Creating a new hosted project — by talking to the planner, or with Detailed setup

Everything you enter anywhere in this wizard is saved to your browser automatically as you go (briefly debounced, not on every keystroke). If you navigate away with an unfinished draft and come back later, a "Resume your draft?" prompt appears before anything else renders, offering "Resume draft" (picks up exactly where you left off, on the exact question you left off on) or "Start over" (discards it). A "Start over" link is also always available while you're actively working, with a confirmation before it clears everything.

"Who's this project for?" A searchable list of existing clients (each showing its project count and email, if any) lets you pick one directly, or "+ Add a new client" opens inline fields for the client's name (required), primary email, and website — added as a real client the moment you continue, no separate screen.

Below that: the project's own name (required), and "What kind of project is this?" — a set of cards for Website, App, Admin system, Marketing automation, or Other, each with a one-line description of what it means. If the chosen client already has other projects, a checkbox offers "This is part of an existing project," with a dropdown of that same client's other projects to nest this one under.

Four starting points, and this choice genuinely shapes the first build, not just a label: "Import from a web address" (point aiKit at a site that already exists — yours, a competitor's, or pure inspiration — then choose whether to use it "as reference only," where nothing is copied directly, or "replicate it exactly, then upgrade it," where the new project first rebuilds it closely before improving on it); "Start fresh" (no source needed — the whole first draft comes from your answers in the next stage alone); or "Transfer an existing site onto aiKit" (a site that already works and simply needs to move onto aiKit's own hosting, as-is). Import and Transfer both require a real web address before you can continue; Start fresh doesn't need one at all.

The fourth, "Bring files from another AI tool," is for something already built in Claude, ChatGPT, Lovable, Bolt, v0, or Replit. Pick how you have the files: a zip (every one of those tools has a Download or Export button) or a public GitHub repository address. A zip is chosen here but only uploaded after you click Create project on the last step — it goes straight to aiKit's build engine, so large exports are fine (up to 300MB). Either way the build does a light "make it deployable" pass only — no redesign, no rewritten copy: dependency folders and any .env secret files are dropped and never published, a framework project (Vite, Next, Astro…) is deployed as-is with its own build, and a plain HTML export gets its links and assets checked. Private repositories can't be imported yet; export a zip instead.

Seven questions, one to a screen, with a "Question X of Y" counter: What should this project do for the business? (required — the only brief question you can't skip); Who is it for?; Pages, features, or content to keep; Brand assets (logo, colors, fonts, photos, tagline); Do you already own a web address?; When does it need to be live?; and Anything else we should know? — competitors, past mistakes, legal notes, anything that doesn't fit elsewhere. (An eighth question, what else the project should do, is asked later, right after the Kit stage, once you've actually seen what the kit already covers.)

Every one of these fields has both a microphone button for voice dictation and an "Attach a file" button that accepts multiple files per question (up to 5, each roughly under 1.8MB) — for a logo, a brand PDF, a screenshot, anything relevant. Every question except the first one has a visible "Skip for now →" link, since only the core goal is actually required to move forward.

Two tabs split everything aiKit can build into a plan: Site kit is sections and features that become part of the website or app itself — pages, forms, galleries, an online store, booking, SEO. Business tools kit is tools that run alongside the project rather than inside it — marketing automation, invoicing and billing, customer records, quotes, staff tools, reporting. "Browse [kit] categories" opens the full category browser to pick from everything available in that kit.

Every module you pick shows as its own card with a Remove button and its own free-text note — "What should be different about this for you?" — with the same mic-and-attach treatment as every other field in the wizard, so a picked module can carry client-specific detail ("Show only the top 6 reviews, and add a filter by service type") rather than just being a bare checkbox.

After the kit picks, one more question closes out this stage: "Anything else the site or app should do?" — for anything genuinely not covered by either kit, described in plain words for aiKit to plan around.

A plain-language explainer first: hosting is just where a project's files live so the internet can reach them, like a mailing address for a website. The choice here is "Host it on aiKit" (the recommended default — live in minutes at a temporary address, with a real domain connectable any time afterward from the project's own Hosting tab) or "I'll host it myself" (aiKit hands off the files for you to run on your own server or provider).

This screen is explicit that nothing about the choice made here publishes anything yet — a project only becomes reachable by real visitors once someone clicks Go live on its own page later, a separate step from finishing this wizard.

A full review of everything entered so far, grouped the same way the stages were: Client & project, Starting point, The brief (every answered question, with skipped ones plainly marked "Skipped"), Site kit, Business tools kit (plus anything typed under "Anything else"), and Hosting. Every section has its own "Edit" link that jumps straight back to the exact stage — and, for a brief answer, the exact question — rather than making you page back through the whole wizard to fix one thing.

"Copy plan" copies the entire brief as plain text, in the same format "Copy brief" produces on the finished project's own page later — useful for sharing the plan with someone before committing to "Create project."

The project is created immediately and its first build starts running in the background right away — you're taken straight to the new project's own page, where a build banner shows live progress (queued, then importing an existing site or building fresh, same as the first-build banner covered in the project-page guide). This can take several minutes; it's safe to leave the page and come back.

Nothing about the new project is visible to real visitors yet, no matter how far the build has gotten — it only becomes reachable once someone separately clicks Go live on the project's own page, exactly as Stage 5's hosting explainer said. Until then, Quick edit and Chat both already work on the real files once the build finishes, so a project can be refined well before it's ever made public.

A finished build is checked, not trusted: every Site kit module you picked is verified in the real files (a missing one is re-requested from the AI once, then flagged), the build must write a PLAN.md, and the result shows up on the project page as the Build plan & files card — "N of M modules built" with the file each lives in, the plan rendered as text, and the file list. The progress log line at the end says the same thing in one sentence, e.g. "Ready — 16 files, 5 pages, 3 of 3 modules built. Not live yet."

Two different points let you hold a project instead of building it — pick whichever matches what you actually have. "Save & send the client questions first" (2026-09-14 corrected, Ike: "how would you write the plan if we don't have the details and we don't have the questions asked of the customer?") sits right on the planner's FIRST screen and on Detailed setup's Stage 1, before any conversation or brief exists — name the client and project, and that's it, no plan required. "Save & ask questions first" sits next to Build this project once a full plan already exists (on the plan, or on Detailed setup's last step) — use it when you've already talked through the project but want the client to weigh in before building. Neither is offered for a zip upload, since that flow's whole point is building from the file right away. Both create the client and the project row the same way, but never call the build engine — nothing gets written until you choose to start it.

When a plan already exists (the second path), it becomes the seed for the client's brief: its summary, goal, audience, brand notes, search phrases, and FAQ topics are filed into the new project's Questions page as the first entry in "The brief," and you land there directly instead of on the project page. The first path has no plan to seed from — you land on a bare Questions page and the client's own answers become the first real content. Either way it's the same Questions flow as any existing project from there (see "Questions: a full page for sending a client discovery questions") — add more notes, Draft questions, review and send.

A held project shows "On hold — questions first" on the projects list (also its own filter under Stage in Advanced filters) and an "On hold — nothing built yet" banner on its own page. Once the client has answered (or even before, if you'd rather write the plan first), press "Continue to planner" — it reopens the same planner chat, scoped to this existing project, and its system prompt reads whatever the client already filed into Brief & rules so it doesn't re-ask what they've answered. Two buttons once the plan reads right: "Save the plan" (2026-09-15, Ike: "add it as a detailed site plan that gets updated as we add more stuff to it") saves it onto this SAME project (never a duplicate) as its own updatable site plan — no build, no spend — so you can keep refining it in chat and press Save the plan again each time it changes; "Save the plan & start the build" does the same save and kicks off the real build in one step. Prefer to skip the plan entirely? "Start the build now, no plan" builds straight from whatever's on file — the exact same one-time action as Retry build on a failed build; once it's running, the project behaves exactly like any other from that point on.