Building Scalable Web Platforms with Config-Driven Architecture

When you need to manage dozens or hundreds of websites, the traditional approach — one codebase per site — breaks down fast. Config-driven architecture offers a better path.

The Problem

Imagine maintaining 100 websites. Each has its own:

• Brand colors and fonts
• Component layout preferences
• SEO configuration
• Content sources

With separate codebases, a single template bug means 100 deployments. A design update means 100 PRs. It doesn’t scale.

Config-Driven Design

The solution is one template, many configurations. Each site becomes a thin YAML file that overrides sensible defaults:

site:
  name: "My Site"
  domain: "mysite.com"
theme:
  primaryColor: "#2563EB"
components:
  hero: "variant-2"

The template reads this config at build time and produces a fully customized static site.

Key Principles

1. Defaults are king — 80% of sites should work with zero overrides.
2. Everything is overridable — But any value can be customized per site.
3. Variants over conditionals — Instead of if/else in templates, create discrete component variants.
4. Static output — Build once, serve forever. No runtime config parsing.

The Result

Template changes deploy to all sites in parallel. New sites launch in minutes. And each site scores 95+ on Lighthouse without any per-site optimization.

Configuration over code isn’t just an architecture pattern — it’s a scaling strategy.