Creator — Building a Ghost Theme (Work Log)

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Building Creator, a free open-source multipurpose Ghost theme — documented step by step, in the open.

Build log 28 Jul 2026 1 min read

Part 28 — Optimizing performance (Lighthouse)

Chased a 100 performance score.

What moved the needle

  • Purged/minified CSS (Tailwind purge).
  • loading="lazy" + explicit dimensions on images (kills CLS).
  • Responsive srcset via {{img_url ... size=...}}.
  • Deferred non-critical JS; inlined critical CSS where it helped.

Measure, don't guess

npx lighthouse http://localhost:2368 --view
Most wins were images and render-blocking CSS — the same two things every Ghost theme fights.

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