---
title: "Yonnia.com"
description: "This site. A zero-dependency static generator that ships not one line of JavaScript to the browser."
canonical: https://yonnia.com/en/projects/yonnia-site
language: en
status: active
year: 2026
stack: ["Node.js","HTML","CSS"]
repo: https://github.com/yonnia/yonnia.com
homepage: https://yonnia.com
---
# Yonnia.com

This site. A zero-dependency static generator that ships not one line of JavaScript to the browser.

The site you are reading, and the thing that generates it.

## Why hand-write it

I was going to use Astro. What changed my mind was not dependency squeamishness but a specific observation: this site's SEO ceiling is set entirely by the HTML it outputs, and has nothing to do with what generated that HTML. And the HTML a static blog needs is far less complex than a build toolchain.

So the scope defined the tool rather than the other way round. If all I need is "turn Markdown into correct HTML", Node's standard library already covers it.

## What it actually is

- A CommonMark subset renderer, covering the syntax I actually write
- A YAML front-matter parser that supports only the shapes I actually use, and raises on anything else rather than guessing
- One route table every URL derives from — pages, Markdown mirrors, feeds, sitemap
- One `head()` function that owns every crawler-visible tag
- A set of schema.org builders where each entity has a stable `@id` and is defined exactly once site-wide

## Constraints

- **Zero JavaScript output.** Table of contents, language switching, and dark mode are all server-rendered or pure CSS.
- **Build-time validation.** A missing description, an over-long title, a future date, a second H1 in the body — the build fails rather than shipping it quietly.
- **Post-build audit.** A separate script checks every page for canonical collisions, hreflang reciprocity, internal links that resolve, JSON-LD that parses, and images with alt text and dimensions.

## What it costs

The obvious one: no incremental build, no HMR. A full rebuild is about 100ms, so neither is needed yet. When it is, the content is plain Markdown and moving to Astro is a day's work.

The second: I maintain the Markdown renderer myself. Three edge cases have already forced changes to it. That cost is real — it is just currently lower than maintaining a dependency tree.