Sustainability & Production Readiness

Is shipyard ready for production use? Who maintains it? Will it be around in a year? This page answers these questions honestly.

Note: This page reflects the state of the project as of December 2025.

Is shipyard Production-Ready?

Yes. shipyard is already used in several production projects. Most features are working well.

Here’s an honest assessment of where things stand:

Aspect	Status
Core functionality	Solid – layouts, navigation, docs, and blog all work reliably
Active development	Yes – features are prioritized based on real project needs
Semantic versioning	Yes – breaking changes result in version bumps
Documentation	Growing – core features are documented
Test coverage	E2E tests for critical paths

Who Maintains shipyard?

shipyard is currently a one-person project, maintained by Levin Keller.

Is That a Problem?

Not necessarily. Consider:

Starlight started the same way – Chris Swithinbank built it as a solo project before being hired by Astro
Many successful tools are small-team efforts – Quality doesn’t require a large team
Focused development – One maintainer means consistent vision and quick decisions

What About Long-Term Sustainability?

shipyard is used in production for the maintainer’s own projects. That means:

There’s real incentive to keep it working
Features are battle-tested in real use cases
Bugs get fixed when they affect production

The Funding Question

Let’s be direct about resources:

Project	Backing
Docusaurus	Meta (Facebook) – significant corporate resources
Starlight	Astro – Chris Swithinbank is now employed by Astro
shipyard	Independent – one developer, no corporate backing

This is a real difference. Docusaurus has dedicated engineers. Starlight has official Astro support. shipyard has one person working on it in their available time.

Why shipyard Can Still Compete

AI-augmented development changes the equation.

shipyard is also an experiment: Can a single developer, augmented by AI tools like Claude, deliver the same value as a well-funded team? So far, the answer seems to be yes.

shipyard already has features that Starlight lacks
Development velocity is higher than you’d expect from a solo project
AI assistance handles much of the implementation grunt work

This isn’t about competing with Meta’s resources. It’s about proving that modern AI tools can level the playing field for independent developers building quality open-source software.

Contributing

Want to help? Contributions are welcome:

Open an issue – Report bugs or request features on GitHub
Submit a pull request – Code contributions are appreciated
Share feedback – Tell us what would make shipyard more useful for your projects
Spread the word – Star the repo, share with others

Version Policy

shipyard follows semantic versioning:

Patch versions (0.x.Y) – Bug fixes, no breaking changes
Minor versions (0.X.0) – New features, potentially breaking in 0.x
Major versions (X.0.0) – Breaking changes (when we reach 1.0)

You won’t be surprised by breaking changes. Update when you’re ready, check the changelog, and migrate at your own pace.

The Bottom Line

shipyard is production-ready today. It’s maintained by someone who uses it in production. It may not have Meta’s resources, but it’s actively developed and improving.

If you need the safety of corporate backing, choose Docusaurus. If you want lean, composable building blocks and are comfortable with an independent project, shipyard is ready for you.