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Articles on Astro, web performance, design systems, and building with Astro Rocket.

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Astro Rocket Is Live — My New Open Source Astro Theme

Astro Rocket is a production-ready Astro 6 theme with a full blog, 57 components, 12 colour themes, dark mode, SEO, and a contact form. Free and open source.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket open-source astro launch

Getting Started with Astro Rocket — From Install to Live in Minutes

How to install, configure, and deploy Astro Rocket — covering site.config.ts, brand colours, navigation, writing posts, and deploying to Vercel.

H Hans Martens
1 min read
astro-rocket getting-started configuration vercel

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Hero Rocket Background — Dark Mode on Desktop and Portrait Mobile

A large faint rocket icon in the homepage hero background, visible in dark mode on desktop and on portrait mobile. Colour-theme-aware and toggled with a single prop.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket features dark-mode hero design

Astro Rocket Configuration — Every Toggle, Theme, and Layout Option Explained

A complete walkthrough of Astro Rocket's configuration options: 12 colour themes, OKLCH colours, typography, radius and shadow tokens, header styles, dark mode, and more.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket configuration customization themes

Hero Gradient — Brand to Black, Dark Mode Only

The Astro Rocket homepage hero has a gradient in dark mode — brand colour at the top fading to black at the bottom. In light mode, there is no gradient at all. Here is how it works.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket features dark-mode css

Hero Scroll Indicator — Desktop-Only, Hides on Scroll

Astro Rocket's hero has an animated scroll indicator: two bouncing chevrons that fade in after the hero animation and disappear the moment you start scrolling. Here's how every part of it works.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket features ux animation

Scroll Progress Ring — A Circular Indicator on the Back-to-Top Button

Astro Rocket's back-to-top button now has a circular SVG progress ring that fills as you scroll. It's brand-coloured, theme-aware, and runs entirely in CSS and a small inline script.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket features ux animation

57 Components Ready to Use — Astro Rocket's Full UI Library

Astro Rocket ships with 57 production-ready components from the Velocity library — buttons, cards, dialogs, forms, data display, and full page-structure components. All accessible, all themed.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket components ui velocity

Scroll Progress Bar — Reading Progress at a Glance

Astro Rocket now has a scroll progress bar: a thin brand-coloured line that fills as you scroll. Here's how it works, where it lives, and how to enable it on any page.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket features header ux

Animations in Astro Rocket — Every Effect Explained

A complete breakdown of every animation built into Astro Rocket — page transitions, scroll-triggered counters, the reactive header, card hovers, and the full micro-animation library.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket animations components customization css

SEO in Astro Rocket: What's Built In and How to Configure It

Astro Rocket handles structured data, Open Graph, canonical URLs, sitemaps, and more out of the box. Here's exactly what ships and where to configure it.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket seo structured-data tutorial configuration

How Astro Rocket's Design System Works — Tokens, Colors, and Dark Mode

Astro Rocket uses a three-tier token architecture with OKLCH colors. Change one value and the entire site updates. Here's how it works and how to make it yours.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket design-system tailwind customization tutorial

The Hero Typing Effect in Astro Rocket — How It Works and How to Tune It

Astro Rocket's hero headline cycles through words with a typing animation. Learn how it works, how to tune every speed and pause, and how to disable it entirely.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
astro-rocket components customization tutorial javascript

Why Astro Rocket Uses sessionStorage for Dark Mode (Not localStorage)

Dark mode is the default experience in Astro Rocket — and that's a deliberate design decision. Here's the reasoning, the code, and exactly how to change it.

H Hans Martens
2 min read
dark-mode astro-rocket design tutorial

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