The BuiltFast Developer Portal is a documentation hub, API reference, blog, and open source showcase built with Jekyll and Tailwind CSS 4. After 28 years of building websites — starting as a teenager in the Fireworks/Macromedia days — this is the first one where I look at it and genuinely wonder how it came from me. Finishing the API docs on my birthday felt like shipping something actually special for once.
The portal serves as the public-facing technical presence for BuiltFast: comprehensive API documentation for Vector Pro (serverless WordPress hosting), a technical blog, an open source project showcase with GitHub integration, product documentation, and team information. It runs on GitHub Pages with automated deployments.
Problem Solved
I started in frontend — Fireworks mockups, slicing images, table layouts — but struggled with it and gravitated toward backend development in college. Then came Bootstrap, which was a godsend for people like me. You could finally deliver clean UI without being a designer. But it was always immediately obvious. Every Bootstrap site had that Bootstrap look, and everyone knew it.
Tailwind changed the game by giving you utility classes without prescribing components. But the challenge remained: how do you make something that doesn’t scream “I used a CSS framework” to anyone who’s seen a few websites?
This project was built entirely with Claude’s help, iterating on the design until it felt distinctive. Tech-savvy insiders might recognize Tailwind under the hood, but the average person — even technical non-developers — won’t look at it and think “oh, that’s the same theme as every other site.” That’s the bar I was trying to clear, and I think it clears it.
Architecture
Dark-first design system: The entire visual language starts from dark mode,
with light mode as an override. The CSS architecture uses Tailwind 4’s @theme
layer for design tokens combined with CSS custom properties for theme-aware
colors, so components automatically adapt without conditional classes.
Terminal aesthetic: JetBrains Mono as the primary font, subtle dot-grid backgrounds, terminal-style cards that stay dark regardless of theme, and an overall feel that belongs in a developer’s workflow. Two accent colors (cyan and orange), minimal animations, and letting content breathe.
API Documentation Pipeline
The API docs were the most technically demanding piece. They’re generated from the actual Laravel codebase using Scribe, then automatically synced via cross-repository GitHub Actions whenever the API changes. A custom Jekyll plugin transforms Scribe’s YAML output into a usable reference with configurable endpoint group ordering, code examples in curl/PHP SDK/JavaScript SDK formats, proper URL parameter substitution, syntax-highlighted JSON responses, and collapsible sections.
Every endpoint has accurate parameter descriptions, proper typing, realistic examples, and documented error responses. The goal was documentation that developers actually want to use — where the examples actually work when you copy-paste them.
Key Components
Blog posts include a reading progress bar, automatic table of contents with scroll-spy highlighting, author attribution, share buttons, and previous/next navigation.
Documentation uses a collapsible sidebar with category grouping and active page highlighting.
Accessibility: Skip links, proper focus-visible states, ARIA labels on icon-only links, reduced motion support, 44px minimum touch targets, and semantic heading hierarchy.
The Easter Egg
Hidden behind the Konami code is Vector Overdrive — a full space shooter where you defend BuiltFast’s lambdas from invading space cats. This started as “wouldn’t it be funny if…” and spiraled into 2,100 lines of JavaScript with CRT effects, chiptune sound via Web Audio API, ten waves of increasingly aggressive space cats, powerups, and mobile touch controls.
The victory screen reads: “Brought to you by BuiltFast. If we care this much about an easter egg, imagine how much we care about your uptime.”
It’s completely unnecessary. It adds nothing to the documentation’s utility. And it’s my favorite part of the entire site.
Impact
After decades of shipping sites I was merely satisfied with, this one I’m actually proud of. The design feels like mine, not like a template I customized. The API docs are the kind I wish every API had. And for the first time, I’m not embarrassed to show a frontend person what I built.