IDEAS, DECISIONS & LESSONS

Journal

Notes on AI, architecture and building useful products.

17 articles

04 Mar 2026 · 36 min read

architecture

Shipping the Template: Multi-Tenant Onboarding, Cost Savings, and the Honest Retrospective

Part 9 of 9 — Turning MarketingOS into a reusable template: new client onboarding in under an hour, multi-tenant content management, cost analysis showing 70% reduction per site, lessons learned, and what I'd do differently.

02 Mar 2026 · 31 min read

cicd

Containerizing Umbraco and Next.js: Multi-Stage Docker Builds, Docker Compose, and a CI/CD Pipeline That Builds Confidence

Part 7 of 9 — Dockerizing MarketingOS with multi-stage builds for both Umbraco and Next.js, Docker Compose for the full stack, GitHub Actions CI/CD with contract tests, automated deployments, and environment promotion.

01 Mar 2026 · 8 min read

Umbraco AI Migration Playbook: Why Your CMS Needs to Move — Now (Part 1 of 8)

Part 1 of 8 — Umbraco 8 is already end-of-life. Umbraco 13 expires in December 2026. Here's the real cost of staying put, what Umbraco 17 delivers, and how AI changes the economics of every migration you've been delaying.

28 Feb 2026 · 34 min read

Gemini AI for Marketing Content: Generation, Translation, SEO Optimization, and the Content Workflow That Replaced a Copywriter

Part 5 of 9 — Integrating Google Gemini API with Umbraco for AI-powered content generation, multi-language translation, SEO meta optimization, and a content review workflow that keeps humans in the loop.

27 Feb 2026 · 30 min read

nextjs

SEO That Actually Ranks: JSON-LD, Metadata, Sitemaps, and Core Web Vitals in a Headless CMS

Part 4 of 9 — Implementing production-grade SEO for marketing websites: dynamic metadata from Umbraco, JSON-LD structured data, XML sitemaps, robots.txt, Open Graph, Core Web Vitals optimization, and Lighthouse 100.

26 Feb 2026 · 18 min read

isr

Rendering Umbraco Content in Next.js: Server Components, ISR, and a Component Library That Scales

Part 3 of 9 — Integrating Next.js 15 App Router with Umbraco's Content Delivery API using Server Components, building a reusable block renderer, ISR for content updates, and a marketing component library.

25 Feb 2026 · 20 min read

api

Content Modeling That Marketers Actually Understand: Umbraco Document Types, Block Lists, and the Delivery API

Part 2 of 9 — Designing Umbraco document types for marketing websites, building a block-based page builder with Block List and Block Grid, and exposing everything through the Content Delivery API.

24 Feb 2026 · 16 min read

architecture

Building a Marketing Website Template with Umbraco 17 & Next.js: Why This Architecture and How to Set It Up

Part 1 of 9 — Why headless Umbraco 17 with Next.js is the sweet spot for reusable marketing websites, the architecture decisions behind MarketingOS, and setting up both projects with Clean Architecture on .NET 10.