Connect: give a site you built in an AI tool a real address

A site an AI tool built lives on your computer (a folder, or a preview link that works only while the tool is open). Publishing copies the files to aiKit's hosting and gives them a normal https address that stays up whether your machine is on or off, on any device, not tied to your connection, with nothing to install. Every later change is a version you can undo; your own domain comes when you are ready.

Afterwards there are two ways to keep working, and the rule is: use both, whenever either side wants to — neither one has to stop or wait for the other. Way 1, keep building in the tool: Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT, or Cursor sends only the changed files through the connector and aiKit makes a new version and puts it live; best while the site is still taking shape or for a big redesign. Way 2, work directly in aiKit: the Assistant's chat, pins on the real page, kit pages that send real leads, Brief & rules, and versions; best for the day-to-day — wording, hours, prices, a new page, anything a client asks for, the moment they ask for it. Every change from either side becomes its own version you can undo, so nothing is silently lost; the one edge case worth knowing is that if the exact same file changes on both sides at nearly the same moment, whichever save lands last is what stays live for that file, with the other one sitting in Versions, one click from being restored. A zip or GitHub project gets Way 2 immediately; connecting a tool afterward adds Way 1 on top, sending updates into the same project.

In the Claude desktop app (the one with a Home tab and a Code tab), the aiKit connector is one switch for the whole app, not one per tab: turn it on once from either tab's "+" → Connectors menu and it works in both, including Claude Code. There is no separate setup step for Code — paste the prompt directly into whichever tab you're already working in.

Sites made in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Lovable, Bolt, or v0 live on your laptop until they are hosted. The Connect page ("Connect" in the hosted-projects navigation) moves them onto aiKit so they get a link that works when the laptop is closed, plus the Assistant chat, version history, pins, and a private leads page. The top of the page states the money facts before any setup: hosting is free for 90 days on an aiKit address with a small badge; staying live and a custom domain are on a paid plan; AI edits are metered from a starting balance of free credits, the assistant shows the balance and stops at zero, and the reason is spelled out: AI costs real money per edit, hosting does not.

Step 1 is picking the tool you built in: Claude (app or claude.ai, the easiest, one address pasted as a connector), Claude Code (one terminal command), ChatGPT (a developer-mode connector), Cursor / Windsurf / VS Code (a small settings file), or anything else (export a zip or GitHub link and upload it). The rest of the page changes to match that choice.

For every tool except the export route, Step 2 makes a key, and the page explains it in three lines: what the key is (a long password that lets one AI tool act as you on aiKit: create projects, upload files, update sites you can already see, nothing else), what happens when it is used (the tool sends the files it wrote with the key attached; aiKit checks it and creates the project under your account), and that it must stay private (one key per tool, revoke it here if a laptop is lost, shown once). The label defaults to the tool's name.

Step 3 is the numbered, tool-specific setup with every address and command shown with your new key already filled in and a Copy button: Claude's Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector with the aiKit address; the single claude mcp add command for Claude Code; ChatGPT's Settings → Connectors → Advanced → Developer mode → Create with "No authentication" (the key rides inside the address); the mcp.json snippet for editors; or, for the export route, the New project → Detailed setup → Bring files from another AI tool path with a zip (up to 300 MB) or a public GitHub link.

The prompt is a complete spec, the same for every tool (2026-09-11): the exact folder shape aiKit hosts (index.html at the root, one page per .html file or folder, styles.css, an assets/ folder, relative paths only, nothing that needs a build step, no secrets, size limits), what every page must carry (title, description, viewport tag, the same header and footer, alt text, a phone-width layout), how forms should be built (plain HTML with action="#", because aiKit wires them to its own quote, contact, and booking system after upload), a rule against invented facts with [PLACEHOLDER] markers instead, and a five-point checklist the tool runs before handing over. Copy it with the button and paste it at the start of the chat where you build, before you describe the site.

What happens to an export: a zip or public GitHub repository that already has index.html at the root and no framework is hosted exactly as exported. aiKit unpacks it, drops node_modules, build output, and any secret files, checks that every internal link and asset path resolves (case-sensitive, the way the server sees it), writes PLAN.md from the pages it finds, adds a favicon if there is none and the live-site editor script, and marks the project Ready in seconds, with no AI pass and no changes to your design or copy. Only an export that is not deployable as it stands (no root index.html, a framework project, or broken paths) gets a light AI pass, which is told to fix paths only. The build log on the project page says which of the two happened.

Publishing from Claude Code, Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT through the connector skips the export step: publish_site sends the files straight in and the project appears on the list as Ready; update_site sends only changed files later. Nothing is live until someone presses Go live on the project page.

Connecting a tool only gives it PERMISSION to send files into your aiKit account — it does not change what aiKit is able to run. aiKit hosts one kind of thing: a website made of files that don't need a live server to keep running. Whether your project can be hosted here depends entirely on what it needs to run, not on which AI tool built it or whether you connect that tool. This works on aiKit:

• A marketing or informational website — home, about, services, gallery, contact pages.
• Contact, quote, and booking forms — aiKit wires these to its own system after upload; real submissions land on the project's Requests tab.
• A blog or a portfolio.
• A framework project (React, Next, Vite, Astro, or similar) — as long as it can be exported to plain static files, or its build needs no server-side secrets or database at runtime.
• An informational dashboard or client portal — one that only displays things, with no login and no database behind it.

None of these can be hosted on aiKit today, no matter which AI tool built them or whether that tool is connected:

• User accounts, logins, or passwords checked against a server.
• A database of any kind — saved records, orders, chat history, search history, anything that needs to persist per user.
• A paid API called with a secret key at runtime (for example, an app that calls the Anthropic or OpenAI API itself) — the key has nowhere safe to live in a plain hosted site.
• Payment processing or checkout that completes a charge on a server.
• Anything that needs a server running continuously — webhooks, background jobs, a live chat backend.

If what you built needs any of those, connecting your AI tool changes nothing — the tool will tell you the same thing this page just did, and publishing would produce a stripped-down shell (maybe a landing page), not the working app. Two real examples: a bakery's website with a quote form publishes here cleanly, and both update paths (your AI tool sending changes, and pins/the Assistant on aiKit) keep working on it forever. A study app with logins and a database cannot be hosted here at all — it needs its own separate hosting (its own server and database), and once it's there, you keep building and updating it directly with your AI tool exactly as you do today. aiKit is simply not part of that project's hosting, so neither update path on this page applies to it.