You're up and running

What's next?

Your local copy is live. Here's how to make it yours — then how to put it online.

01

Make it yours

Point an AI coding agent at the repo, or edit it by hand — all of these work well here.

No terminal required — the easiest way to start if you haven't used one before.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop can read and edit files in a folder on your computer through a built-in extension. It'll ask you to approve each change before saving it.

  1. Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Extensions, and add a filesystem/directory extension.
  2. Point it at the folder the install script created: ~/projects/opensource/gravity
  3. Paste one of the prompts below, and approve the file changes it proposes.

Then try asking it to:

  • “Change the color palette and fonts in public/themes/clarity/main.css
  • “Add a new /pricing page that matches this theme’s design”
  • “Replace the homepage hero copy and images with my own business’s”
Codex (ChatGPT Desktop)

Codex now lives inside the ChatGPT desktop app. A “local environment” points it at a folder on your computer so it can edit files there directly.

  1. Open the ChatGPT desktop app, sign in, and open Codex.
  2. Add a local environment pointed at ~/projects/opensource/gravity
  3. Paste one of the prompts below.

Good first prompts:

  • “Add a testimonials section to the homepage”
  • “Explain how the theme fallback system works in app/theme.py”
  • “Add a new blog post about launching this site”

Menu names shift between app versions — if a step doesn't match what you see, the linked guide has the current click-path.

No code needed

Prefer clicking instead of prompting? Set GRAVITY_DEV_ADMIN=1 in .env and restart — the built-in Visual Editor unlocks at /admin/editor with click-to-edit sections on every page.

Where things live
app/controllers/page logic — pulls data, calls theme_render()
app/routes/URL → controller wiring
views/<theme>/Jinja2 templates for the active theme
public/themes/<theme>/main.cssthe entire design system, one file
02

Tell it about your site

Pick what you're building — the questions and prompt below tailor themselves to it.

It'll ask you
  1. What do you want to be known for?
  2. What's your story — how did you get to where you are now?
  3. Who are you trying to reach?
  4. What's the one thing you want people to remember after visiting?
  5. Where should people follow or connect with you?
  6. What should someone do when they land on your site?
prompt
I want to turn this Gravity site into my personal brand website. Ask me these questions one at a time, and wait for my answer before asking the next one:

1. What do you want to be known for?
2. What's your story — how did you get to where you are now?
3. Who are you trying to reach?
4. What's the one thing you want people to remember after visiting?
5. Where should people follow or connect with you?
6. What should someone do when they land on your site?

Once I've answered all six, rewrite the homepage hero, subtitle, and calls-to-action in views/clarity/index.j2 to sound like me, update the about page with my story, and suggest a color palette in public/themes/clarity/main.css that fits my personality. Make the actual file changes — don't just describe them.

Takes about five minutes. Answer naturally — it just wants the real version of you, not a polished pitch.

03

Try these first

Three real prompts that show you how the pieces fit together. Copy one in, watch what changes.

Edit the homepage

The fastest way to see the agent work — ask for something you'll see change immediately in the browser.

prompt
Update the homepage hero headline, subtitle, and eyebrow badge to describe my business instead of Gravity.

Also try:

  • “Change the accent color in public/themes/clarity/main.css to match my brand”
  • “Reorder the homepage sections and remove the ones I don’t need”
Write a blog post

Blog posts are stored separately from the theme, so this works the same no matter which theme is active.

prompt
Write and publish a new blog post announcing the launch of this site, then show it to me at /blog.

Also try:

  • “List my recent blog posts”
  • “Add a cover image and an excerpt to my latest post”
Add a whole new page

The best way to learn how Gravity fits together — one prompt wires up a route, a controller, and a template.

prompt
Add a new /pricing page: a route, a controller, and a template that extends this theme's base.j2, with three pricing tiers.

Also try:

  • “Add a /contact page with a form that posts to /api/forms/submit”
  • “Explain how a request to /about turns into rendered HTML, file by file”
04

Ship it

One command deploys to Google Cloud Run, Vercel, or Cloudflare. Pick a platform below.

Requires the gcloud CLI and Docker. Deploys the repo's Dockerfile as-is and scales to zero when idle — the most production-tested path of the three.

terminal
make deploy-gcp

All three prompt for anything missing (like SECRET_KEY) the first time, save your answers to .env, and print the live URL when done. Every platform's filesystem is stateless — if you're using the Visual Editor, set GRAVITY_SITE_BUCKET so page edits and uploads survive redeploys.

Useful commands

./scripts/install.sh --statusis it running?
./scripts/install.sh --logstail the server log
./scripts/install.sh --theme=NAMEswap themes and restart
make editorrebuild with admin unlocked, seed sample content
make theme-listlist available themes