I didn’t invent the idea of a “site engine” recently.
I’ve been circling the same concept for years, sometimes building it myself, sometimes outsourcing it to a CMS, sometimes just avoiding new site ideas because I didn’t want to pay the setup tax again.
This time, I finally shipped the version I actually wanted, and the way I shipped it surprised even me.
The original itch: “why are we building sites by page?”
A long time ago, I learned that many people priced websites by page.
That never sat right with me, because most sites are the same shapes repeated:
shared layout
shared navigation
shared styling
different content
If you understand databases, you naturally want to separate structure from content.
So I did, first in PHP, later more cleanly with CodeIgniter. The idea worked. I built sites that way.
Then real life happened, client needs happened, and I did what a lot of practical people do.
I moved to WordPress.
The long detour: WordPress solved “publish”, but not “start”
WordPress (and builders like Elementor or Avada) can absolutely ship real sites.
I still have sites running there today, including client work and my own projects.
But it never solved the part that drained me the most:
Starting a new site still felt like paying a tax.
Not hard, just repetitive:
baseline structure
blog wiring
media setup
SEO basics
theme tweaks
publishing rituals
That’s how “someday” sites become placeholders.
The nudge that mattered: watching creators get stuck
In a marketing class for music producers, I watched creative people hit the website module and stall out.
Tools often force a bad trade:
easy, but everyone ends up with the same vibe
flexible, but now you’re doing technical labor instead of creative work
That was the signal I couldn’t ignore.
People don’t need more generic templates, they need a system that gives them momentum while still leaving room for personality.
This time I used ShipKit.ai, and I didn’t write the code
Here’s the key difference with Headstring Web.
I built it from a ShipKit.ai template, the kind of starter that’s designed around AI workflows and background tasks, especially for things like long-running jobs and processing.
Then I leaned into a workflow that felt less like “coding” and more like “directing”:
ShipKit gave me a strong starting structure
I used AI-driven tasks to add features step-by-step
I mostly did verification:
does it compile?
does it behave correctly?
does the data model hold up?
does the UI match the intent?
do edge cases break it?
For this entire project, I did not hand write a single line of code.
I made decisions, reviewed what got generated, tested it, and kept moving.
That experience made a quote click for me that I had seen online, and it stopped sounding crazy.
Eden Marco wrote on LinkedIn: “I haven’t written a line of code in over a year,” in the context of using coding agents differently, more like delegated systems than copilots.
I’m not claiming I’m living that life forever, but I now understand how someone gets there.
What Headstring Web is, in practical terms
The backbone is still the same idea I had years ago, just modern and visual:
Sites → Pages → Sections → Blocks
From there, the tool became a real daily driver:
Visual building with 18 blocks and lots of templates
Themes via CSS variables, plus AI theme generation to skip blank-canvas paralysis
Blog system that feels native, not bolted-on
Publishing rules that make draft vs published predictable
Custom domains through Vercel, plus instant hosting at /sites/[slug]
And yes, this site lives inside the engine, which keeps me honest. If something feels clunky, I feel it immediately.
Why I think this could help others, even if I built it for me
First, it’s for me. It stops me from rebuilding the same foundation over and over.
But I also think it fits a bigger group, especially creators:
people who want structure that prevents chaos
people who still want their site to feel unique
people who get stuck at “setup” and never reach “publish”
The best compliment I can imagine is someone saying: “I finally shipped my site, and it still feels like mine.”