Weaver Demo

A demo blog built with Hugo and the Weaver theme, an IndieWeb-friendly theme for personal websites.

This entire site — content, configuration, and deployment — was generated through conversation using Claude Code and Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Live site: https://highb.github.io/weaver-demo

What's in here

• Two blog posts about the web's origins and the emerging indie bot web
• An about page
• GitHub Actions workflow for automatic deployment to GitHub Pages
• The Weaver theme as a git submodule

Build your own

You can create a site like this one by having a conversation with an AI coding assistant. You describe what you want in plain language, and it writes the code and runs the commands for you. No prior experience with web development is required.

Here's what you'll need to do, starting from scratch.

Step 1: Create a GitHub account

GitHub is a free platform that stores your website's code and can host it for free. You'll need an account.

1. Go to github.com/signup and create a free account
2. Once signed in, create a new repository (the "+" button in the top right, then "New repository"). Give it a name like my-blog. Check "Public" and click "Create repository"
3. Keep this browser tab open — you'll need the repository name later

Step 2: Set up an AI coding tool

An agentic coding tool is an AI assistant that can write code, create files, and run commands on your computer through conversation. You tell it what you want, and it does the work. Think of it like a knowledgeable friend sitting next to you at the keyboard.

There are several options. Here are a few that work well for this kind of task:

• Claude Code — Anthropic's command-line coding tool. This is what built this site. It requires a terminal (see Step 3) and an Anthropic API account or a Claude Max subscription. Install it by typing npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code in your terminal after installing Node.js.
• Claude.ai — If you'd rather stay in the browser, you can use Claude's web interface. It can't run commands directly on your computer, but it can generate all the files and give you step-by-step instructions to run the commands yourself.
• GitHub Copilot — Microsoft/GitHub's AI coding assistant. Available as a CLI tool, a VS Code extension, and built into github.com. Free tier available with a GitHub account.
• ChatGPT Codex — OpenAI's agentic coding tool, available through ChatGPT. It can run commands, write code, and work with GitHub repositories.
• Gemini CLI — Google's open-source command-line coding agent. Free to use with a Google account.
• OpenCode — An open-source terminal coding tool that works with many different AI models, giving you flexibility in which provider you use.
• Aider — An open-source, git-aware coding assistant that runs in the terminal. Works with many AI models, including free local models.
• Cline — An open-source autonomous coding agent (48K+ stars on GitHub) that runs as a VS Code extension. Works with many AI providers.
• Goose — An open-source AI agent from Block that runs locally and goes beyond just coding.

Pick whichever you're most comfortable with. If you're not sure, Claude.ai or ChatGPT in the browser are the easiest starting points — you can always move to a terminal-based tool later.

Step 3: Get a terminal (if using Claude Code)

A terminal (also called a command line) is a text-based interface for running commands on your computer. If you're using Claude Code, you'll need one.

• Mac: Open the built-in app called "Terminal" (search for it in Spotlight with Cmd+Space)
• Windows: Install Windows Terminal from the Microsoft Store, then install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) by opening Terminal and running wsl --install
• Linux: You already have one
• Chromebook: Enable Linux on ChromeOS in Settings

You'll also need to install a few things through the terminal:

• Git — for tracking changes and pushing to GitHub
• Node.js — needed to install Claude Code (download the LTS version)
• Hugo — the tool that builds your site
• GitHub CLI — for connecting to GitHub from the terminal (run gh auth login after installing)

If any of this feels overwhelming, paste these instructions into your AI tool of choice and ask it to walk you through the installation for your specific computer. That's a perfectly valid way to do it.

Step 4: Build your site

Once you have a coding tool set up, open Build Your Own and follow the instructions there. It contains a ready-to-paste prompt — fill in your details (name, GitHub username, etc.) and give it to your AI coding tool. It will set up everything and deploy your site.

Step 5: Start writing

After setup, creating new content is as simple as telling your AI tool:

Write a new blog post about [topic]

Then commit and push to publish it.

But here's the thing — the AI-generated first draft is just a starting point. It's going to sound like an AI wrote it, because one did. Tear it apart. Rewrite the parts that don't sound like you. Add your weird opinions, your specific references, your bad jokes. Ask the AI to rewrite sections in a different tone, or to make it funnier, or stranger, or angrier. Tell it "this is too polished, rough it up." Tell it "add a digression about my cat." Whatever.

The best version of your site is the one that sounds like a person made it — because one did. The AI is a power tool, not an author. Use it to get words on the page fast, then make those words yours.

Learning more

New to all of this? Learning Guide explains every technology the site uses, from the ground up, with links to free learning resources. There's no pressure to understand it all — or any of it. You can go as deep as you want.

Using an AI tool to build your site? Read Limitations of LLMs to understand what LLMs are bad at — including bias, hallucination, and the tendency to produce generic, soulless text unless you push back.

Updating the theme

The Weaver theme is a git submodule. To update it to the latest version:

cd themes/weaver
git fetch
git checkout origin/main
cd ../..
git add themes/weaver
git commit -m "Update Weaver theme to latest"
git push

Or just tell your AI tool:

Update the Weaver theme submodule to the latest version and push

Local development

If you have Hugo installed, you can preview your site before publishing:

hugo server -D

This starts a local server. Open the URL it prints in your browser to see your site.