Welcome to Respawn Labs: Building the Workshop

Welcome to Respawn Labs!

This website started with a simple idea: I wanted one place where I could document the things I build, test, break, fix, and learn.

I work with technology professionally, but a lot of what interests me happens outside a job description. I enjoy gaming, game development, homelabs, software projects, hardware experiments, AI tools, and the strange problems that appear whenever you try something new.

Respawn Labs is where all of that gets collected.

Not another corporate technology blog

I did not want this site to sound like a company trying to sell “innovative solutions.” I also did not want it covered in hacker clichés, glowing green code, or enough RGB lighting to be visible from orbit.

The goal was something more personal: a digital workshop where unfinished ideas are allowed to exist.

The general format will be:

I tried this. Here is what happened. Here is what broke. Here is what I learned.

Some posts will be detailed guides. Others will be project logs, troubleshooting notes, experiments, or reflections on a tool I tried. The common thread is learning through doing.

Choosing the foundation

The site is built with Astro, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. Articles and project pages are stored as Markdown files.

That combination gives me a fast website without requiring a traditional backend or database. When the site is published, Astro generates ordinary static files that Cloudflare can deliver directly.

The basic flow looks like this:

Write content → Build the site → Deploy static files → Respawn

Static does not mean limited. I can still add screenshots, image galleries, embedded videos, downloadable files, browser-based experiments, and playable game projects. It simply means visitors do not need to wait for a server to assemble every page.

Keeping the homelab out of the blast radius

One decision mattered from the beginning: this website would never require a public connection to my home server.

I want to experiment freely in my homelab. That includes rebuilding services, changing networks, breaking configurations, and occasionally learning why a setting had a warning next to it.

The public website should not be affected by any of that.

Respawn Labs is hosted through Cloudflare Pages, with HTTPS handled by Cloudflare. The source lives in a private GitHub repository, and the finished static site is deployed from there. My home network remains separate.

The website documents the experiments; it is not part of their blast radius.

Building an editing workflow

I also wanted to update the site without manually editing code every time I had an idea.

Pages CMS provides a browser-based editor connected to the private GitHub repository. It lets me write articles, manage projects, choose categories and tags, upload images, and keep unfinished posts as drafts.

When I publish a change, it is saved to GitHub. Cloudflare notices the update, rebuilds the site, and deploys the new version automatically.

Pages CMS
    ↓
Private GitHub repository
    ↓
Cloudflare Pages build
    ↓
respawnlabs.org

It gives me the convenience of an admin interface while preserving the security and portability of a static website.

Starting with real projects

I did not want to launch the site with fictional sample content, so the first project pages focus on things I have actually made.

QuestLog is my local-first game library and backlog tracker. It grew from a basic browser experiment into a packaged desktop app with Steam imports, game metadata, notes, ratings, collections, statistics, and local backups.

RUINS // dusk.exe is an atmospheric browser game inspired by the look and feeling of late-90s 3D hardware. It became an experiment in procedural generation, custom shaders, synthesized audio, creative direction, and what it means to build with AI as an implementation partner.

Those projects represent exactly what I want Respawn Labs to be about: following curiosity far enough that an idea becomes something real.

What comes next

This site will grow alongside whatever I am learning.

You can expect posts about:

• Games and the systems that make them interesting
• Game-development experiments and lessons
• IT troubleshooting and practical documentation
• Homelab projects that remain safely inside the home network
• AI tools tested against real work rather than polished demos
• Software and hardware projects in every stage of completion

I do not expect every experiment to work. Honestly, that would make for a less useful lab.

The interesting part is understanding what happened, improving the next attempt, and leaving behind notes that might help somebody else.

So, welcome to Respawn Labs—experiments in games, technology, and everything in between.

Let’s see what we can break.