One night, no developer. This site went from its first build to live on my own domain in under four hours. Claude Code built it from a site I liked and a list of what I wanted.
How I built it
| Step | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1. I showed it | A site I liked, and what I wanted on mine: my pages, my photo, my words |
| 2. It built | The pages, the contact form, the logo and my application page |
| 3. It put it live | Hosting, a database for the form, my own domain. My part: a couple of logins and a few domain records |
| 4. It keeps building | Every guide here is one text file. My AI writes it, and it’s live about two minutes later |
Under the hood: Astro builds the pages, GitHub holds the code, and Railway hosts it and puts every change live on its own.
📋 Paste this into your AI
Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude and fill in the two brackets. It takes a minute.
I run [type of business — e.g. a roofing company]. I want to build my website tonight with Claude Code, following the look of [a site I like — paste its link]. Plan it for me:
The pages I need, five at most, each with its one job.
My home page words: the headline, three short lines on what I do and who it’s for, and the button text.
The brief I’ll paste into Claude Code: the look, every page and what’s on it, and a contact form that saves every message.
The steps to put it live on my own domain, in plain words.
Keep it specific to my line of work. Then ask me the three things you’d need to know to make it fit my business exactly.
What comes back is your site plan, your home page words and the brief that builds it.
The three traps
- Ask before you borrow a look. Mine follows a friend’s site, with his permission. Then every word, photo and logo on it became mine.
- The domain is the hands-on part. Your host gives you two records to add to your domain’s DNS, and the site won’t answer until both are in. Some registrars, GoDaddy among them, can’t point the bare name (no www) at a host like Railway. I moved my DNS to Cloudflare, which can.
- Test the form for real. Mine looked fine and refused every real message until one setting was fixed. Send yourself a message from your phone before you share the link.
Start this week
- Pick the look. One site you’d be proud to call yours, and the pages you need.
- Paste the prompt. Get your pages, your home page words and the brief for Claude Code.
- Build it tonight. Open the Claude desktop app, click the Code tab (any paid Claude plan), paste the brief, and add your domain last.