Description

Research websites tend to die quietly: the grant ends, the engineer who built it moves on, and eventually something on the server breaks with nobody left to fix it. The patterns in this cluster share one answer: render the site ahead of time, serve it as plain files with nothing running behind them, and let automation rather than someone’s memory keep it working. The same architecture stretches across the whole range, from a basic documentation site for a run-of-the-mill research project through to a heavyweight build with structured, well-described data and automated CI/CD maintained by research software engineers.

Patterns in this cluster

Static websites architectural

Research websites need to keep working after project funding ends, staff move on, and web software becomes unusable

Applies when

a site comprises a document, image, or other content edited by humans
content changes at editorial pace, rather than being generated dynamically
the site does not require server-side processing to serve pages

Schema-Validated Structured Content design

Site content needs to stay reusable and trustworthy across many contexts, not just look right on the one page that renders it.

Applies when

the content has recurring structure that more than one template or service reads
authors need comprehensible validation feedback
the team can agree what each field means and commit to maintaining a schema as content evolves