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We deleted the cool homepage

Entry 001·Day 1·Harry Osmar Sitohang·Jun 10, 2026

We set out to rebuild pangaea.id and reached for the obvious "AI-company" look: a dark, WebGL, scroll-driven hero. Five days later we shipped the opposite. Here's why — and what we'd tell ourselves on day one.

What we started with

A single dark page. A live WebGL scene behind the hero, depth-of-field, a custom smooth-scroll, the works. It demoed beautifully on a fast laptop.

The decision

We swapped the whole thing for a light, blue-on-white, multi-page static site — every route prerendered to HTML.

Dark WebGL scroller

  • One long page, content gated behind JS
  • WebGL + depth-of-field + smooth-scroll
  • Crawlers see almost nothing
  • Frame drops on cheap phones

Light multi-page (SSG)

  • Every route prerendered to full HTML
  • Plain CSS + inline SVG
  • Crawlers and AI engines read everything
  • Fast on any device

If a crawler can't read it and a cheap phone can't render it, it isn't shipped.

— our working rule now

How the build actually flows

RoutesPrerender (SSG)SitemapCSP hashDeployIndexNow
Every commit rebuilds the whole site, then pings the search engines.

What we'd tell ourselves on day one

Do

  • Prerender every route to static HTML
  • Keep two brand hex; let type carry the rest
  • Treat the console as part of the done bar

Don't

  • Gate content behind WebGL or smooth-scroll
  • Ship "looks great on my machine"
  • Add a third colour "for energy"

The learning curve

Expected — an afternoon of CSSReality — two days untangling the scroller
Removing the clever parts took longer than adding the simple ones.

That's the pivot. Receipts below.

Sources

  1. PR #57 — the light revamp
  2. pangaea.id — the repository