As I write this it's early 2026 and vibe coding is having a moment. AI is getting smarter, more accessible, more mainstream. And it's not just for software engineers anymore, anyone can find a use for it. Even me?

And so I finally decide to build a personal site again. I've been down this road many times before and I've always wound up at the same destination...Wordpress 🤮

Bloated, slow, insecure and just plain needy. After a few weeks running a Wordpress site I just want to kill it. It's too much like hard work keeping it up to date and stopping people trying to hack into it. So what then?

Enter ChatGPT

I pour out my conundrum to the AI. I want a personal website, a blog and some pages, but I want simple, easy to maintain, fast to load, easy to secure. What do you suggest, ChatGPT?

A few seconds later I get a few suggestions. They're all static site generators, which I've heard about but never used. I take a look at their pro's and con's and it sounds like a good way forwatd. One in particular jumps out, 11ty (or Eleventy).

Eleventy?

I prompt for a bit more information. Is it easy to set up? What about templates? How do I update it? ChatGPT gives me a nice overview. It sounds pretty straightforward, seems quite flexible, could be ideal for my needs.

And then ChatGPT comes in with the killer question...

Do you want me to help you set it up?

Well, how could I refuse?

Starting Ugly

With some careful prompting, me and my new pal, ChatGPT, got the first iteration of the site up and running inside an hour. It worked but it's ugly.

My unstyled blog
My unstyled blog

Unstyled templates, broken layouts, missing links - it was a mess. But basically, it worked. We spent another hour getting all the pages rendering properly, displaying some content and pulling together a (really) basic style. I was actually having a great time!

The journey to a basic working site was full of mistakes, mostly made by the AI it has to be said. But I fed back the error messages and it was able to correct its own mistakes with ease.

A Site Emerges

And so here we are now.

The first styled iteration of the blog
The first styled iteration of the blog

We've got a base to build upon:

  • A home page that acts as a blog index
  • A simple projects index
  • Posts displayed in a clean grid, newest first
  • Pagination for later

Writing About the Process

One of the goals for this blog is to write about vibe coding and building this blog. This post is the first step on that journey.

I hope you and I stick with it!