Case Studies

Architecture

Monorepo with separate frontend (Next.js 16) and backend (AWS CDK) packages. Frontend uses route groups to separate authenticated from public routes. Backend follows a Lambda-per-endpoint-area pattern — six handlers (health, profile, items, orders, events, cognito-post-confirm) bundled with esbuild.

Key Features

• Cognito email-based auth with custom address attributes + auto-verify
• Event management with admin CRUD + soft-delete + type color-coding (hike green, ceremony gold)
• FullCalendar v6 with dynamic import (client-side rendered), click-to-join modal
• Membership-gated RSVP with DynamoDB ConditionExpression preventing duplicates
• Honor-system sacrament ordering (Zelle/Venmo/CashApp — no payment processor)
• Admin dashboard: user toggle, order status tracking, event CRUD, per-event RSVP viewer
• SNS notifications to organizers on each RSVP

Notable Decisions

• Honor-system payments keep the platform simple and trust-aligned with the community's values
• CDK is single source of truth — no separate CloudFormation templates
• Custom JWT claims parsing handles Cognito's inconsistent groups format
• Events soft-deleted (isActive=false) to preserve RSVP history
• Lambda bundles via esbuild — zero-Docker bundling pipeline

Architecture

Two-repository setup: oracleDeck-frontend (Next.js 14 Pages Router) and soneesing (AWS CDK backend). Despite shipping Amplify Gen 2 with GraphQL, the app uses a custom REST API. The backend is a single monolithic CDK stack with environment isolation via suffix.

Key Features

• Custom HTML Canvas rendering 12 face-down cards in a scrollable strip (mouse/touch scroll zones)
• 3D card flip animation: easeInOutQuad easing, perspective scaling, dynamic shadow — no animation library
• Card-of-the-Day: one draw per day per deck, previously drawn cards shown immediately on return
• Seasonal mode: draw-without-replacement until all cards seen, then auto-resets
• Squarespace webhook integration: purchase → auto-create Cognito user + assign deck
• S3 event-driven card management: upload images → Lambda auto-creates DynamoDB records
• Free trial (7 days) with role-based gating (FREE vs CUSTOMER)
• Card history calendar (react-calendar) for CUSTOMER role users

Notable Decisions

• Canvas chosen over DOM for 60fps scrolling and complex animations without library overhead
• Card selection uses client-side Math.random() — server only records the result
• Squarespace serves as e-commerce backend — no custom cart/checkout built
• No admin UI for card management — just upload images to S3 with the right naming convention
• The Canvas component (~443 lines) is the most sophisticated piece of code in the project

Architecture

Ground-up custom Shopify theme (no Dawn/Debut inheritance) with 15+ Liquid templates. Built with Shopify Theme Kit for cactus-jack-00.myshopify.com. The most unusual architectural choice: sold products live in an external database (DigitalOcean App Platform API) rather than Shopify — the sold collection page is a shell dynamically populated via JS with infinite scroll.

Key Features

• Fully custom Liquid theme with 15+ templates: homepage, collections, product detail, cart, blog, search, 404, customer accounts, gift cards
• Sold collection via external Node.js API — infinite scroll with client-side sorting (recent, price asc/desc)
• Jones Athletic Club membership system tied to Instagram subscriptions: 20% off, bonus cuttings, early drop alerts, buy-now-pay-later
• Smart cart cross-sells: product type detection triggers relevant upsells via Shopify AJAX API
• Drop Alert newsletter modal with localStorage opt-out and auto-redirect on first visit
• Slick.js product image carousel with vertical thumbnails (desktop) / horizontal chevrons (mobile)
• Dual ATC buttons: desktop standard + mobile fixed bottom bar
• Venmo/Zelle-only payment model with manual/offline checkout flow

Standout Details

All JS is inline in theme.liquid (~520 lines) — no external JS files. Single 1,853-line CSS file with breakpoints from 1440px down to 320px. Three self-hosted font families. 44 asset files including custom SVGs for ATC buttons (242KB each).

Architecture

Nuxt 3 SSR/SSG with 14 pages in a flat routing structure. Three layouts: default (main header+footer), dashboard (admin panel), blank (centered login). Backend uses Nuxt server routes as a thin proxy to AWS Lambda functions (DynamoDB-backed video CMS). No Vuex/Pinia — state managed with Composition API refs and localStorage for auth.

Key Features

• Product catalog across 8 categories (~100+ products) with HTML tables (Product Name, #, Description)
• Video CMS dashboard: JWT-authenticated CRUD for video entries (S3-hosted, DynamoDB-backed)
• EVB Volumetric Blending deep-dive page: ultra concentrates (1:1000 dilution), no-inventory model, 90%+ freight reduction
• 14 pages with auto-routing, custom CSS (green scheme #538422), two responsive breakpoints
• Self-hosted fonts: Gotham Bold + 9 variants of Noto Sans

Notable Decisions

• Pure custom CSS — no Bootstrap or Tailwind. 750 lines desktop + 624 lines mobile
• All ~100 product entries hardcoded in Vue templates — no CMS or database
• Nuxt server routes proxy requests to AWS Lambda function URLs
• jQuery 1.7.2 loaded from CDN — legacy dependency

Architecture

Nuxt 3 with zero server-side API routes — all data fetched client-side from Contentful's CDN via the Content Delivery API. CDA token exposed through runtimeConfig.public (acceptable for read-only). Deployed via AWS Amplify (Node.js 20, Nitro awsAmplify preset) with a post-build script that patches the Nitro runtime manifest.

Key Features

• Infinite scroll gallery: skip/limit pagination (10 items/fetch), duplicate dedup, end detection
• Section/category filtering via Contentful's category content type with submenu support
• Single project detail view with all artwork images + dimensions/medium/caption metadata
• Zero-dependency CSS-only lightbox: position:fixed fullscreen overlay
• 4 routes: homepage gallery, section-filtered, project detail, info page (Rich Text rendering)

Content Model (Contentful)

project: title, description (Rich Text), art (Media array), dimensions, mediumTags, caption, position, sections (category ref)
category: title, isSubmenu, subMenu (ref array), position
Images served from Contentful CDN with optional width transforms.

Notable Decisions

• No local admin, no auth, no database — all CMS through Contentful's web interface
• Infinite scroll logic duplicated across two pages instead of extracted to a composable
• Hardcoded Contentful entry ID for Info page link — brittle across environments
• Dual CSS systems: legacy float-based (unloaded) and modern flexbox layout

Architecture

Fully serverless AWS backend — no frontend code in the repository. Single CDK stack with two-stage deployment (dev/prod in separate AWS accounts). All sensitive config in SSM Parameter Store. DynamoDB Streams feed Algolia search indexes in real-time. S3 file uploads trigger auto-conversion pipelines (unpdf, office-text-extractor, Textract).

Key Features

• AI quiz generation via Amazon Bedrock (Nova Lite, Nova Micro, Titan Premier/Express) — 6 question types, 21 subjects, 23 languages
• File-to-quiz pipeline: upload PDF/Office/Image → auto-text-extraction → AI generates quiz from content
• Note system with token counting (gpt-tokenizer), quiz references, and S3 file storage
• Collections with member invites (ZeptoMail), per-member scoring, configurable goals
• AI performance reports with topic breakdown, suggestions, and motivational analysis
• Algolia search: quizzes, notes, and collections indexed via DynamoDB Streams → Lambda
• Free tier (35K tokens, 10 downloads) with role-based gating (FREE / Premium / Pro)
• Facebook Conversion API integration on signup
• CI/CD via GitHub Actions (push to master → cdk deploy)

Notable Decisions

• Bedrock over OpenAI/Anthropic — keeps everything within AWS ecosystem
• Event-driven file conversion pipeline: S3 upload → Lambda → text extraction → token count → DB update
• Algolia sync via DynamoDB Streams — no application-level indexing code
• Large AI quiz outputs split across multiple DynamoDB records to avoid item size limits
• Separate frontend app (likely React/Next.js at brainchow.xyz)