Lesson 10 of 1015 min read

Build a simple site and publish it for free

The last lesson is a thing you'll have at the end: a one-page website, written by your assistant, published on GitHub Pages at a real address, for nothing. No code knowledge needed. Fifteen minutes, mostly waiting.

Nine lessons of thinking. This one is doing. By the end you'll have a page on the internet that you made, at an address that's yours, and you'll have used an AI assistant the way a developer does: to write something you couldn't write yourself, check it, and ship it. If you've never touched code, that's the point. You still won't have, really. But you'll know what it feels like to direct it.

What we're building

A single page. A personal landing page is the classic: your name, what you do, how to reach you, maybe three things you're proud of. Or a page for a small project, an event, a club, a CV. One page, a few sections, looks decent on a phone. That's enough to learn the whole process, and it's a thing you can keep.

Where it will live: GitHub Pages. GitHub is a site where developers store code; Pages is its free feature that turns a folder of files into a website. Free, no ads, no expiry, reliable. The address will be yourname.github.io.

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1 · ASK Brief your assistant. It writes one file: index.html 2 · REPOSITORY New, public, named yourname.github.io The name is the address. 3 · ADD THE FILE Add file → Create new. Name it index.html, paste, Commit. 4 · OPEN Wait a minute. https://yourname .github.io No hosting bill, no domain to buy, no software to install. To change the page, edit the file and commit again.
The whole process. Step 1 is the one that used to take a developer; now it takes a brief.

Step 1: brief the assistant

This is lesson 2's five-part request, aimed at code. Open your assistant and ask for something like:

I'm [who you are]. I want a single-page personal website: my name, one line about what I do, three short sections (About, Work, Contact), and an email link. It should look clean and modern, work on a phone, and use no external libraries or images, just one HTML file with the styles inside it. Dark text on a light background, one accent colour. Give me the complete file as index.html with placeholder text I can replace.

Then iterate the way you would with any draft: "make the heading bigger", "add a section for talks", "warmer accent colour". Three rounds is normal. When you like it, ask one more thing: "Is there anything in this file that would stop it working on GitHub Pages?" It will usually say no, and now you've checked.

You'll get back a block of code. You don't need to read it. You need to copy all of it.

Step 2: make the place for it

  1. Go to github.com and create an account if you don't have one. Pick a username you'd put on a business card; it becomes part of the address.
  2. Click the + at the top right, then New repository.
  3. Name it exactly yourname.github.io, replacing yourname with your GitHub username. This exact name is what tells GitHub to publish it as your site.
  4. Leave it Public. Tick Add a README file so the repository isn't empty. Click Create repository.

A repository is just a folder GitHub keeps for you, with a history of every change.

Step 3: add the file

  1. In the new repository, click Add file, then Create new file.
  2. In the name box type index.html. The name matters: it's the file a web address opens by default.
  3. Paste the whole code block from your assistant into the big box.
  4. Click Commit changes. Accept the default message. Commit again on the confirmation.

"Commit" means save, with a note about what changed. You just did your first one.

Step 4: open it

Wait a minute or two, then open https://yourname.github.io in your browser. There it is.

If it's not there after five minutes: in the repository, open Settings, then Pages in the left menu, and make sure the source is set to deploy from a branch, with main and / (root) selected. Save, wait another minute. If the page is there but looks wrong, the paste probably missed the first or last line; open index.html in GitHub, click the pencil to edit, and paste again.

Changing it

To change anything: open index.html in the repository, click the pencil icon, edit, commit. The site updates in about a minute. Or paste the current file to your assistant, say what you want changed, and paste the result back. You'll never need to understand the code; you need to describe the change and check the result in the browser, which is lesson 3 applied to a web page.

What you just did, in the course's terms

You briefed with the five parts (lesson 2). You checked the output in the only way that matters, by looking at the live result (lesson 3). You used a tool with a definition of done and a cheap way to retry (lesson 9). And you now have a repeatable process you could write down as a workflow (lesson 6), because a second page, or a page for someone else, takes ten minutes.

This is also the shape of most work with AI from here on. You describe, it produces, you check, you ship, you adjust. The code was never the hard part.

Where to go next

Try this today

There's nothing to add. The lesson is the task. Do steps 1 to 4, send the address to one person, and then come back and answer five questions.

Check yourself

5 questions. Everything is in the lesson above. Get them all right and the lesson counts as done.

1. Why must the repository be named exactly yourname.github.io?
The name is the signal and the address. A repository with another name needs extra settings to publish.
2. Why is the file called index.html?
Open https://yourname.github.io and the server serves index.html. Other names need the file name in the address.
3. What does "commit" mean here?
A commit is a saved change with a message. Publishing follows automatically for a Pages site, a minute later.
4. The page is live but looks broken. The most likely cause is:
An incomplete paste is the usual culprit. Open the file, edit, paste again, commit.
5. What's the right way to check code you can't read?
Lesson 3 applied: check the output that matters, which here is the page itself. The assistant can also check its own file for problems if you ask.
Lesson 10 of 10 done

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