Introduction

As a developer, I've always believed in working smarter, not harder. When I decided to build a professional portfolio site with a comprehensive content management system, I knew I wanted something modern, maintainable, and powerful—but I didn't want to spend weeks reinventing the wheel.

Enter AI-assisted development. What would have traditionally taken weeks of research, trial and error, and countless Stack Overflow searches was accomplished in a matter of hours with the help of GitHub Copilot's AI agent. Here's the story of how we built a production-ready CMS system together.

The Vision

I wanted a portfolio site that was:

Traditional CMS platforms like WordPress felt too heavy. Headless CMSs required complex backends. I wanted something in between—a static site with dynamic content management capabilities.

The Tech Stack

Together with AI assistance, we chose a powerful yet lightweight stack:

Core Technologies

The AI Advantage

What made this project remarkable was how AI assisted at every phase:

  1. Architecture Decisions: AI helped evaluate pros/cons of different approaches
  2. Code Generation: Boilerplate and repetitive code written instantly
  3. Best Practices: Following modern web development standards automatically
  4. Problem Solving: Complex issues like git submodule integration solved quickly
  5. Documentation: Comprehensive docs generated alongside code

What We Built Together

Phase 1: Foundation (Hour 1)

We started with the Eleventy configuration. The AI helped set up:

Key Learning: AI excels at configuration files. Instead of reading docs for hours, I described what I needed, and it generated a complete, working Eleventy config.

Phase 2: Design System (Hour 2)

Next came the CSS. I wanted a comprehensive design system with:

The AI generated over 1,000 lines of production-ready CSS with:

Key Learning: Describing design intent in natural language produced better results than trying to write CSS from scratch. The AI understood concepts like "make cards that don't overflow" and implemented proper word wrapping everywhere.

Phase 3: Page Layouts (Hours 3-4)

We built the core pages:

Each page was componentized with reusable Nunjucks layouts. The AI maintained consistency across all templates.

Key Learning: Breaking down page requirements into components made the AI incredibly effective. "Create a work-with-me page with benefits grid, services section, and FAQ" produced exactly what I envisioned.

Phase 4: Admin Dashboard (Hour 5)

This is where things got interesting. I wanted a custom admin interface to toggle features without editing config files.

The AI built:

All integrated with Netlify Identity for security.

Key Learning: AI can build complete admin interfaces quickly. What would have been a day's work (authentication, UI, state management) was done in an hour.

Phase 5: Netlify CMS Integration (Hour 6)

We integrated Decap CMS for content editing with a visual interface. This required:

Challenge Encountered: Git submodules don't work with Netlify CMS's git-gateway backend.

AI Solution: Implemented a dual blog folder system—one submodule for GitHub management, one main folder for CMS access. Eleventy reads from both. Brilliant workaround.

Phase 6: Automated Deployments (Hour 7)

The final piece was automation. I wanted to manage blog content in a separate repository but have changes automatically deploy.

The AI created:

  1. GitHub Actions workflow in main repo to update submodule references
  2. GitHub Actions workflow in blog repo to trigger main repo updates
  3. Proper webhook configuration
  4. Documentation for token setup

Key Learning: Complex automation workflows that would require reading multiple documentation sources were generated with explanations. The AI understood the entire git submodule deployment pipeline.

The Features We Shipped

After about 7-8 hours of focused work, we had:

Content Management

Design & UX

Admin Features

Developer Experience

Nice-to-Have Features & Enhancements

While the system is production-ready, here are enhancements that could take it to the next level:

Content Features

1. Search Functionality

2. Content Analytics

3. Related Posts

4. Comments System

5. Table of Contents

Design Enhancements

6. Theme Customizer

7. Code Syntax Highlighting

8. Image Optimization

9. Animations

10. Typography Enhancements

Admin & Workflow

11. Multi-Language Support

12. Scheduled Publishing

13. Content Versioning

14. Media Library

15. Bulk Operations

Performance & SEO

16. Advanced Caching

17. SEO Enhancements

18. Performance Monitoring

19. Image CDN

Developer Experience

20. Testing Suite

21. Deployment Previews

22. CLI Tools

23. API Endpoints

Content Features

24. Newsletter Integration

25. Bookmarks/Reading List

26. Portfolio Case Studies

27. Now Page

Social & Community

28. Social Proof

29. Webmentions

30. Author Notes & Updates

Implementation Priority

If I were to implement these enhancements, here's my recommended priority:

High Priority (Immediate Value)

  1. Search Functionality - Essential for growing content
  2. Code Syntax Highlighting - Critical for technical blog
  3. RSS Feed - Standard blog feature
  4. Table of Contents - Improves long-form readability
  5. Image Optimization - Performance wins

Medium Priority (Quality of Life)

  1. Related Posts - Increases engagement
  2. Comments System - Community building
  3. Newsletter Integration - Audience growth
  4. Analytics - Understand your audience
  5. SEO Enhancements - Discoverability

Low Priority (Nice to Have)

  1. Theme Customizer - User preference
  2. Multi-Language - If targeting global audience
  3. PWA Features - Progressive enhancement
  4. Scheduled Publishing - Workflow improvement
  5. Testing Suite - Confidence in changes

Lessons Learned: Working with AI

What AI Excels At

  1. Boilerplate Generation: Creating project structures, config files, initial setups
  2. Pattern Recognition: Maintaining consistency across similar components
  3. Documentation: Generating comprehensive docs alongside code
  4. Problem Solving: Finding solutions to complex integration challenges
  5. Best Practices: Applying modern standards automatically

What Still Requires Human Input

  1. Vision: Defining what you want to build
  2. Design Decisions: Aesthetic choices and UX flows
  3. Priority: Deciding what features matter most
  4. Testing: Verifying everything works as expected
  5. Content: Writing meaningful articles (like this one!)

The Collaboration Sweet Spot

The best results came from:

Conclusion

Building this professional CMS portfolio with AI assistance was a revelation. What would traditionally take weeks of work—research, coding, debugging, documentation—was accomplished in hours.

The key wasn't just speed; it was the quality of the output. The code is clean, well-documented, and follows best practices. The architecture is solid and maintainable. The features are production-ready.

Does this mean developers are obsolete? Absolutely not.

AI is a power tool, like a compiler or IDE. It amplifies your capabilities but doesn't replace your judgment, creativity, or expertise. You still need to:

But with AI assistance, you can focus on the creative and strategic aspects of development while letting AI handle the mechanical parts.

Try It Yourself

If you want to replicate this entire system, I've created a comprehensive AI replication prompt that documents every phase of the build. Any AI agent can follow it to recreate the system from scratch.

Check out the AI Agent Replication Prompt in the repository.

Want to discuss this approach or share your own AI-assisted projects? Reach out on LinkedIn or check out my other articles on modern web development.

Tags: #AI #WebDevelopment #Eleventy #CMS #Automation #DeveloperProductivity #ModernWeb #JAMstack

Updated: January 6, 2026