Projects & Architecture

Platforms, and open-source software designed and built by Xavier Lawrence.

Architectural Philosophy

"Simplicity is my prerequisite for reliability." The architectures below are deliberately built with minimal moving parts, sovereign cloud ownership, and zero unnecessary runtime bloat.

Open Source 2026 — Present

Notesby Publishing Engine

Creator & Lead Developer

Visit Live GitHub

An open-source, distraction-free publishing platform designed for writers, thinkers, and architects who value typography, reading flow, and zero-maintenance infrastructure.

Tech Stack

#Astro v5#TypeScript#SCSS#Nginx Alpine#Docker#Google Cloud Run

Architecture & System Specs

Rendering Mode Pure static pre-rendering (output: "static")
Container Size Alpine Nginx image weighing under 25MB
Runtime Overhead Zero client-side JavaScript hydration bloat
Content Source Native MDX collection with Zod schema validation
Why Keep It Simple?

Traditional CMS platforms like WordPress or Ghost require database servers, memory-hungry node runtimes, cache plugins, and weekly security updates. Notesby compiles Markdown directly into static HTML served by a 25MB Alpine Nginx container on Cloud Run. It scales to zero when idle, costs pennies per month, and is virtually impervious to web injection attacks.

Production 2026

Sovereign Cloud Build Pipeline

Cloud Architect

A resilient continuous deployment architecture connecting GitHub repositories directly to isolated Google Cloud Run environments without third-party CI/CD intermediaries.

Tech Stack

#Google Cloud Build#Google Artifact Registry#Google Cloud Run#IAM#Secret Manager

Architecture & System Specs

Build Cycle Sub-60-second build and zero-downtime traffic migration
Security Model Least-privilege service accounts with sealed secret injection
Infrastructure Serverless container orchestration scaling 0 to N instances
Edge Delivery Global Google edge proxy with automatic managed SSL certificates
Why Keep It Simple?

Relying on external CI/CD vendors often means granting broad third-party access to production credentials. By anchoring our deployment pipeline inside native Google Cloud Build and Secret Manager, credentials never leave the Google Cloud trust boundary. A single git push triggers a sealed build and atomic rollout.