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ADR-054: Demo persona & brand mascot (Pulci Nella)

Status

Section titled “Status”

Accepted

Context

Section titled “Context”

Before this decision, the template’s demo author surface was incoherent:

  • src/pages/about.astro rendered “Hi, I’m Alex 👋” with hardcoded inline skills and experiences arrays bypassing the existing bio and experience content collections.
  • The three demo blog posts already carried author: 'Pulci Nella', but the projects collection used Christopher Pezza and Lead Architect framing on case studies with fabricated Lighthouse scores (“99/100”), fabricated durations (“3 months”), and fabricated client counts.
  • bio/default.mdx and the three experience/*.mdx entries existed but shipped with template placeholder copy (“Your Name”, “Acme Corp”, “Tech Innovations Inc.”) that no surface consumed.

A cloner inheriting that state had three problems: an inconsistent author identity across the site, fabricated metrics they could accidentally ship as their own, and no clear seam between “demo content” and “your content.”

The astro.build/themes submission window forced the question. A themes directory visitor judging the homepage and About in one sitting needed a demo persona that read as obviously placeholder, not as a real human’s embellished CV.

Decision Drivers

Section titled “Decision Drivers”
  • Replaceability signal: a named clown is a self-evident placeholder; a realistic fake human is not. Cloners must immediately see “this is demo content.”
  • No falsifiable claims: outcomes that survive eviction must be capability statements true of the starter, never client KPIs.
  • Collection-driven: the bio and experience collections already exist with the right shape; About should source from them, not bypass them.
  • One identity everywhere: bio, About hero, experience, blog byline all read as the same demo person.
  • Brand-coherent: the persona belongs to Clownware; reuse across Clownware templates is desirable.

Considered Options

Section titled “Considered Options”

Option 1: Keep “Alex” + hardcoded arrays

Section titled “Option 1: Keep “Alex” + hardcoded arrays”

Description: Status quo — fictional human “Alex” with inline arrays in About.

Pros:

  • No changes required.

Cons:

  • Reads as a real person’s CV; cloners might ship it.
  • Bypasses the existing bio/experience collections.
  • Inconsistent with the blog byline (“Pulci Nella” already shipped).

Option 2: Use the actual maintainer’s identity

Section titled “Option 2: Use the actual maintainer’s identity”

Description: Make the template author the demo author.

Pros:

  • Truthful.

Cons:

  • Every cloner inherits another person’s name, photo, links.
  • “Replace me” becomes “replace someone real who built this,” which is worse signal than a clown.

Option 3: Pulci Nella — named demo persona (CHOSEN)

Section titled “Option 3: Pulci Nella — named demo persona (CHOSEN)”

Description: Ship a Clownware demo mascot — Pulci Nella (a split of Pulcinella) — as the swappable identity. Source from bio + experience collections. Replace fabricated client metrics with capability statements. Mark every persona surface with a {/* CUSTOMIZE: ... */} MDX comment.

Pros:

  • Obvious placeholder — cloners cannot mistake it for a real CV.
  • One identity threads through bio, About, experience, blog byline, project demo case studies.
  • Reuses existing collections; no schema changes.
  • A brand asset Clownware can carry across templates.

Cons:

  • One more brand surface to maintain (mascot SVG, voice guide).
  • Cloners who skip the CUSTOMIZE markers ship a clown’s CV.

Decision

Section titled “Decision”

We will go with Option 3 — Pulci Nella as the demo persona.

Implementation Details

Section titled “Implementation Details”
  • src/content/bio/default.mdx — Pulci Nella’s bio (name, title, location, social, categorized skills, intro prose). Avatar uses ../../assets/brand/state-idle.svg (an animated state portrait). The interim src/images/avatar-placeholder.png has been removed — it went unused once the brand SVGs shipped and it exceeded the per-image budget (ADR-057).
  • src/content/experience/{ghost-dev,travelling-maschera,bundle-size-exorcist}.mdx — three experience entries ordered 1–3, replacing the prior senior/frontend/junior-developer placeholders.
  • src/pages/about.astro — rewired to load bio via getEntry("bio", "default") and experiences via getCollection("experience") sorted by order. Renders <BioContent /> from the bio’s render(entry) call. Categorized skills group iteration replaced the flat inline array.
  • Blog byline: all three demo posts already carry author: "Pulci Nella"; verified.
  • Projects (per ADR-056): demo case studies in Pulci Nella’s voice with capability outcomes, no client KPIs.

Persona scope

Section titled “Persona scope”

Pulci Nella is confined to the author surface: bio, About, experience, blog byline, project demo case studies. It does not appear in:

  • Documentation prose
  • ADR content (ADRs are written in the template’s voice, not Pulci Nella’s)
  • Component names or code identifiers
  • Error messages or system output

Reuse across Clownware templates

Section titled “Reuse across Clownware templates”

Cross-template reuse starts as a documented convention — the same persona shipped fresh into each repo. A shared npm package is deferred until copy-paste drift becomes a real maintenance burden.

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”

Positive

Section titled “Positive”
  • One consistent, obviously-demo identity across the site.
  • Collections become the single source the About page consumes; no more inline placeholder arrays.
  • Cloners see a clean “replace me” signal at every persona surface.
  • Removes the fabricated-metric risk: capability statements remain true after a cloner swaps the persona.

Negative

Section titled “Negative”
  • A second Clownware brand asset to maintain (mascot SVG + voice copy).
  • Cloners who skip the CUSTOMIZE markers ship a clown’s CV.

Neutral

Section titled “Neutral”
  • The persona’s voice (slightly wry, technically grounded, first-person) is now the demo content voice; cloners overwriting it set their own.

Validation

Section titled “Validation”
  • Metric 1: rg "Alex|Christopher Pezza|Tech Innovations|Acme Corp" src/ returns zero hits outside test fixtures. (amended 2026-08-02: originally claimed zero hits outright; src/components/molecules/__tests__/ProjectCard.test.ts uses “Acme Corp” as a fixture client name — no persona-surface content matches.)
  • Metric 2: pnpm build succeeds with the bio and experience collections populated; /about renders Pulci Nella end-to-end.
  • Metric 3: every persona MDX surface contains a CUSTOMIZE: marker.
  • Metric 4: no fabricated client metrics in shipping content (Lighthouse scores stay as capability claims, durations and roles removed from project case studies — see ADR-056).

References

Section titled “References”
  • ADR-055 — Companion decision on the visual language Pulci Nella inhabits (mono icons, one gradient per view).
  • ADR-056 — Projects collection’s role as demo portfolio in Pulci Nella’s voice.
  • ADR-049 — Showcase as the living style guide; persona visuals must defer to its rules.

Notes

Section titled “Notes”

The mascot artwork shipped as the state-*.svg portraits in src/assets/brand/; bio/default.mdx uses state-idle.svg as the avatar. The interim avatar-placeholder.png was removed once those SVGs landed (see the per-image budget gate, ADR-057).

Enforcement

Section titled “Enforcement”
  • Not machine-checkable: persona voice, replaceability signal, and the no-falsifiable-claims rule are editorial judgments; collection-driven sourcing is a review concern.
  • Graduation log: (empty at creation; entries added when a check changes status)

Date: 2026-06-07
Participants: template author, Pulci Nella (persona maintainer)
Outcome: Accepted