Claude Code Website: A Car Shop Went Live in 14 Prompts

Ryan “RyMac” McKinney · USMC Veteran · 5 October 2026 · 9 minute read

You build a Claude Code website in this order. Research first. Then the page. Then the business system the owner runs from. I did all 3 live for a real car shop with nothing online. Your free starting point is a website project I already started for you.

The shop is Revive Mechanics. A husband and wife repair shop in Hays, Kansas.

Rickie is the mechanic. Crystal runs the business side.

No website. No Google listing. Zero reviews.

I can't write a single line of code. I typed 14 prompts to my Claude. I named him Fred.

1 hour 44 minutes with the mistakes left in. The site goes live on Vercel. Then 22 questions build the business system Crystal runs the shop from.

What does a Claude Code website build look like?

4 checkpoints. The design and my workspace. The research and the sweeps. The site live on the internet. Then the business OS, walk tested before the handoff.

Before Fred touched the design, he set up my own workspace for the shop. 1 fact lives in 1 file. 3 stages for 3 jobs. Build the site. Get them found. Keep the site right.

Crystal never gets that workspace. I launch the site from that workspace and keep the site updated from there.

Why does a Claude Design template need work?

I started in Claude Design. I asked for a few versions to pick from.

The first round came back in my own Sierra-6 colors. I forgot to tell Design the shop needed its own brand. 5 minutes in, I'd already done something wrong.

I picked option C. Design zipped up the brand kit with a text file inside, so Fred could pick up the work.

The template looked good. It was still AI slop.

Say you run a small web design agency. You hand a shop owner a template like that. Now he owns a page that reads like every shop in town, plus 1 more thing he can't run.

What do the 6 research agents look for?

Before Fred built a single page, I sent out 6 research agents. That's my niche research skill. The skill is free in my skills pack.

1 read the reviews of shops in town. 1 searched Reddit for shop owner threads. 1 pulled the "mechanic near me" map results. 1 pulled the Hays city code.

The research comes back with 1 call. Build, pivot or don't do it. You watch the call land 45 minutes 22 seconds into the video.

This 1 came back build.

31 businesses in Hays do oil changes or brakes. None of the independent shops post a price. Nobody sells a husband and wife team. The top 3 on Google hadn't posted to their listing in over 5 years.

A shop that opened in 2024 with 24 reviews already shows up 4th. So a young shop can climb here.

What city rule did the research catch?

Fred read the Hays city code before he wrote the game plan. The code has a section on home businesses. Car repair is on the list the code doesn't allow.

So the first question for Rickie and Crystal was where customers drop their cars off. If the answer is the house, they call Hays Planning and Development.

That's a protection thing. Skip the research and you put a client's address on Google without knowing.

Fred also built a page with 6 questions for Rickie and Crystal. Answer boxes. A Copy button. Signed by Fred.

They're mechanics. So the page asks what I need answered and nothing extra.

I did the same thing for my dad's notary business. Fred sent my dad's wife Janet a few questions. She texted me back.

A client who's scared of AI warms up fast when the first note from the AI is short and friendly.

How do you make a website speak to local drivers?

Fred graded every line on Design's page against what Hays drivers say in their reviews.

Design's headline got a C. "Honest Auto Repair. Done Right." Any shop in Kansas could run that line word for word. The line never says what Rickie fixes.

Fred wrote 24 headlines and put 5 on the shortlist. I shipped number 1.

"My word" is Rickie's own phrase. He wrote it in his onboarding answers.

If you put up bad websites for business owners, you aren't helping them. I did the same research first move in Claude for small business with a gutter cleaning company.

I also wanted a contact form. Fred flagged that a form that sends messages turns a website into an app. Every app I own gets built a stricter way. So the shop got a clickable email for now.

Why did my AI get cussed out?

Fred kept calling everything "it". Nobody knows what "it" is.

So I built a guard that catches every "it" and cusses Fred out. You may hear that called a hook. It means a rule Fred can't skip.

On camera the guard caught "Bring it by" on the page. Fred changed the line to "Bring your car by." The bleeped part is 1 hour 5 minutes 46 seconds in.

How do you put a Claude Code website live?

Fred put the site live on a free Vercel address. Rickie doesn't own a domain yet.

From Design to live took right at 90 minutes. Most of that was me explaining as I went.

Then the blog. 8 posts written off the research.

Every post links out to sources Google already trusts. AAA. Kelley Blue Book. The Kansas Department of Revenue.

You may hear those called authority links. It means you link to a site Google trusts, so Google trusts yours a little more. Google's own SEO starter guide says links to relevant pages on other sites add value.

I've done SEO since 2006. Don't be selfish and only link to yourself.

How do 22 questions build a business OS?

The 22 questions are the same ones on The Perfect ICM Builder™.

Rickie and Crystal aren't technical. So I sent the questions as a plain questionnaire. Then I handed their answers to Fred in the terminal.

Their answers built the folders Crystal runs the shop from. Files and folders. Their Google Drive. Their Google Sheets. Their own AI.

Every folder follows Jake Van Clief's ICM. The map only points. The desk file says what's true today.

1 answer put their Black Friday sale on top of the desk file. Another set the rules. The AI never sets a price. The AI never sends a customer anything. The AI writes drafts. Crystal sends them.

If you want a tree drawn from your own answers, I wrote up how to auto create your ICM folders.

How do you walk test a business OS?

You hand a fresh AI with no memory a made up customer. The AI has to book the job. Then write the invoice. Then answer who still owes money. If the AI does all 3, the folders work.

I made up Dana. 2014 Honda Civic. Her front brakes squeal when she stops. She comes in Tuesday at 10 AM.

$50 for pads. $200 for 2 hours of labor. $250 total. Every number made up for the test.

The fresh AI booked Dana. The AI wrote the $250 invoice with no made up prices. Then the AI answered "who still owes us?" Dana.

Fred still checked the files himself before he trusted the report. He found 6 small gaps.

The biggest was an invoice dated the day the invoice got written. The right date is the day of the work. All 6 got fixed. Then a fresh test ran again. The walk test starts 1 hour 39 minutes 53 seconds in.

What does the client get at the handoff?

Crystal gets 1 page. Numbered steps to set up Claude on her PC. A link to her zipped folder. The lines to type, each with a Copy button.

Then what to say to her AI. Like "plan our Black Friday sale."

Crystal gets her business OS. I keep the workspace I launched the site from.

If you build for clients, that workspace is the piece you keep. If you're still working out how to sell ICM folder structure to a local business, start there.

Questions about building a Claude Code website

Can you build a website with Claude Code if you can't code?

Yes. I can't write a single line of code. I typed 14 prompts to Claude Code. The car shop's site went live on a free Vercel address, then the blog and the business OS got built after.

How long does a Claude Code website take to build?

The car shop's site went from Claude Design to live in right at 90 minutes, with me explaining as I went. The video runs 1 hour 44 minutes because the blog and the business OS get built too.

What does a Claude Code website cost to build?

In this build the only bill is the AI. The site runs on a free Vercel address. The research skill and the SEO writer skill are free in my skills pack.

What is a business OS?

Files and folders the owner runs the business from with their own AI. For the car shop that means customer cards, job cards and invoices. Plus a map of what lives in their Google Sheets, Google Drive and QuickBooks.

What is a walk test?

A fresh AI with no memory runs a made up customer through the folders. The AI has to book the job. Then write the invoice. Then answer who still owes money. If the AI does all 3, the folders work.

Build your first Claude Code website

If you get stuck, come drop a post in my Skool. I'm always around.

Every ICM Folder System I have built, the free ones and the ones people paid for, is on 1 page.

The folder method is Jake Van Clief's and David McDermott's Interpretable Context Methodology, ICM. The build runs on Claude Code. The Perfect ICM Builder™ and the 22 questions are mine.