Claude Memory Bank — Lahiru Pathirage

Project Overview

A Jekyll-based personal site that doubles as a professional landing page and a writing journal. Hosted on GitHub Pages from the master branch.

• URL: https://lpsandaruwan.github.io
• Site title: “Lahiru Pathirage”
• Author: Lahiru Sandaruwan Pathirage (lpsandaruwan)
• Location: Sri Lanka
• Email: hello@lpsandaruwan.dev
• Focus: AI agents, serverless architecture, distributed systems, Linux, open source

History (do not repeat)

Two previous design iterations have been removed, do not re-introduce:

1. KDE Plasma desktop simulation (taskbar, draggable windows, fake file manager). Removed in 2026-05.
2. Modern dev-blog with cyan/indigo gradient theme (Inter sans-only, glowy cards, dark canvas). Removed in 2026-05 in favour of the editorial design below.

The active design as of 2026-05-28 is editorial: warm-paper canvas, near-black ink, single terracotta accent, Fraunces display + Inter body + JetBrains Mono, hairline rules only (no card shadows). Spec lives at docs/specs/editorial-redesign.md. Implementation plan at docs/plans/editorial-redesign.md.

Architecture

Core stack

• Jekyll 4.3 static site generator
• GitHub Pages for hosting (no CI required)
• SCSS under _sass/, compiled by assets/main.scss
• Liquid templates with layouts + includes
• Rouge for syntax highlighting (themed at _sass/syntax.scss to match the editorial palette)
• Disqus for comments (shortname lpsandaruwan)
• Plugins: jekyll-feed, jekyll-sitemap, jekyll-redirect-from

File layout

├── _config.yml              # title, plugins, /writing/:title/ permalink, defaults
├── index.html               # frontmatter only; layout: home
├── writing.html             # /writing/ archive — year-grouped + filterable
├── about.html               # /about/ — bio, work history, speaking
├── now.html                 # /now/ — nownownow.com style
├── 404.html                 # /404.html — italic void line + links
├── _layouts/
│   ├── default.html         # head + header + main + footer + script
│   ├── home.html            # editorial home (hero + practice + work + writing + contact)
│   └── article.html         # single post layout with dropcap, Disqus, prev/next
├── _includes/
│   ├── head.html            # meta, OG/Twitter cards, fonts, favicon, RSS
│   ├── header.html          # sticky editorial nav (Work, Writing, About, Contact)
│   ├── footer.html          # 3-col footer (kicker + social + attribution)
│   ├── post-card.html       # one editorial row — used by home + writing
│   ├── selected-writing.html # wraps post-card in a <ul class="editorial-list">
│   └── reading-time.html    # words / 200, min 1
├── _sass/
│   ├── variables.scss       # palette + type + spacing + container tokens
│   ├── base.scss            # reset, body, headings, focus, reduced-motion
│   ├── layout.scss          # container, header, footer
│   ├── components.scss      # hero, practice, editorial-list, post-prose, etc.
│   └── syntax.scss          # Rouge theme on the editorial palette
├── assets/
│   ├── main.scss            # imports all _sass partials
│   ├── js/main.js           # sticky header, active nav, filter, copy buttons
│   └── images/
│       ├── profile.jpg      # used for hero (duotoned via SVG filter) and OG
│       └── favicons/        # favicon.svg, favicon.ico, mstile, site.webmanifest
├── _posts/                  # markdown posts (.md, .markdown)
└── docs/
    ├── specs/editorial-redesign.md
    └── plans/editorial-redesign.md

Design system

Palette (one set, no dark mode)

Typography

• Display: Fraunces — Google Fonts variable serif with opsz axis 9-144, weights 400/500/600. Headlines force font-variation-settings: 'opsz' 144 for full display “wonk”; body sets font-optical-sizing: auto.
• Body / UI: Inter — 400/500/600.
• Mono: JetBrains Mono — 400 only. Used for kickers, meta, dates, copy-button labels.

Type tokens in _sass/variables.scss:

$font-display: 'Fraunces', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;
$font-sans:    'Inter', system-ui, -apple-system, 'Segoe UI', sans-serif;
$font-mono:    'JetBrains Mono', ui-monospace, 'Menlo', 'Consolas', monospace;

Layout

• Container: max-width: 1280px, padding-inline: clamp(24px, 6vw, 80px).
• Spacing scale $space-1 (4px) → $space-32 (128px), multiplicative.
• All section dividers are 1px $hairline rules. No card shadows, no glows, no gradients.

Signature visual treatments

• Duotone portrait on the home hero. Original profile.jpg is untouched; <filter id="duotone"> (defined inline in _layouts/home.html) maps luminance to ink + accent at runtime. 6% SVG turbulence grain overlaid via mix-blend-mode: multiply.
• Hero headline overlap: .hero-copy { margin-left: -40px; z-index: 2 } makes the Fraunces headline visually cross over the portrait’s right edge. The page’s defining moment.
• Now pill: small accent dot with a 1.6s opacity pulse (disabled by prefers-reduced-motion).
• Animated underlines: linear-gradient($accent, $accent) as a background-image with background-size: 0 1px → 100% 1px on hover/focus. Used on nav, hero links, editorial titles, post-prose anchors, footer links.
• Dropcap: .post-prose p:first-of-type::first-letter — Fraunces 4.2em float-left in accent. Silently no-ops if a post opens with anything other than a paragraph.

Kicker / category convention

Existing posts use categories: [Posts, <real-topic>, …] as a label convention where the first entry is always literally "Posts". The kicker logic in _includes/post-card.html, writing.html, and _layouts/article.html walks the array and picks the first entry that is not Posts/posts. Falls back to NOTES when the array is empty or contains only “Posts”.

The same skip applies to the Filed Under footer on single posts. The writing-index chip set is derived from these resolved kickers via site.posts | … | uniq | sort.

Pages

Development

Local commands

bundle install                 # first time / when Gemfile changes
bundle exec jekyll serve       # local preview at http://127.0.0.1:4000
bundle exec jekyll build       # output to _site/

Adding a new post

1. Create _posts/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md.
2. Frontmatter:

   ---
   title: "Post title"
   date: YYYY-MM-DD
   categories: [Posts, <RealTopic>]   # first non-"Posts" entry becomes the kicker
   dek: "Optional subtitle shown beneath the headline."
   ---
   

3. Body in Markdown. Code fences get Rouge highlighting + an injected Copy button.

Conventions

• Editorial style only. No card shadows, no glow, no gradients.
• Animations stay subtle and respect prefers-reduced-motion.
• All visual tokens come from _sass/variables.scss — never hardcode colours in components.
• Use _includes/reading-time.html and the post-card include for any post listing.
• Disqus shortname is lpsandaruwan; don’t change without updating _config.yml.

Social

• GitHub: lpsandaruwan
• LinkedIn: lpsandaruwan
• Twitter / X: lpsandaruwan
• YouTube: @lpsandaruwan
• Facebook: lpsandaruwan1

Open follow-ups

• True 1200×630 OG card (currently falls back to profile.jpg).
• Apple touch icon PNG at 180×180 (currently SVG favicon serves most surfaces).
• Real case studies behind the four # placeholders in Selected Work.