Quickstart Publish your first site with Claude Code

Reference

About this guide

Who made this guide, why, and how it's built. It's a GitHub repo published with GitHub Pages, the same way your site will be.

Time: 2 min
On this page

Who made it

Jeremy Fritzhand, fritzhand on GitHub (opens in a new tab). The starter sites the guide points to are his repos too.

Why it exists

It's the shortest path from no GitHub account to a published website, made by telling an AI agent what you want. It teaches only what you need for that one goal. There are no servers, databases or frameworks here. You type or dictate, and the agent does the work.

How it's built

This site is itself a repo, fritzhand/quickstart (opens in a new tab), published with GitHub Pages from main and the /docs folder. It was made with Claude Code.

  • Each page is one HTML file in the content folder.
  • content/nav.json sets the sidebar and the page order.
  • node build.mjs turns them into the finished site in docs. It needs Node.js and nothing else.

Want a multi-page guide like this one about your own subject, such as a handbook, directory or resource guide? Fork it. On the app path, open fritzhand/quickstart (opens in a new tab) and click Fork yourself. On the VS Code path, say this in your Projects folder:

Say this
Fork fritzhand/quickstart into my account, with only the main branch, and name the fork your-repo. If you can't choose the fork's name, stop and tell me. Don't fork it under another name. Then clone it here.

If the agent can't fork it, click Fork yourself. Then start a new session with your fork selected (on the VS Code path, open its folder, cloning it first if needed) and point it at your own address:

Say this
Work only in your-username/your-repo. Treat the other repos as read-only reference. In site.config.json, set siteName to "My Guide", siteTagline to "one line about your guide", siteBase to https://your-username.github.io/your-repo/, pathPrefix to /your-repo/ and repo to https://github.com/your-username/your-repo, and set the author to my name, Your Name, with https://github.com/your-username. Run node build.mjs until it finishes without errors, then commit and push to main.

Its CLAUDE.md explains the page format to the agent, and after each change the agent rebuilds the docs folder. Then switch Pages on yourself, from main and /docs, as in Turn on GitHub Pages.

The examples

Starter · easiesthistory-of-tampaOne long scrolling story of downtown Tampa. Use it to learn any history subject. Plain files, no build step. (opens in a new tab) Made from history-of-tampahistory-of-indigoThe same engine, pointed at a topic instead of a place. (opens in a new tab) Starter · harderstartup-india-guideA multi-page sidebar site for any subject, such as a directory, handbook or resource guide. A small Node script builds it into a docs folder, and this guide is built the same way. (opens in a new tab) Showcase onlyFlorida Startup Ecosystem MapMade from startup-india-guide. Its repo is private. (opens in a new tab)

Official docs

For anything this guide leaves out, go to the source.

Claude Code

Codex

GitHub

Your computer

License

MIT. You may copy, change and share this guide, including for your own site, as long as you keep the LICENSE file with its copyright notice. The license is in the repo: LICENSE (opens in a new tab).

Saved only in this browser.