Queen of San Diego — Tech Blog

Under the hood at queenofsandiego.com

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Launching the Queen's Fleet Hub: Multi-City CloudFront Distribution and Avatar Strategy

This post documents the infrastructure and implementation work to launch thequeensfleet.com as a unified hub for The Queen's Fleet city-focused platform, along with the foundational architecture for deploying a photorealistic avatar as the brand's primary visual identity.

What Was Done

Over the past session, we:

  • Registered thequeensfleet.com domain and secured ACM TLS certificates
  • Built a CloudFront distribution to serve a dynamic hub page with city routing
  • Implemented DNS ALIAS flattening for apex domain resolution without CNAME overhead
  • Created a hub builder and regression test suite to prevent routing regressions
  • Updated the site registry to include the new hub as a ventures entry
  • Produced a complete avatar strategy document including photorealistic generation, licensing, and deployment roadmap

Domain Registration and Certificate Provisioning

The domain registration flow leveraged the existing Namecheap API integration running on the Lightsail ops instance. Rather than manually purchasing through a web UI, we:

  • Checked domain availability via DNS and whois lookups
  • Registered thequeensfleet.com using stored domain contact details via the Namecheap API
  • Requested an ACM certificate in the us-east-1 region (required for CloudFront)
  • Extracted DNS validation CNAME records from the certificate pending state
  • Injected validation records into the Namecheap DNS zone via API
  • Polled certificate status until validation completed and the certificate reached ISSUED state

Why this approach: Automating certificate provisioning eliminates manual steps and reduces time-to-deploy. By injecting DNS validation records programmatically, we avoid the typical 5–15 minute wait for manual DNS updates to propagate.

Hub Architecture and CloudFront Distribution

The hub serves as a landing page that routes traffic to city-specific subdomains. Rather than hosting it on a traditional origin server, we deployed it via CloudFront with S3 as the origin, leveraging a CloudFront function for request-time routing logic.

Hub Page Generation: The builder script (/Users/cb/icloud-repos/sites/queenof-cities/build/build_hub.py) generates a static HTML hub page containing:

  • Metadata for all active city domains (e.g., queenofsan-diego.com, queenoflosangeles.com)
  • Hero copy introducing The Queen's Fleet brand and avatar
  • City card links with city names, brief descriptions, and routing endpoints
  • Fallback redirect logic for unknown or direct requests

The hub rebuilds during CI/CD, ensuring the city list and routing metadata stay synchronized with the site registry.

CloudFront Function for Routing: We updated the qos-city-router CloudFront function (/Users/cb/icloud-repos/sites/queenof-cities/build/router.js) to:

  • Parse the incoming Host header and request URI
  • Match requests to queenof[city].com patterns
  • Rewrite the origin path to fetch city-specific content from the hub's S3 origin
  • Serve static HTML with proper Cache-Control headers for CDN caching

Example routing logic: a request to queenofsan-diego.com/ gets rewritten internally to fetch /cities/san-diego/index.html from the S3 origin, while thequeensfleet.com/ fetches /hub/index.html.

DNS Configuration: The Namecheap DNS zone for thequeensfleet.com uses an ALIAS record (Namecheap's flattened CNAME equivalent) pointing the apex domain directly to the CloudFront distribution domain. This avoids the CNAME limitation at the zone apex and ensures the domain resolves without intermediary redirects.

Infrastructure and Resource IDs

All infrastructure details are documented in /Users/cb/icloud-repos/sites/queenof-cities/infra.md. Key resources:

  • CloudFront Distribution: Created for thequeensfleet.com, with the hub S3 bucket as the origin and the qos-city-router function attached to viewer request events
  • S3 Origin Bucket: Stores the hub HTML, city metadata, and avatar assets; configured for private access (CloudFront only) via origin access control
  • ACM Certificate: Issued in us-east-1 for thequeensfleet.com and *.thequeensfleet.com, attached to the CloudFront distribution for HTTPS
  • Site Registry Entry: Added thequeensfleet.com to the ventures section of the site registry with metadata for hub status, deployment date, and city list

Testing: The regression test suite (/Users/cb/icloud-repos/sites/queenof-cities/tests/test_hub.py) validates:

  • Hub page serves with HTTP 200 and valid HTML structure
  • City links in the hub reference active city domains from the registry
  • CloudFront function rewrites requests to the correct origin paths
  • Cache-Control headers are set appropriately for CDN caching

Key Infrastructure Decisions

Why CloudFront instead of a traditional web server: CloudFront provides:

  • Global edge caching with minimal latency for hub traffic
  • Built-in DDoS protection and TLS termination
  • Seamless support for serving both the hub and city-specific content from the same distribution
  • Functions for request-time routing logic without backend API calls

Why automate domain and certificate provisioning: Manual steps create deployment friction and operator error risk. By integrating with Namecheap and ACM APIs, we reduced domain-to-live time from hours to minutes and eliminated manual DNS record entry.

Why static HTML hub with CloudFront routing: A static hub paired with CloudFront functions allows us to serve high-traffic landing page content with zero backend load, while keeping the architecture simple and cost-efficient.

Avatar Strategy and Photorealistic Generation

In parallel with infrastructure, we developed a comprehensive avatar implementation plan (/Users/cb/icloud-jada-ops/queens-fleet/AVATAR-PLAN-2026-07-04.md). The strategy covers:

  • Generation approach: Use state-of-the-art AI image generation (e.g., Midjourney, Runway, or custom diffusion models) to create photorealistic avatars of a young woman (18–27) with ethnically ambiguous features that resonate across multiple geographies
  • Asset production: Generate multiple poses, outfits, and settings; create video loops for hero sections and social media; produce high-resolution stills for print and e-commerce
  • Licensing and legal: Secure usage rights or commission exclusive generation; ensure compliance with platform terms of service and disclosure of synthetic media where required
  • Deployment: Integrate avatar assets into the hub page, city landing pages, and marketing materials; version avatar releases alongside brand updates
  • Roadmap: Phase 1 (immediate): Launch static avatar assets on the hub. Phase 2 (30–60 days): Animated video loops and social media campaigns. Phase 3 (60–90 days): Interactive avatar experiences and e-commerce integration

What's Next

  • Avatar asset generation: Produce the first batch of photorealistic images and validate brand fit with CB
  • queensfleet.com acquisition: Pursue negotiation with the current domain holder; evaluate alternative premium domains if needed
  • Avatar integration: Embed avatar images in hub hero section and city landing pages; measure click-through and engagement metrics
  • Cross-platform rollout: Deploy avatar to social media channels (Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest) with content calendars and engagement strategies
  • City-specific customization: Generate location-aware avatar variations (clothing, backgrounds, settings) for each city domain

The infrastructure foundation is now in place, domain is registered, and hub is live worldwide. The next critical milestone is avatar asset delivery and brand validation before full campaign launch.

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