Pretty on the Surface. Smarter Under the Hood.

When people hear "AI built my website", the default assumption is messy spaghetti code: something that looks fine in the browser but falls apart the moment you inspect the source.

That's not what I built.

What I created is a site that's just as gorgeous under the hood as it is on the surface. And that's no accident. It came from months of project-stacking, a relentless focus on modularity, and one guiding principle I carried from writing a 700-page novel into the world of coding and design: Show, don't tell.

In This Article, You'll Learn

• How I refactored a bloated 3,000-line stylesheet into a lean, modular 1,000-line system
• Why "Show, don't tell" isn't just for writing fiction — it's also a coding and design philosophy
• The skill-stacking journey that turned projects like Quinn's Quest and Claude's "drawing lessons" into the foundation of my website
• How modularity, annotation, and documentation transformed AI-assisted code into enterprise-grade craftsmanship
• What makes this styles.css readable, maintainable, and just as pretty under the hood as the site above

Ferrari under the hood

Where "Show, Don't Tell" Began

In my novel, I learned that readers don't want you to say a character is brave — they want to see bravery in action. That lesson became my creative north star.

When I pivoted into AI projects, I carried it with me. I realized the same principle applied everywhere:

• Don't tell a recruiter you can design a clean, functional resume — show them with a live, modular, interactive one.
• Don't tell someone you can document code — show them by opening styles.css and letting the annotations walk them through it like a manual.
• Don't tell people your site is scalable and efficient — show them by refactoring 3,000 lines of CSS into a lean, modular 1,000 lines.

Every element of my website — from the code, to the design, to the resume — was built on that philosophy.

From Monster Stylesheet to Modular Masterpiece

My first attempt at a universal stylesheet ballooned into a 3,000-line monster. Fonts, headers, page-specific quirks, experimental code — it was all jumbled together. Debugging became painful. Every change risked breaking something across the site.

So I refactored.

• Universal rules (fonts, colors, button logic, headers, footers) were pulled into one lean master stylesheet.
• Page-specific rules were broken out into their own modules. Each page now has its own identity without polluting the whole site.
• Annotation became non-negotiable. Every section is documented, every block labeled. Even someone who doesn't know CSS could scroll through and understand what each part does.
• Efficiency first: Teaching Claude to "draw" with CSS taught me that fewer lines can do more. The refactored sheet is one-third the size, but twice as powerful.

Now, instead of a tangled mess, the code reads like a book — organized chapters, a table of contents at the top, and a changelog at the bottom.

It's not just functional. It's readable. It's maintainable. It's beautiful.

Lessons That Stacked

This didn't happen in a vacuum. Each project taught me something I carried into the next:

• Standalone Media Visualizer → HTML basics
• Quinn's Quest 2.0 → Modularity, notation, and debugging discipline
• Knowledge Library Consulting → How to structure documentation at scale
• Branding Work → Cohesive, recognizable design rules
• Job Search Bot → Taught the importance and benefits of automation
• Claude Remembers → Documentation as memory; how to teach AI continuity
• Claude Draws → Maximizing output with minimal lines of CSS
• Walmart Laptop Optimization → Efficiency and performance are survival; minimize waste, maximize output on limited resources
• Website 1.0 → First full attempt; bloated but functional
• Website 2.0 → Refactored mastery; modular, efficient, annotated, and scalable

And over all of it — the discipline of "Show, don't tell."

You can read articles detailing each project here on LinkedIn or by visiting kylemohney.com/articles.

What Makes This Code Different

Here's what you'd see if you opened my styles.css:

• Table of Contents → Navigate sections instantly
• Modular Sections → Headers, footers, fonts, colors, buttons all isolated
• Expert Annotation → Every rule explained in plain language
• Changelog → Every update logged like a technical release note
• Readable Structure → The code doesn't just work — it teaches anyone who reads it

The Takeaway

Anyone can make a website that looks good on the surface. Few can make one that's just as elegant behind the scenes.

I learned that from writing fiction, from debugging a video game, from teaching AI to remember and to draw, and from pushing myself project after project.

The result is a methodology — AI Coordination Methodology — that turns AI into a team of specialists and produces products that "show, don't tell."

And that's the difference. AI didn't replace me. AI made me a builder, a documenter, and a systems designer.

A link to my GitHub repository available at kylemohney.com/projects