How to Build a Website with Agentic AI 🌐
Before this experiment, I had never built a website and I had no web development experience. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of tools like Astro, Netlify, or Porkbun.
Yet in a single evening, a series of conversational sprints with ChatGPT gave me the context and confidence to go from blank slate to a live personal site without writing a single line of code.
This tutorial focuses on the process rather than the tech. Swap in any equivalent tools based on your specific context and goals. The AI-first development framework remains the same.
Why This Matters
Agentic AI flips the builder’s workflow: you stay in conversation while the agent handles code.
The magic isn’t the specific stack. It’s in the dialogue:
- Envision – Paint the picture of what you want to create and why.
- Explore – Use AI to uncover approaches, tools, and possible solutions.
- Execute – Let the agent implement, iterate, and bring your idea to life.
If you can articulate the outcome, AI can handle the implementation.
How to Get Started
For beginners, the hardest part isn’t the learning curve. It’s figuring out where to start. This space is full of tools: Claude, Clode, Windsurf, Cursor, Goose, and many more.
But getting started only takes one tool: ChatGPT.
I’m not here to recommend a specific agent or stack (though I’ll show you what I chose in the appendix of this guide). That depends on your goals. But if you treat ChatGPT like a research assistant and provide it with enough context, it will help you pick the right tools and teach you how to use them.
The AI‑First Workflow for Website Dev
1. 💡 Articulate the Vision
- Prompts for ChatGPT:
- Beginner: I want to create a website. How do I get started? Assume I have no experience in this domain. - Intermediate: Help me pick a simple modern stack for a flexible personal site that will support a blog, hosted demos, and be developer friendly. Guide me through the required steps. - Outcome – A roadmap with success criteria and steps you need to take to achieve your end goal.
- Pro Tip – Ask AI to ask you clarifying questions on your goals before it answers.
2. 🛒 Secure Your Domain Name
- Prompts for ChatGPT:
- Teach me how to purchase a website domain. Give me the pros and cons of the top five options. - Outcome – Decided on the developer friendly Porkbun and bought the domain aiwithzach.com for $11 per year.
3. 🗂️ Spin Up a Repository
- Prompts for ChatGPT:
- Guide me through creating and connecting a new GitHub repo for this project - Outcome – A clean repo to store the code that AI will write and to power the website.
4. ✍️ Draft the website/product brief
- Prompts for ChatGPT:
- Here is some context on my intended messaging, must‑have pages, and design vibe for my site. Ask up to five clarifying questions, one at a time, to get the context you need. - Draft this context into a document for me to give to my AI Agent to write the code. - Outcome – A one‑page README.md file that Agentic AI can reference during the build.
- Pro Tip – Use AI as a sounding board to iterate and expand on your ideas.
5. ✨ Let Agentic AI Build the Website
- Prompts for AI Agent (Goose, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
- Using the vision documented in the README file, build me a website. - Outcome – A locally rendered website for you to review and rapidly iterate on.
6. 🎨 Iterate and Polish Pages
- Prompts for AI Agent (Goose, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
- Add these photos to my About page. - Add a call to action for people to follow me on LinkedIn. - Add a canonical set of tags for my blog posts based on content type and context. - Outcome – A polished website customized with your personality and voice.
- Pro Tip – Alternate between ChatGPT for ideation (free) and AI Agent code writing (per-call API pricing); commit to GitHub after each round.
7. 🚀 Deploy Website
- Prompts for ChatGPT:
- Now how do I host the website and make it live? Walk me through the steps. - Outcome – A live, secure site at
yourdomain.com.
AI-Powered Website Dev Stack Overview
| Task | Common Options (2025) | What I Picked |
|---|---|---|
| Research Assistant | ChatGPT · Claude · Gemini | ChatGPT |
| AI Agent / Code Writer | Windsurf · Cursor · Goose | Goose |
| Website Framework | Next.js · Astro · Gatsby | Astro |
| Runtime Environment | Node.js · Bun · Deno | Node.js |
| Website Hosting | Netlify · Vercel · Cloudflare Pages | Netlify |
| Domain Registrar | Porkbun · Namecheap · Cloudflare | Porkbun |
💡 Cost note: For a work project I’d stay inside Goose for the research assistant. For this personal build, ChatGPT Plus’s flat monthly fee turned out cheaper than Goose’s per-call pricing.
Ready to Try?
Clone the approach, not the code. Start a chat, articulate your idea, and let an agentic workflow carry you from zero to launch, no web design experience required. 🌟
- Zach
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