DEEP DIVE

How I Built a Blog With AI in One Day (No Coding Required)

27 March 2026 · 12 min read

I’m not a developer. I run a clinic. Until recently, I had never built a website from scratch.

Then I spent one day with Claude and built insideai.in: a fully functional personal blog with a custom domain, newsletter signup, comments, and automatic publishing. Total cost: ₹0 per month.

This is the complete guide. Every tool, every step, every decision. Exactly as I did it.

What You’ll Build

By the end of this guide, you’ll have:

The Tech Stack

Here’s everything we used and why:

ToolPurposeCost
AstroWebsite frameworkFree
GitHubCode storage + publishing triggerFree
NetlifyHosting + auto-deployFree
Tina CMSVisual writing editorFree
BeehiivNewsletter signupFree (up to 2,500 subscribers)
GiscusComments on articlesFree
GoDaddy / RegistrarCustom domain DNSDomain cost only
Google Search ConsoleSEO indexingFree
ClaudeBuilt everythingFree / Pro plan

Why Astro? It’s a static site generator, meaning it builds fast, loads fast, and costs nothing to host. It also supports React components natively, which matters for interactive elements like the intro animation and tag filters.

Why Netlify? It connects directly to GitHub. Every time you push a change, Netlify automatically rebuilds and deploys your site. No FTP, no manual uploads, no server management.

Why Beehiiv? Best-in-class newsletter tool on a free tier. Readers subscribe on your site and get your posts directly in their inbox. You manage everything from the Beehiiv dashboard.

Why Giscus? Free comments powered by GitHub Discussions. Readers sign in with GitHub to comment, which keeps spam low and setup simple.

Step 1: Set Up GitHub

GitHub stores your website’s code and triggers automatic deployments every time you make a change.

  1. Go to github.com and create a free account
  2. Create a new repository and name it inside-ai-blog (or whatever your site is called)
  3. Set it to Public (required for Giscus comments)
  4. Create a Personal Access Token (fine-grained):
    • Go to Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens
    • Set expiry to 1 year
    • Select “All repositories”
    • Add permission: Contents → Read and write
    • Generate and copy the token immediately (you only see it once)

Keep this token safe. You’ll use it as your password when pushing code.

Step 2: Build the Site With Claude

This is where the magic happens. Open Claude Code (or Claude at claude.ai) and describe what you want.

I described:

Claude asked me clarifying questions one at a time. Layout preferences, colour choices, feature priorities. Then it:

  1. Wrote a full design specification document
  2. Created a step-by-step implementation plan
  3. Executed that plan task by task, writing every file, every component, every configuration

The framework it chose: Astro 4 + React 18 + Tailwind CSS v3.

Once the build was complete, Claude guided me through pushing the code to GitHub:

cd your-project-folder
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/inside-ai-blog.git
git push -u origin main

When Terminal asks for a password, paste your GitHub token.

Step 3: Deploy on Netlify

Netlify is your free hosting provider. It watches your GitHub repository and automatically rebuilds your site every time you push a change.

  1. Go to netlify.com and sign up with GitHub
  2. Click “Add new site” → “Import an existing project” → GitHub
  3. Select your repository
  4. Confirm the build settings:
    • Build command: npm run build
    • Publish directory: dist
  5. Click “Deploy site”

Your site will be live at a random Netlify URL (like funny-name-123.netlify.app) within 60-90 seconds.

Step 4: Connect Your Domain

If you own a custom domain, point it to Netlify.

In Netlify:

  1. Go to Domain management → Add a domain
  2. Enter your domain name
  3. Note the DNS records it asks you to create

In GoDaddy (or your registrar):

  1. Go to your domain’s DNS settings
  2. Find the A record for @ and change the value to 75.2.60.5
  3. Find the CNAME for www and change the value to your Netlify subdomain (e.g. funny-name-123.netlify.app)
  4. Save

DNS propagation takes 15 minutes to a few hours. Once done, go back to Netlify → Domain management and it should show as verified. Netlify then automatically issues a free SSL certificate (the padlock).

Step 5: Set Up Beehiiv (Newsletter)

Beehiiv handles your email subscriber list. Readers enter their email on your site and get your posts delivered to their inbox.

  1. Go to beehiiv.com and create a free account
  2. Create your publication and name it after your site
  3. Go to Audience → Subscriber Forms → Create new form
  4. Click “Get embed code” and copy the script + iframe code
  5. Paste this code into your site’s newsletter banner component

The embed looks like this:

<script async src="https://subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com/embed.js"></script>
<iframe src="https://subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com/YOUR-FORM-ID"
  class="beehiiv-embed" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"
  style="width: 560px; height: 291px; max-width: 100%;">
</iframe>

Once deployed, the signup form is live on your site. Every subscriber goes directly into your Beehiiv account. You send newsletters from the Beehiiv dashboard.

Step 6: Set Up Giscus (Comments)

Giscus lets readers comment on your articles using their GitHub account.

Prerequisites:

Setup:

  1. Go to giscus.app
  2. Enter your repository name (e.g. marketing985/inside-ai-blog)
  3. Select mapping: “Discussion title contains page URL”
  4. Select category: “Announcements”
  5. Copy the generated <script> tag
  6. Paste it into your comments component

Once deployed, a full comments section with reactions appears below every article. Readers sign in with GitHub, so no spam bots and no moderation headache.

Step 7: Set Up Google Search Console

Without this step, Google won’t know your site exists. Search Console tells Google to index your pages.

  1. Go to search.google.com/search-console
  2. Click “Add property” → URL prefix → enter your domain
  3. Verify ownership using the HTML tag method:
    • Copy the <meta name="google-site-verification" content="..." /> tag
    • Paste it into the <head> section of your site’s base layout
    • Push to GitHub, wait for deploy, then click Verify
  4. Once verified, go to Sitemaps → submit sitemap-index.xml

Google will start crawling your site within a few days. You can track which pages are indexed and how they appear in search results.

Publishing Posts

Once everything is set up, publishing a post is simple:

Option A: GitHub web editor (what I do now):

  1. Go to github.com → your repository → src/content/articles/
  2. Click “Add file” → “Create new file”
  3. Name it your-post-title.mdx
  4. Add this template at the top:
---
title: "Your Post Title"
date: 2026-03-27
tag: DEEP DIVE
excerpt: "A short description (max 200 characters)"
readTime: "5 min read"
---

Your post content goes here.
  1. Write your post below the frontmatter
  2. Click “Commit changes”
  3. Netlify auto-deploys. Your post is live in about 60 seconds

Option B: Tina CMS (visual editor): Tina CMS gives you a browser-based writing interface, like Google Docs, that publishes directly to your site. Setup is straightforward in theory: install the package, connect GitHub, open /admin, write, publish. Note: branch indexing can fail silently if GitHub App permissions aren’t configured correctly. If /admin returns a 404, fall back to Option A until it resolves.

What It Cost

ItemCost
AstroFree
GitHubFree
NetlifyFree
Tina CMSFree
BeehiivFree (up to 2,500 subscribers)
GiscusFree
Google Search ConsoleFree
Total monthly₹0

The only cost is your domain, which you probably already own if you’re reading this.

What I’d Do Differently

Start with a public GitHub repository. I made mine private initially, which caused issues with Giscus (which requires a public repo) and Tina CMS branch indexing. Make it public from the start.

Set the correct site URL in astro.config.mjs. I initially had inside.ai but my actual domain is insideai.in. This affects the sitemap and OG tags. Use your exact deployed domain.

Don’t panic when something breaks. Three things broke during my build: the Tina CMS branch indexing, the article frontmatter indentation, and the Netlify build command. Claude fixed all three. The process is: describe the error, paste the logs, wait for the fix.

What’s Next

The site is live. Now the work begins.

Week 1: Write 3 posts. Tell 10 people. Share on LinkedIn.

Month 1: Publish consistently. 2-3 posts per week. Don’t optimise, just write.

Month 3: Look at your Google Search Console data. What’s getting impressions? Write more of that.

Month 6: You’ll have an audience. Then you can think about monetisation.

The site is the easy part. The writing is the hard part. But at least the site is no longer an excuse.

Built this in one day using Claude. If you want to do the same, start at Step 1 and follow along. The whole thing costs nothing and takes one focused day.

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