Why I Built a Dedicated Routing Layer Instead of Another Homepage

This essay reflects on the decision to introduce a separate, static routing layer for one of my project networks, rather than continuing to expand an existing homepage.

At a certain point, adding another homepage stops solving problems and starts creating them.

When a project grows beyond a single audience or purpose, the homepage quietly accumulates responsibility. It is expected to explain what the project is, highlight what matters most right now, accommodate new initiatives, preserve historical context, and still feel coherent to someone arriving for the first time. Each new requirement seems reasonable on its own. Together, they turn the homepage into a decision bottleneck.

This becomes especially noticeable when a project evolves into a network rather than a single destination. Different parts of the work begin serving different intents. Some visitors are looking for reference material. Others want community. Some arrive through social links and want a quick sense of where to go next. The homepage is asked to satisfy all of these paths simultaneously, even though they pull in different directions.

Over time, the work of maintaining the homepage shifts from communicating clarity to managing tradeoffs. What gets promoted. What gets demoted. What deserves space now. What can wait. Each change introduces a subtle instability, not because the content is wrong, but because the page itself is no longer a neutral entry point.

The decision to build a dedicated routing layer emerged from this tension. Not as a redesign exercise, and not as an attempt to simplify the content, but as a way to separate navigation from explanation. The goal was not to create a better homepage, but to step back and ask whether the homepage was the right abstraction at all.

When homepages become overloaded

Homepages work well when a project has a single center of gravity. One primary audience. One dominant purpose. One clear path forward. In those conditions, the homepage can serve as both introduction and orientation without friction.

As projects grow, that center of gravity often fragments. Editorial work expands. Community spaces develop their own rhythms. Tools, datasets, or side initiatives appear alongside longer-form content. Each of these components is legitimate, but they do not naturally coexist on a single surface without compromise.

The homepage becomes a place where different priorities compete for attention. Structural clarity gives way to negotiated prominence. Decisions that were once rare become continuous. The page is no longer stable, because its role has expanded beyond what it can reliably support.

This is not a design failure. It is a structural one.

Navigation is not explanation

One of the underlying problems is that homepages are often asked to perform two distinct functions at the same time. They are expected to explain what a project is, and to route people to where they want to go.

Explanation benefits from context, narrative, and sequencing. Routing benefits from clarity, neutrality, and restraint. When these functions are combined, each undermines the other. The page becomes denser without becoming clearer.

As more content is added, the cost of deciding what to show increases. The homepage turns into a surface that reflects internal priorities rather than external intent. Visitors are required to interpret the page before they can move forward.

At that point, the homepage is no longer helping people orient themselves. It is asking them to make sense of choices that were never theirs to begin with.

The value of a neutral entry point

A routing layer does not try to explain the project. It does not summarize recent work. It does not attempt to persuade or contextualize. Its only job is to provide a stable place to enter and choose a direction.

That stability is the key property. A routing layer should change rarely, even as the projects it connects evolve continuously. It should not reflect internal debates about emphasis or timing. It should remain legible regardless of what is currently active or newly launched.

By moving routing out of the homepage, the homepage is freed to return to what it does best. Explanation, depth, and narrative. The routing layer absorbs the volatility of entry points, allowing the primary sites to remain focused and coherent.

This separation reduces maintenance pressure in a way that is difficult to appreciate until it is in place. Decisions that once felt urgent lose their urgency. Not because they no longer matter, but because they no longer need to be resolved on a single page.

Choosing a minimal implementation

Once the decision to separate routing from explanation was made, the implementation followed naturally. The routing layer needed to be simple, static, and resistant to overextension.

A dynamic system would have reintroduced the same pressures the homepage was already carrying. Personalization, analytics-driven rearrangement, or frequent updates would have made the routing layer expressive when it needed to remain quiet.

The goal was not flexibility. It was durability.

A static page, with a small number of clearly defined paths, provided exactly that. It allowed different parts of the project network to grow independently without requiring constant recalibration at the point of entry.

What this decision enabled

The most noticeable effect of introducing a routing layer was not visual. It was cognitive.

The question of what should appear on the homepage stopped recurring. New initiatives no longer demanded immediate placement. Existing content no longer needed to justify its position. The entry point became stable, which allowed everything downstream to change more freely.

This also clarified the roles of the individual sites. Each could develop its own voice and structure without being shaped by the needs of first-time visitors arriving from elsewhere. The routing layer handled orientation. The sites handled substance.

Over time, this reduced friction not just for visitors, but for maintenance as well. Fewer decisions. Fewer tradeoffs. Fewer reasons to revisit the same questions.

What this is not

This is not an argument against homepages. Nor is it a recommendation that every project needs a separate routing layer. Many projects are well served by a single, carefully maintained entry point.

The decision only makes sense once the cost of maintaining that entry point begins to outweigh its benefits. When the homepage becomes a site of negotiation rather than communication, it may be worth reconsidering its role.

In this case, building a dedicated routing layer was less about adding something new and more about restoring clarity to what already existed.

Sometimes the most effective way to improve a system is not to redesign it, but to narrow its responsibilities.