Field notes from the edge

Not every site needs a runtime request for every visitor.

Build once, read many times

A Pages build can read the current public dataset, turn it into durable HTML and JSON, and serve it close to readers without keeping credentials in the browser.

The trade-off is freshness: a new application record appears after the next build. For editorial and showcase sites, that is often a useful constraint rather than a defect.

Keep the path honest

The database bootstrap remains a real write path. The published site remains a real read path. Their timing is explicit in the documentation, so teams can decide when the architecture needs to evolve.