TriplucaVivere viaggiando

How I built this site (and how you can too)

Leggi questa pagina in italiano →

When the new Tripluca went online, many of you asked how I did it. In short: I left WordPress and had an AI agent, Claude Code, do all the work. It is a program that runs on a small rented server (a VPS): it reads files, writes code and tests it. It also runs on your own computer, but for safety I don't recommend it: an agent that runs commands is better kept away from your personal files. I told it what I wanted, in plain Italian, and checked the result.

It took about a week, in my spare time. The result: a site made only of ready-made pages (HTML), hosted for free on Cloudflare, with all of its 700+ posts and their comments from 2000 to today, the same addresses as before and nothing to update. To publish a post I give Claude the draft; it tidies it up, adds photos and data for Google, shows me a preview and, when I say ok, puts it online.

Below you will find the pros and cons, the answers to the questions you asked me and, at the bottom, a text to copy and paste into your own agent (Claude Code or Codex) that walks it through doing the job on your site, step by step, asking for your OK before every delicate move.

The advantages

  • Speed. The pages are already built and are served from machines close to the reader, all over the world. No database to query on every visit.
  • Security. There is no login page to break into, no plugin with holes, no database, no PHP to update. The usual attacks on WordPress find nothing here. New comments go through a Cloudflare anti bot check and I approve them by hand. If something goes wrong, the site is back up in a few minutes from its copy.
  • Zero maintenance. No updates, plugins, database backups or security alerts.
  • Cost. Hosting on Cloudflare Pages is free, even with a lot of traffic. All that is left is the domain, about ten euros a year.
  • Control. The whole site is a folder of files that belongs to you, saved with the history of every change. You can go back to any version and move elsewhere whenever you like, without depending on a theme or a host.
  • Publishing is a conversation. You write or dictate the draft; the agent does the rest.
  • Friendly to Google and AI assistants. Sitemap, structured data and light pages are done once and stay done.

The disadvantages (there are a few)

  • There is no dashboard to write in. The agent becomes the editor. If you'd rather click "Publish" on a web page, this isn't for you.
  • You need an agent subscription, about 20 euros a month for Claude or ChatGPT (for Codex). Many people already have one for other things.
  • The "live" parts have to be rebuilt: comments, contact forms, search, newsletter, shop. All of them can be done, but each one is an extra piece of work, or an outside service.
  • The migration needs care. Old content is full of surprises: page builder codes, missing photos, forgotten pages. The agent finds and fixes them, but someone has to look at the result.
  • The delicate step is the domain, not the site. If your email runs on the same domain, a mistake in the move stops it. That's why every setting gets copied before anything is touched.
  • The agent makes mistakes, sometimes. Confidently. You have to look at the preview before saying ok.
  • More authors, more complicated. For a site with a whole editorial team, WordPress is still more convenient.

Your questions

Did you use the AI tools through Cloudflare or an outside AI? Outside. The AI is Claude Code by Anthropic, running on a server I rent (a VPS). Cloudflare is just the site's home: it hosts it, protects it and manages the domain.

Can you move your domain directly? Yes. The domain stays yours and you can leave it where you bought it. You just move its "address book" (the DNS) to Cloudflare by changing two lines in your registrar's panel. If you like, you can also transfer the domain itself to Cloudflare, which renews it at cost. First you copy every existing setting, especially the email ones, so nothing breaks.

Do you need to know HTML well? No, not at all. I didn't write a single line of code. You need to be able to explain what you want and have the patience to look at the result.

How many tokens did you spend, and what workflow did you follow? I used a flat-rate Claude subscription, so I didn't count tokens. The path: a full copy of WordPress (posts, pages, comments, images) and of every domain setting, conversion to static pages, a trial run on a temporary address, a check that every old address leads to the right page, and only at the very end the move of the domain. It is exactly the path of the text below.

So the real advantage is that Claude writes the code for you? Exactly. Systems like WordPress existed precisely so you didn't have to write HTML. Now the agent does that job, and the "CMS" becomes a conversation: you say what you want, it writes the code, you look and approve. You keep the speed and safety of a plain HTML site without having to know how to write one.

Do bot attacks and things like PHP bugs disappear too? Yes, because there is no PHP and no database left on the site to attack. Bots can knock as much as they like: all they find is ready-made pages.

The text to give your agent

Open Claude Code (or Codex) in an empty folder, preferably on a VPS rather than your personal computer, copy all the text below and paste it in. Then answer its questions. It will ask for your OK before every delicate step.

I want to move my site/blog from WordPress to a static site hosted for free on Cloudflare, and then run it just by talking to you. You are my developer: you do the technical work, I decide and approve. Explain everything in plain words, one step at a time.

RULES FOR THE WHOLE JOB
- Before changing DNS, deleting anything, switching off the old hosting or publishing online: stop and ask for my OK.
- When I have to do something in a web panel (hosting, registrar, Cloudflare), give me one step at a time and wait for me to tell you what I see.
- Passwords, API keys, tokens and database dumps must never end up in the project files, in the repository or in the chat. Keep them in a file outside the project, or ask me to enter them myself.
- Choose boring, widely used, low-maintenance solutions. No servers to update, no database unless it is needed.
- Use git from day one, with small, clear commits.

PHASE 0: GETTING TO KNOW THE SITE
Ask me a few questions, one at a time: the site's address, where it is hosted, where I bought the domain, who manages the DNS today, whether my email also runs on the domain, which features I use (comments, forms, newsletter, search, shop, members' area), whether I want to keep the design or make a new one, and whether I have a Cloudflare and a GitHub account (if not, walk me through creating them for free). Then sum up the plan for me in 10 lines.

PHASE 1: SAFETY COPY (before touching anything)
1. Walk me through downloading the full WordPress export (Tools, Export, All content): it contains posts, pages, comments, categories.
2. Walk me through downloading the whole wp-content/uploads folder (images and attachments) from the hosting panel or via SFTP. If possible also a database dump, kept outside the project.
3. Read the public site (sitemap, pages, images) and compare it with the export: list for me anything missing.
4. Copy EVERY DNS record of the domain (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, subdomains) into a file. Also check with public DNS and ask me for a screenshot or an export of the current DNS panel, because some records cannot be seen from outside.
Save everything in a backup folder and confirm it is complete before going on.

PHASE 2: THE NEW SITE
1. Pick a simple, widely used static site generator (for example Hugo, Eleventy or Astro), or a small build script if that is genuinely simpler. Explain the choice in two lines.
2. Convert all posts and pages to Markdown files (or clean HTML) with title, date, categories, tags, summary and featured image. Clean up shortcodes and page builder leftovers without losing any text, photos or videos.
3. Keep EXACTLY the same addresses as before for posts, pages, categories and images (including /wp-content/uploads/...). For everything else (?p=123, /feed/, archive pages, old variants) prepare a file of 301 redirects.
4. Bring the approved comments along and show them under each post.
5. Design: readable, fast, phone-friendly, with an automatic dark theme. Images resized and in WebP format, loaded only when needed.
6. Add: RSS feed, sitemap.xml, robots.txt, llms.txt, structured data for Google, previews for social media, a useful 404 page, internal search without a server (for example Pagefind).
7. Live features, only the ones I use, and ask me first: new comments with the Cloudflare Turnstile anti bot check and manual approval (a small Cloudflare function that stores pending comments), a contact form, a newsletter through an outside service.
8. Security headers (HTTPS only, Content Security Policy).

PHASE 3: ONLINE AT A TRIAL ADDRESS
1. Create a Cloudflare Pages project (free plan) and publish the site at its temporary .pages.dev address. To publish, use a Cloudflare token with only the permissions needed, which I will put in a file outside the project. Alternatively, connect the GitHub repository so it publishes on every commit.
2. Take ALL the old addresses (export and sitemap) and check on the trial address that each one answers 200 or leads with a 301 to the right page. Give me the numbers and the list of the ones that fail, and fix them.
3. Check speed and accessibility (for example with Lighthouse) on phone and computer.
4. Send me the trial link and wait for me to look at the site.

PHASE 4: MOVING THE DOMAIN (the delicate step)
1. Walk me through adding the domain to Cloudflare (free plan). Compare the records Cloudflare imports with the copy from Phase 1 and add any that are missing, especially email (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and subdomains. Do not go on until they all match.
2. Walk me through changing the nameservers in the registrar's panel. The old hosting stays on.
3. Connect the domain (with and without www) to the Pages project, then check with public DNS that the new site answers, that the redirects work and that email still comes in and goes out.
4. Ask me whether I also want to transfer the domain registration to Cloudflare, and in any case make sure auto-renewal is on.
5. Remind me to cancel the old hosting only after 2 to 4 weeks without problems, and only if my email is not hosted there. If it is, the email has to be moved first.

PHASE 5: PUBLISHING BY TALKING
Write an instructions file for yourself in the project (CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md) describing how the site is built and how to publish. The flow should be:
1. I give you a draft, a dictation or just an idea.
2. You tidy up the text and formatting in my style, without changing the meaning, and suggest title, address, summary, categories and tags.
3. You prepare the images (mine, or the ones I point you to), resized and with alt text.
4. You show me the preview.
5. When I say ok, you publish, save the change and give me the link.
Also add how to approve new comments with a sentence like "any new comments?".

At the end, give me a one-page summary: what was done, where everything lives, what it costs each year, and the three sentences I need to publish, to approve comments and to bring the site back online if something goes wrong.

Start with Phase 0.

If you try it, write to me and tell me how it went.