Colophon

A note on how Tetrapyloctomy is made — the type it is set in, the tools that build it, and the small decisions that add up to the whole.

Every page you read here is a flat file. There is no database, no content management system, and nothing rendered on demand — the entire site is compiled ahead of time into static HTML and served as-is. What follows is the recipe.

Typography

Display

Fraunces — an old-style serif with optical sizing, used for headings, the wordmark, and drop caps.

Body

Newsreader — a screen-first text face designed for long, comfortable reading at the measure.

Mono

Spline Sans Mono — for code, labels, and the small uppercase signposts around the edges.

Engine

Generator

Bridgetown 2.2, a Ruby static-site generator. Templates are plain ERB; reusable pieces are Ruby component classes.

Language

Ruby 4.0 for the build, with content authored in Markdown and ERB under src/.

Server

Built ahead of time to static files; served in production by Falcon.

Front end

Behaviour

Turbo + Stimulus (Hotwire) for fast navigation and the few sprinkles of interactivity — the theme toggle, copy buttons, the table of contents.

Bundling

esbuild compiles the JavaScript; the Tailwind CSS v4 CLI compiles the styles. Two small processes, no framework in between.

Styling

Tailwind CSS v4, configured CSS-first — the design tokens below live as custom properties and flip wholesale for dark mode.

Palette

Paper

Ink

Ink soft

Accent

Rule

The source is open and the typefaces are self-hostable — see the guide on self-hosting Google Fonts. Spotted a rough edge? Send a note.