The Navigator Starter Theme

Alex Mercer

I’m a Principal Cloud & Platform Architect focused on resilient, low-latency distributed systems—designing multi-region edge architectures, declarative Terraform pipelines, and zero-SSR static web platforms.

This site runs on The Navigator—an open-source Astro 7.4 + Tailwind CSS v4 starter theme with optional AWS S3 Multi-Region Access Point (MRAP) + CloudFront SigV4a infrastructure and automated GitHub Actions / GitLab CI pipelines. Follow the 3-part setup flow below to make it yours without touching a single .astro template.

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Start Here · 3-Part Setup & Deployment Flow

Customize & Deploy This Theme in 3 Steps

Everything is data-driven. Start with Part 1 to configure your identity and content, then choose between zero-config static hosting (Part 3) or the optional multi-region AWS Terraform stack (Part 2).

All setup & blog articles
Step 1Required · ~10 min

Part 1 — Customize Identity, Theme & Content

Configure your profile in src/site.config.ts, UI mechanics & Formspree/Umami in src/theme.config.ts, page narratives in src/content/pages/, and career/acronym datasets in src/data/.

Read Part 1 Guide
Step 2Optional · AWS Stack

Part 2 — Multi-Region AWS S3 MRAP + CloudFront

Provision globally replicated S3 buckets, a Multi-Region Access Point (MRAP), native CloudFront SigV4a OAC, ACM TLS, and Route 53 DNS with Terraform 1.10+ (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or CLI).

Read Part 2 Guide
Step 3CI/CD & Static Hosts

Part 3 — CI/CD Dry-Run Pipelines & Static Hosting

Deploy ./dist/ in 60 seconds to Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages—or learn how .gitlab-ci.yml and .github/workflows/deploy.yml switch from 5s Dry-Run Mode to ETag delta sync.

Read Part 3 Guide

From the Blog — Setup Guides & Architecture

Complete 3-part setup & deployment guides, Markdown kitchen-sink component showcase, and edge architecture notes. View all articles

1–3 of 5
(updated Nov 6, 2026)
Setup Guide · Part 1

Part 1 — Customizing This Astro Theme: Identity, Feature Toggles, and Content

A practical guide to cloning, running, and customizing this modular Astro 7.4 + Tailwind CSS v4 site—toggling features, choosing your homepage, and adding content without editing a single .astro template.The Navigator is built around a simple rule: you can customize 100% of your identity, layout, bio, blog posts, career timeline, and photo gallery—and turn entire sections (blog, photography, log, now, about, tags, contact, contactForm, rss, llms) on or off or choose which page serves as your / homepage—without ever opening an .astro template file.

#AstroJS#Architecture#Tailwind CSS
10 min read
Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer

Cloud & Platform Architecture

(updated Nov 5, 2026)
Setup Guide · Part 2

Part 2 (Optional) — Provisioning the Multi-Region AWS Stack with Terraform (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions & Local CLI)

How to provision globally replicated AWS S3 buckets, a Multi-Region Access Point (MRAP), native CloudFront SigV4a Origin Access Control (OAC), ACM SSL, and Route 53 DNS using Terraform 1.10+ via GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, or Local CLI.The terraform/ directory provisions an optional, enterprise-grade multi-region AWS static hosting stack built around four core capabilities: 1. Native CloudFront SigV4a Origin Access Control (OAC): CloudFront signs requests directly to the S3 Multi-Region Access Point (MRAP) origin using signingprotocol = "sigv4a", requiring zero Lambda@Edge functions. 2. CloudFront Function (viewer-request): Handles apex-to-www 301 redirects (example.com → https://www.example.com) and static directory index rewrites (/about/ → /about/index.html) at the edge. 3. Managed Security Response Headers (Managed-SecurityHeadersPolicy): Attaches AWS's managed security headers policy (Strict-Transport-Security, X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN, Referrer-Policy, and X-XSS-Protection) at the CloudFront edge. 4. Terraform >= 1.10 Native S3 State Locking & AWS Provider ~> 6.0: Remote state locking uses native S3 .tflock lockfiles (uselockfile = true without DynamoDB), and multi-region S3 buckets use the AWS Provider 6.0 per-resource region attribute.

#AWS#Terraform#CI/CD
13 min read
Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer

Cloud & Platform Architecture

(updated Nov 6, 2026)
Setup Guide · Part 3

Part 3 — Automated CI/CD Pipelines, Starter Dry-Run Mode & Deploying to Any Static Host

How The Navigator's dual GitLab CI and GitHub Actions pipelines run in 5-second Starter Template Dry-Run Mode out of the box, how to deploy ./dist/ to Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages, and how scripts/s3-deploy.sh pairs ETag delta sync with 4-tier Edge/Browser Cache-Control headers.Because this theme compiles 100% of its pages, responsive WebP/AVIF photography variants, inline SVG Mermaid diagrams, Satori Open Graph social cards, and machine-readable /llms.txt indexes at build time into ./dist/ (output: 'static'), you are never locked into a single cloud provider.

#CI/CD#Architecture#AWS
10 min read
Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer

Cloud & Platform Architecture

#AstroJS#Tailwind CSS#Architecture
2 min read
Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer

Cloud & Platform Architecture

Why Zero-SSR Static Architecture Still Wins at the Global Edge

Evaluating latency, operational failure modes, and cost economics of pre-rendered static edge architectures fronted by CloudFront and multi-region S3 object storage.Modern web frameworks make it tempting to default to Server-Side Rendering (SSR) or edge compute workers for content-driven sites. Yet for engineering blogs, documentation portals, portfolios, and marketing sites, compiling everything ahead of time via Static Site Generation (SSG) remains unmatched in reliability, security, and Time to First Byte (TTFB).

#Architecture#AWS#Infrastructure
1 min read
Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer

Cloud & Platform Architecture

View all blog posts

From the Photo Roll

Architectural studies, coastal geometries, and high-altitude landscapes. Browse gallery

1–3 of 7
Estação das Docas Waterfront, Belém — Belém, Brazil
Antwerp Central Station Vaulted Hall — Antwerp, Belgium
Historic Bohemian Architecture, Czechia — Prague, Czechia
Roy’s Motel & Café Neon Sign, Amboy — Amboy, California
Old Town of Emporio, Santorini — Santorini, Greece
Illuminated Transit Shelter at Night, Risskov — Aarhus, Denmark
Scar House Reservoir Masonry Dam — Nidderdale, England
View the full photo gallery

From the Log

Chronological stream of operational field notes, release changelogs, and gallery additions. Browse the full log stream

1–3 of 7
View all log entries