My Hugo blog was downloading 3.6 MB of JavaScript and 40 KB of external CSS on every page load. For a static blog with mostly text and a few diagrams, that was absurd. Here is how I fixed it. HTML: 86 KB JavaScript: 3.6 MB (Mermaid + KaTeX) CSS: 40 KB (KaTeX stylesheets) Problem: render-blocking scripts loaded on every page for math and diagrams Adding minifyOutput = true to hugo.toml shrunk HTML
For years, I called myself a web designer. Then a developer. Then a digital consultant. None of those titles ever felt quite right. Because clients weren't just asking me to build things. They were asking me to solve problems. Slow sites, broken checkouts, confusing navigation, teams that couldn't figure out how to update their own content. That's when I realized what a technology solutions profes