Anthony James Pearson - Personal Website

My personal website built with Angular and AWS CDK, featuring a blog with markdown articles, user authentication, and custom email verification.

Features

• Modern Angular Frontend - Built with Angular 21 and standalone components
• Markdown Blog System - Dynamic article rendering from markdown files
• Responsive Design - Built with DaisyUI and Tailwind CSS
• User Authentication - Cognito-based sign-up, login, password reset, and email verification
• Custom Email Verification - API Gateway + Lambda flow for click-to-verify emails
• Security Headers - CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, and more via CloudFront
• AWS Infrastructure - Fully defined in C# with AWS CDK

Project Structure

├── website/              # Angular 21 frontend application
├── infrastructure/       # AWS CDK infrastructure (C#/.NET 10)
│   └── src/Infrastructure/
│       ├── Constructs/
│       │   ├── BucketConstruct.cs              # S3 bucket for static hosting
│       │   ├── BucketDeploymentConstruct.cs    # S3 deployment with cache invalidation
│       │   ├── DistributionConstruct.cs        # CloudFront CDN + Route 53 DNS + ACM cert
│       │   ├── CognitoConstruct.cs             # User Pool, client, and auth triggers
│       │   ├── CustomMessageLambda.cs          # Custom email templates (Node.js 24)
│       │   └── VerificationConstructs/
│       │       ├── VerificationApiConstruct.cs  # API Gateway for email verification
│       │       └── VerificationLambdaConstruct.cs # Verification handler (.NET 10)
│       ├── InfrastructureStack.cs              # Main stack composition
│       └── Program.cs                          # CDK app entry point
├── lambda/
│   └── verification/     # Email verification Lambda (.NET 10)
└── README.md

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm
• .NET 10 SDK
• AWS CDK CLI (npm install -g aws-cdk)
• AWS credentials configured (aws sts get-caller-identity)

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/ajgoldenwings/anthonyjamespearson.com.git
cd anthonyjamespearson.com

# Install root dependencies
npm install

# Install website dependencies
cd website
npm install

Start the dev server:

npm run start

Navigate to http://localhost:4200/.

Adding Articles

Articles are stored as markdown files in website/public/articles/. To add a new article:

1. Create a new .md file with the naming convention: YYYY-MM-DD_Article-Title.md
2. Add the article metadata to the articles list in website/src/app/pages/articles/articles.ts
3. The article will automatically be available at /articles/YYYY-MM-DD_Article-Title

Infrastructure

The infrastructure is managed with AWS CDK (C#) and provisions:

• S3 - Static website hosting with public read access
• CloudFront - Global CDN with optimized caching, security headers, and SPA error handling
• Route 53 - DNS records for apex and www subdomain
• ACM - SSL certificate with DNS validation
• Cognito - User Pool with email sign-up, SES email integration, and custom message triggers
• API Gateway - REST API for email verification endpoint (GET /verify)
• Lambda (Verification) - .NET 10 function that confirms Cognito sign-ups and marks emails as verified
• Lambda (Custom Message) - Node.js 24 inline function that generates HTML emails for verification and password reset

Deploy

# Synthesize CloudFormation template
npm run synth

# Preview changes
npm run diff

# Deploy everything (builds website + deploys infrastructure)
npm run deploy

# Tear down
npm run destroy

The deploy pipeline builds the Angular app first, then runs CDK deploy with the domain name context. The CDK pre-flight check ensures website/dist/website/browser exists before deploying.

Build Lambda Separately

cd lambda/verification
dotnet restore
dotnet publish -c Release

Technologies

• Frontend: Angular 21, TypeScript, DaisyUI, Tailwind CSS, ngx-markdown
• Infrastructure: AWS CDK (C#/.NET 10)
• Auth: Amazon Cognito with SES email
• Hosting: S3, CloudFront, Route 53, ACM
• Lambda: .NET 10 (verification), Node.js 24 (custom messages)

License

This project is personal and proprietary. Please feel free to reach out for any correspondence.

Author

Anthony James Pearson

• Website: anthonyjamespearson.com
• GitHub: @ajgoldenwings