From your AI builder to Kiln

You built a site with AI. These recipes make it editable by humans — your client, your team, future-you — without re-prompting anything.

Skip the retrofit entirely: start from the Kiln starter template ("Use this template" on GitHub) — annotations, blog, and members area pre-wired. Tell your AI to restyle that, and everything below is already done.

🤖 Claude (the zero-config path)

  1. In Claude Code (or claude.ai with a connected repo), paste KILN_PROMPT.md and say:
Build me a site for [describe it] as plain static HTML — then make it Kiln-ready
per the prompt above, and run: npx github:erikkurtu/kiln

Claude builds the site, annotates it, AND runs the setup wizard — you only click the three confirmation buttons it opens for you. End to end in one conversation.

💗 Lovable (and Bolt)

  1. Build your site. Then paste KILN_PROMPT.md into the chat with: "Refactor this into plain static HTML (no framework) and make it Kiln-ready per these conventions."
  2. Click Connect GitHub (native sync) — your project becomes a repo.
  3. Run npx github:erikkurtu/kiln in a clone of that repo (or request a Kiln Cloud invite and we attach the engine for you).

▲ v0

  1. v0 defaults to Next.js — add this to your prompt: "Output as plain static HTML/CSS, no React, no framework." Then paste KILN_PROMPT.md and ask it to apply the conventions.
  2. Push the result to GitHub.
  3. Host on Cloudflare Pages, not Vercel — Vercel's free tier prohibits commercial sites; Cloudflare's allows them. Then npx github:erikkurtu/kiln.

What "Kiln-ready" means (any tool, any site)

Just conventions in the HTML: data-cms on editable text/images, data-cms-repeat on card lists, data-cms-menu on the nav, two script tags, optional _templates/ for posts and pages. The full spec is KILN_PROMPT.md — written to be pasted into any AI tool verbatim.