is meant to be intentional, and I spent some time thinking about what I wanted my website to be - and more importantly, what I wanted the website to do: be a platform for me to discuss my thoughts, showcase work I'm proud of, and archive my journey in tech (and outside of it). Javascript and animation heavy websites definitely do still their place in the world, just not here. I'm happy on my (mostly) static island with my simple pages.

The fact remains though: agents will be reading your websites. So if your website is meant to showcase you and what you can do, why not give yourself the best chance to broadcast your talents to the world?