Building Your First Site

This tutorial walks you through creating a website using ReadySite's AI-native CMS.

Prerequisites

• Go 1.24+ installed
• Git

Step 1: Install ReadySite

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/readysite/readysite.git
cd readysite

# Run the website CMS
go run ./website

Open http://localhost:5000 in your browser.

Step 2: Complete Setup Wizard

On first run, you'll see the setup wizard:

1. Create Admin Account

   • Enter your email and password
   • This becomes your admin login

2. Configure AI Provider

   • Select your AI provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.)
   • Enter your API key
   • Choose a model

3. Site Information

   • Set your site name
   • Add a site description

Click "Complete Setup" to finish.

Step 3: Create Your First Page

1. Click Pages in the sidebar
2. Click New Page
3. Fill in the form:
   • Title: "About Us"
   • Slug: "about" (auto-generated from title)
   • Content: Add your HTML content

<div class="container mx-auto p-8">
    <h1 class="text-4xl font-bold mb-4">About Us</h1>
    <p class="text-lg">Welcome to our website!</p>
</div>

1. Click Save

Your page is now available at /about.

Step 4: Create a Collection

Collections are like database tables for dynamic content.

1. Click Collections in the sidebar
2. Click New Collection
3. Name it "Blog Posts"
4. Add fields:

1. Click Save

Step 5: Add Documents

Documents are records in a collection.

1. Select your "Blog Posts" collection

2. Click New Document

3. Fill in the fields:

   • title: "Hello World"
   • content: "This is my first post"
   • published: true
   • publishedAt: today's date

4. Click Save

Step 6: Display Collection Data in Pages

Update your page HTML to display blog posts:

<div class="container mx-auto p-8">
    <h1 class="text-4xl font-bold mb-8">Blog</h1>

    {{range $post := documents "blog-posts"}}
    <article class="mb-8 p-6 bg-base-200 rounded-lg">
        <h2 class="text-2xl font-bold">{{$post.GetString "title"}}</h2>
        <p class="mt-2">{{$post.GetString "content"}}</p>
        {{with $date := $post.GetTime "publishedAt"}}
        <time class="text-sm text-base-content/60">{{$date.Format "Jan 2, 2006"}}</time>
        {{end}}
    </article>
    {{else}}
    <p class="text-base-content/60">No posts yet.</p>
    {{end}}
</div>

Available template functions:

• documents "collection-name" - Get all documents
• document "collection-name" "id" - Get single document
• site_name - Site name
• site_description - Site description

Step 7: Use AI Chat

The AI assistant can help you build and manage your site.

1. Click the chat icon in the sidebar
2. Try these prompts:

Create content:

Create a contact page with a form

Update existing content:

Update the About page to add our team members

Manage collections:

Add a new blog post about getting started

The AI will execute tools to create/update content, and you can undo any changes.

Step 8: Publish Your Site

Pages have a "Published" toggle:

• Published: Visible to the public
• Unpublished: Only visible in admin

Toggle the publish state in the page editor.

Step 9: Deploy to Production

1. Set environment variables:

export AUTH_SECRET="your-secure-secret-here"
export ENV="production"

1. Build and deploy:

go run ./cmd/launch --new website

This creates a server and deploys your website.

Next Steps

• Endpoints: Create serverless Lua functions at /admin/endpoints
• File uploads: Upload images and documents at /admin/files
• Access control: Set permissions on content

Template Reference

Document Methods

{{$doc.GetString "field"}}     <!-- String value -->
{{$doc.GetInt "field"}}        <!-- Integer value -->
{{$doc.GetBool "field"}}       <!-- Boolean value -->
{{$doc.GetTime "field"}}       <!-- time.Time value -->
{{$doc.GetStrings "field"}}    <!-- []string value -->

Page Hierarchy

{{range $page := pages}}
    <a href="{{$page.Path}}">{{$page.Title}}</a>
{{end}}

{{range $child := page.Children}}
    <a href="{{$child.Path}}">{{$child.Title}}</a>
{{end}}

Conditional Content

{{if $doc.GetBool "featured"}}
    <span class="badge">Featured</span>
{{end}}

{{with $author := $doc.GetString "author"}}
    <span>By {{$author}}</span>
{{end}}

Troubleshooting

"Page not found" for published page

• Check that the page is published (toggle on)
• Verify the URL matches the page slug

AI chat not working

• Verify your API key in Settings
• Check the browser console for errors

Collection data not showing

• Ensure the collection name matches exactly (use slugified name)
• Check that documents exist in the collection