FROM CMS to EVOLUTION

How did this start? I am a fullstack developer but the right way to say that before 2025 was “non-practicing dev”. I’ve reverse engineered ap feeds, gap analysis, requirements definition etc. I’ve formerly created Joomla extensions but thats a tiny bit of my expertise and experience. Though I was trained as a fullstack developer, I have never used that term to identify my skillset.

I’ve always been a fan of trying something new so in 2024 I decided to tackle my Wordpress resistance. I’d had the opportunity to meet one of their executives and he gave the platform a refreshing spin and challenged me to take another look. I took up the challenge designated 2024 the year to put it to the test. While the modern Gutenberg experience was better than I remembered, I never grew to love it. By March of 2025 I found myself writing an article—on my WordPress site—about the platform’s security risks..The irony was not lost on me and I knew it was time for something new.

So yes, this all came about because I ran out of energy for Wordpress. I’ve never been a fan the big “W” but in 2024, I challenged myself to use it for a full year to understand its appeal. By June, I’d had enough and began searching for something else. I needed something different, and my search led me to Hugo. This is the story of what happened next.

Snowballs

The plan was simple: ditch my heavy, database-driven WordPress site for a blazing-fast static site built with Hugo. It was supposed to be a quick migration, a weekend project at most. I mean Hugo is just “markdown” with opinions right?

That weekend turned into a season of obsession.

What began as a simple migration quickly snowballed. I wrestled with Hugo’s templating system and got acquainted with Go which reignited my passion for more hands on tinkering. I decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it my way, building with a specific philosophy in mind.

I started pulling in other tools I was curious about, like the Tailwind v4 CLI as a css-all-star. I discovered the magic of HTMX, which promised rich interactivity without the need for numerous JavaScript frameworks…Before I knew it, I wasn’t just building a website; I was building a system—a repeatable, opinionated framework. I even gave it a name before it was finished: LOOTX.

L O O T X — ## Limitless “L"s

The acronym was meant to represent the stack, and the ‘L’ stood for Linux. There was just one problem: I built the entire thing on my Windows machine. For weeks, that ‘L’ bothered me. It felt like a lie, a placeholder for a technical detail I’d skipped. I was stuck, not on the code, but on a single letter that contradicted my own process.

The whole point of this project was to break free from limitations—the limitations of heavy frameworks, complex build tools, and other people’s opinions. And here I was, boxed in by my own acronym.

Then, clarity struck, inspired by a quote from Dr. Mae Jemison that has long been a guiding principle for me: “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” The breakthrough had nothing to do with code.

The ‘L’ wasn’t for Linux. It was for Limitless.

In that moment, LOOTX was truly born. It transformed from a collection of technologies into a statement of purpose. Its job isn’t to prescribe solutions, but to provide a powerful, unconstrained platform that empowers developers to realize their own imaginations.

What is LOOTX?

LOOTX is a mindset and an acronym representing the core philosophy of a lean core designed for limitless extension. It champions a “static-first, dynamic-as-needed” approach to building hyper-performant, content-driven websites.

• L: Limitless - The core philosophy. It represents unconstrained potential and the OS-agnostic nature of the stack.

• O: Go - The high-performance, compiled language that powers the backend and Hugo’s build process.

• O: Hugo - The world’s fastest static site generator, used to pre-build everything possible for maximum speed.

• T: Tailwind - The utility-first CSS framework for building fast, modern, and lean user interfaces.

• X: Extendable Core - This is where the framework comes alive. It primarily uses HTMX for delivering server-rendered HTML snippets and _hyperscript for clean, readable client-side event handling. The ‘X’ can be anything—vanilla JS, Python, Node.js—as long as it’s the simplest tool for the job.

Beyond the acronym, LOOTX is also defined by its AI-native architecture. 🤖 It’s designed from the ground up to integrate modern AI capabilities with a strong preference for private, offline-first solutions via tools like Ollama and local Model Control Program (MCP) servers. This focus on local AI ensures data privacy, developer control, and resilience.

What LOOTX is Not

Defining a philosophy is as much about what you exclude as what you include. A tool or approach becomes “not LOOTX” when it introduces unnecessary complexity, heavy client-side rendering, or monolithic structures.

No Heavy JavaScript Frameworks (React, Angular, Vue): LOOTX fundamentally rejects the Single-Page Application (SPA) model. HTMX keeps rendering on the server and delivers simple HTML.

Analogy: HTMX asks the server for a fully-baked piece of pie and just puts it on your plate. React asks the server for the flour, sugar, and apples, then uses your oven (the browser) to bake the pie from scratch. It’s a lot more work for you.

No All-in-One CSS Libraries (Bootstrap, Foundation): These frameworks provide pre-designed components that often lead to overriding styles and shipping unused code. Tailwind’s utility-first approach ensures that not a single byte of unused CSS is sent to the client.

No Traditional Monolithic CMSs (WordPress, Drupal): These heavy, database-driven systems introduce performance bottlenecks and security concerns that Hugo eliminates by pre-building pages. A headless CMS, however, is perfectly compatible.

No Overly Complex Backend Frameworks: The principle of minimalism applies to the backend. You wouldn’t use the entirety of Django or Ruby on Rails just to power a few HTMX endpoints. The goal is to use the leanest tool that gets the job done.

Something Good

Today, the my site is powered by the LOOTX framework. Technikole is live and the code is available on GitHub. This isn’t a formal product launch with workshops or a big marketing push. Its a reveal without the balloons and cake, it’s my way of sharing something good, that might cool and might be useful.

My hope was to contribute something different, to change the way we do things, by connecting these incredible tools in an intuitive way. The journey to this point was the goal, phase two is unwritten.

Experience LOOTX