How this site was made
AI did the making. I did the directing. Here is the toolchain, the workflow, what it cost, and where AI got it wrong.
Draft. Costs, timings and the before-and-after are still being filled in.
The toolchain
| Job | Tool | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Writing, design and code | Claude | Existing plan |
| Intro and summary videos | HeyGen | Paid month for final renders |
| Voice | ElevenLabs, cloned from my voice | Paid month for final renders |
| Code storage | GitHub | Free |
| Hosting | Vercel, Hobby plan | Free |
| Domains | Porkbun | About $11 a year each |
The workflow
- Pitch first. Decided what a visitor should take away in a minute, before any design.
- Script. Wrote the intro and summary scripts with Claude, then rewrote them in my own words.
- Video. Built an avatar from one photo in HeyGen and rendered the scripts with my voice.
- Design and code. Directed Claude through the layout, type and colour, reviewing a preview of every change before it went live.
- Ship. Claude commits to GitHub, Vercel publishes on its own, and Porkbun points the domain at Vercel.
Where AI got it wrong
- It signed its code as the wrong person. The hosting service quietly refused to publish until the commits were signed with my account.
- It created a redirect loop. Two settings each sent visitors to the other version of the domain. Caught before anyone saw it.
- It worked from a screen recording. My first video had a player bar baked in. AI cropped it, but the fix was to export properly.
- It wrote copy I would never say. The first essay title was too combative for me. I toned it down.
Take the playbook.
Everything here, written as a Markdown file you can paste straight into Claude or ChatGPT to build your own.