Quickstart Publish your first site with Claude Code

Step 5 · Publish

Update & share

Your site is live. From now on, every change is the same short loop: ask, check, push. Then send people the link.

Time: 5 min
On this page

The everyday loop

  1. Ask

    Start a session in your repo and say what you want changed. Your CLAUDE.md rules come along every time.

  2. Check

    Say this
    Show me what you changed in plain English.

    For a bigger change, preview it first (below).

  3. Save it

    Say this
    Commit and push to main.

  4. See it live

    Your site updates within about 10 minutes. Reload it to see the change.

Things to ask for

Change some text
Change the subtitle on the home page to "your new subtitle".
Add a section
Add a section about the topic after the section it should follow. Research it first, give a working link for every fact, and mark anything you can't verify as TBD.
Swap the colors
Change the site's colors to deep blue and sand. Keep the text easy to read in both light and dark mode.
Add an image, with credit
Add a photo of the subject to the section. Use only an image that's public domain or openly licensed, show its credit line under it, and tell me where you found it.
Fix broken links
Check every link on the site, fix or remove the broken ones, and list what you changed.

Preview before you push

App path

Claude's cloud machine has no screen you can see, and it may not be able to load what your page pulls from other websites, such as maps and fonts. Ask it for a quick check instead:

Say this
Before you push, check my site for missing files, broken image paths and JavaScript errors, and tell me what you find.

Then push and look at the live site. Don't like it? Say "Revert the last commit and push to main."

VS Code path

Say this
Start a local preview of my site and give me the link.

Open the link in your browser. It starts with http://localhost and works only on your computer. If your site has a build step, the agent runs it first. When you're done, say "Stop the preview."

Share it

Your address is https://your-username.github.io/your-repo/. Copy it exactly: the part after .github.io/ must match your repo's name, capitals included.

Optional: when you paste a link into a message, many apps show a preview card with a title and a picture. A starter's card still shows the original site until you change it:

Say this
Update my site's link preview so its title, description and picture describe my site, not the original. If you can't make a new picture, remove the old one. Then commit and push to main.

You did it

What next

  • Make another one. Pick another history to learn, or a subject for a minisite, and start again from Pick a starter. Your first site now works as a starter too.
  • Keep PROGRESS.md up to date. End each session with "Update PROGRESS.md in your-username/your-repo with what's done and what's next, then commit and push to main."
  • Add a custom domain, later. If you own a domain name, GitHub Pages can serve your site from it. See GitHub's guide, About custom domains and GitHub Pages (opens in a new tab).
  • Keep your favorite prompts handy in the Prompt cheat sheet.

If it goes wrong

My change isn't on the live site
Say this
Is my last commit pushed to main on GitHub? If not, push it to main.

Then give it 10 minutes and open the address in a private or incognito window. Turn on GitHub Pages has more fixes.

What the agent runs for you 
# A local preview of a site with no build step
python3 -m http.server 8080          # then open http://localhost:8080

# Another way, if Node is installed
npx serve .

# A site with a build step, like startup-india-guide
node build.mjs
python3 -m http.server 8000 -d docs

Saved only in this browser.