gesso

Own your site, for real

Gesso sets your portfolio up and then steps out. Everything lives on accounts you control, so you can take it anywhere.

  1. See everything that makes up your site

    Your GitHub repository holds it all: every image lives in src/assets, every page and artwork is a plain text file in src/content, and your design choices are one settings.json. Nothing is trapped in a database only Gesso can read.

  2. Add a custom domain

    Your host, GitHub Pages or Netlify, handles your domain. Gesso never touches DNS. Our step-by-step domain guide walks you through pointing your domain (e.g. your-name.com) at the site, and your host sets up HTTPS for you.

  3. Move to a different host

    Because your site is a standard Astro project, any static host (GitHub Pages, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, your own server) can build it. Point the host at your GitHub repo, set the build command to astro build and the output directory to dist, and you're live elsewhere. No Gesso involved.

  4. Hand it to a developer

    Give them access to your GitHub repository. It's a normal, well-structured codebase they can read, extend, or restyle. Your content and their changes live side by side in version history.

If Gesso vanished tomorrow

Your site would keep running, with nothing to move and nothing to fix. Here is exactly why.

  • Your repository

    The whole site sits in a GitHub repo on your account. Gesso only had permission while you were connected; revoke it and the repo is still entirely yours.

  • Your files

    Every page and artwork is a plain text file, every image a normal image. Open them in any editor. Nothing is locked in a format only we can read.

  • Your host

    GitHub Pages or Netlify builds and serves the site straight from your repo. That build runs without us, on every change, forever.

  • Your domain

    Your domain is set up at your own host and registrar. Gesso never touches it, so it points where you say no matter what happens to us.

Gesso runs the one-time setup, then steps out. After that, taking Gesso away changes nothing about your live site.