Built a multilingual static site in Hugo across 104 template files including 49 partials, publishing every page in four representations from one content tree in three languages.

Situation. The company needed a public site that works in three languages, proves capability rather than asserting it, costs nothing to run, and does not hand its visitors to anybody. Most of those are ordinary requirements. Together they rule out almost every content management system, because a runtime backend is a thing to secure, to patch, to pay for, and to explain on a privacy page.

Task. The site had to be generated entirely at build time and still behave like a modern one — searchable, installable, syndicated, printable, and readable by a screen reader in every language it ships.

Action. It is a static site: 104 template files, of which 49 are partials and 18 are shortcodes, three languages, no runtime backend, and one first‑party script granted as a scoped exception for a portfolio filter whose every control is hidden until it runs. Capability is added at build time rather than in the browser, which is a product decision and is written down as one. Every page is published in four representations from one content tree — HTML, a Markdown twin, a Gemini document and a Gopher menu entry — with the home page adding three syndication feeds and an installable‑application manifest on top. The taxonomies are deliberately two rather than one, and the distinction is load‑bearing: a category is a topic tag on the work, a service is something the company sells, and collapsing them would have made the catalogue a list of skills instead of a list of offerings.

Result. The site serves three languages and four representations off one tree, has no backend to attack and nothing to bill, and the one piece of JavaScript in it is held to a contract a linter enforces. The cost is that everything interactive has to be solved at build time or not at all, which has ruled out several things that would have been easy with a server and is the reason the search index was costed and parked rather than shipped.