A punchy manifesto that rejects modern JavaScript-heavy toolchains in favor of an HTML‑first approach. It argues that semantic elements (nav, main, header, etc.) and native widgets (details/summary, dialog, native form validation) already provide accessibility, keyboard support, and durable functionality without libraries. Structured data is just JSON‑LD embedded in a script tag, Open Graph cards are seven meta tags in the head, and performance tuning is accomplished with resource hints (preconnect, preload, prefetch) and a small speculation rules JSON for prerendering. Modern visual polish comes from CSS features (nesting, variables, grid, container queries, :has(), view-transition) and from using picture/source to let the browser pick AVIF/WebP; the author even shows one‑time image conversion commands (avifenc and cwebp) instead of a perpetual build step.
The practical prescription: generate and serve HTML, use static site generators or server‑side includes when pages share templates, and reserve heavy frameworks for genuine applications (spreadsheets, editors). The example site is a single ~23 KB HTML file with no dependencies, no hydration, and trivial deployment. Emphasis is on intentional bytes - every feature is a platform capability already shipped in browsers - so view the source, keep toolchains proportionate, and stop shipping runtimes that replicate browser functionality. The page is CC0 and claims WCAG Level AA conformance.
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