Building a boring static site that is easy to operate

Apr 2026 · Infrastructure ·

Static sites are useful when the goal is to publish durable information with a small operational surface. The best version is intentionally boring: no database, no runtime migrations, no background workers, and no hidden dependency on a build server.

Checklist

• Serve prebuilt HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media from a single directory.
• Keep a simple deployment path such as rsync, tar extraction, or a container volume update.
• Return stable status codes for common paths: /, /about, /feed.xml, and /sitemap.xml.
• Use long cache lifetimes for fingerprinted assets and shorter lifetimes for HTML.
• Log access and errors separately so noisy clients do not hide real problems.

Nginx shape

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com;
    root /www/sites/example.com/index;
    index index.html;
}

The important part is not the exact server block. It is the absence of surprises: a new host should be able to serve the same directory without understanding an application framework.