the vertical timeline for logs was the right call. horizontal rows felt too much like a table. this feels like something is being recorded, not listed. small difference but it matters.

still not sure about the wheel on the homepage. it looks good but doesn't do anything yet. need to wire it up to actual content before i can tell if it earns its place there.

okay so i spent way too long on this.

the docs say you need mdx-components.tsx at the root but don't really explain why. turns out without it the compiler just silently doesn't apply your custom components. no error. just... the defaults. i was staring at unstyled h1s for 45 minutes.

the pageExtensions thing also confused me. you need it so next.js treats .mdx files as valid routes. obvious in hindsight. not obvious when you're looking at a 404.

what's working now: frontmatter parsed with gray-matter, generateStaticParams + dynamicParams = false so the whole thing is static at build time, sugar-high for code blocks.

what i still don't understand: why @next/mdx and next-mdx-remote are different things and when you'd pick one over the other. also whether i actually need remark-gfm or if it's already included somewhere.

going to bed. will figure out the typeset css tomorrow.

gsap or css-only for the wheel animation. gsap wins. not because css can't do rotation, it can. but the snap-to-point easing on click is where css falls apart. power3.inOut feels like the wheel has weight. css ease-in-out just doesn't have that.

also gsap draggable exists and i might use it. free momentum scrolling on a wheel is too good to skip.

can't decide if i should use next-mdx-remote or @next/mdx. spent 40 minutes reading github issues. still don't have a clear answer. the short version seems to be: @next/mdx if your content lives in the repo, next-mdx-remote if it's coming from a CMS or database. ours is in the repo so @next/mdx it is. wish the docs just said that upfront.

started this project. no clear idea what it will become. just know i want a place that doesn't feel like a portfolio. portfolios are for other people. this is for me.

the name timeline feels right. everything is a point in time. checkpoints and logs. one polished, one raw. we'll see if the distinction holds up.