The Problem
A professional portfolio site needs to be fast, cheap to host, easy to deploy, and fully under version control — including the infrastructure. Most hosting platforms introduce ongoing cost, vendor lock-in, or a deployment process that requires manual steps.
The Approach
Astro-based static site with GitHub Actions CI/CD. Deployment uses OIDC authentication (no stored secrets), automated CloudFront cache invalidation, and full infrastructure as code. The entire platform — site, infrastructure, and deploy pipeline — lives in two Git repositories.
The Outcome
Production hosting at approximately $3/month (S3 + CloudFront + Route53). Deploys automatically on push to main.
Stack
| Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Astro 5.x | Static site framework |
| GitHub Actions | CI/CD pipeline |
| AWS OIDC | Keyless deploy authentication |
| AWS S3 | Static asset hosting |
| AWS CloudFront | CDN and HTTPS termination |
| AWS Route53 | DNS management |
| Terraform | Infrastructure provisioning |
Repository: website_denverbytes_com Live Site: denverbytes.com
AWS Well-Architected Alignment
- Operational Excellence: Full IaC; automated deploy and invalidation; no manual steps
- Security: OIDC keyless auth; no secrets stored in GitHub; CloudFront HTTPS enforcement
- Reliability: S3 11-nine durability; CloudFront multi-edge availability
- Performance Efficiency: Static generation; global CDN distribution; no server-side compute
- Cost Optimization: ~$3/month for production hosting; scales to millions of requests without cost change
- Sustainability: No idle compute; serverless architecture