Developer builds Go web app with no build pipeline, ships a single binary

A developer building Smeldr, an open-source Go web application, deliberately chose to skip a build pipeline entirely, relying solely on the standard 'go build' command to produce a single deployable binary. The binary embeds all templates and static assets using Go's embed.FS, eliminating the need for bundlers, asset manifests, or fingerprinting steps. The developer argues that build pipelines introduce layered dependencies and version mismatches that defer complexity rather than remove it, accumulating hidden costs over time. Smeldr's own website, smeldr.dev, runs on the same binary and serves both a large third-party WebGL animation and lightweight interactive frontend code without a separate asset pipeline. Deployment is reduced to copying the binary and restarting the process, making the approach platform-agnostic across VPS instances, containers, and cloud environments.