> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://chrislatham.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # I wrote zero lines of code for this - URL: https://chrislatham.ca/why-i-built-a-free-ai-guide-library/ - Published: 2026-10-19T22:46:58.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T22:56:07.000Z - Description: I built a free home for my AI guides in one evening. 17 prompts, $0 hosting. Here's the part the AI couldn't do. - Author: Chris Latham - Tags: Marketing In Public, Learning & Curiosity The last few weeks have been busy. Work, plus being a dad, which is its own full-time job. And on work calls and in Slack chats, the same kind of question kept coming up: how do I do *this* with AI? The big one lately: ChatGPT is retiring Custom GPTs, and Google is doing the same with Gems. I'd been answering with HTML files shared in Slack, which then got re-shared in forums and other chats, and I realized I was sending the same thing to a dozen places instead of keeping it in one. So that led to this... Last Wednesday night I had an idea. Before I went to bed, it was a live website. It's called [**chrismbs.link**](https://chrismbs.link/?ref=chrislatham.ca). It's a home for all the one-page guides, checklists and tools I make. One link instead of a file, and it works on your phone or your laptop. And because it's its own domain, every page gets to be designed as its own thing, instead of being squeezed into the look of my personal website. Here's the part I keep thinking about. I didn't write a single line of code. Claude (the AI, running in my Mac's Terminal) wrote it, tested it, and put it live. About 17 prompts across the whole build. Hosting costs me $0. So what did I actually do? ## The human part I made the calls. That's the job now. - **I described the problem, not the tech.** My first prompt never said "build script" or "static assets." It said: I've got a bunch of single HTML pages, I want them all on one domain, with a homepage that works like a directory. And then: *if that's not the best idea, tell me.* - **I picked the name.** chrismbs.link. Short, easy to say in a video, and the .link reminds me what it's for: sharing stuff. (MBS stands for Mind, Body, and Soul. A middle name I gave myself. Long story.) - **I set the bar.** Two words did a lot of work: "direct to production." That meant a private repo, testing before going live, a 404 page, a sitemap. Not a demo. - **I asked before building.** When I wanted short links, I asked how redirects work first. Learned something useful: a redirect doesn't help a page rank on Google. Short links are for sharing. That's it. - **I fixed it fast.** I told it to save a rule about where my projects live. Got the rule wrong. Corrected it in the very next prompt. Now it knows. To be fair, the robot had some good moments too. My Cloudflare login has access to 11 accounts, most of them clients'. It refused to guess which one to deploy to, looked up which account owns the domain, and locked it in. Good robot. ## The reason it was fast It wasn't the AI. Not really. It was everything I'd done *before* the first prompt. My brand colours, fonts, newsletter links. All of it already saved in files the AI could read. It never had to ask me what my brand looks like. It just looked it up. **Past work makes future work fast.** If you steal one thing from this post, steal that. Before you ask AI to build anything, write down what it'll need to know about you. Your colours. Your voice. Your links. Do it once and every project after starts halfway done. ## Every prompt, typos included I wrote up the whole build. Every prompt exactly as I typed it (the typos are... plentiful), the three snags we hit, and the lessons I'm keeping. If you've wondered what building with AI looks like when you're not a developer, this is it. No polish. [How chrismbs.link Was Built with Claude Code (Every Prompt)Every prompt, decision, snag, and lesson from turning a one-line idea into a live, branded guide library on Cloudflare in under an hour with Claude Code.![](https://chrislatham.ca/content/images/icon/favicon-32-57e6c3b5-086b-4b1c-b714-37827e352c23.png)chrismbs.linkChris MBS Latham 🍔![](https://chrislatham.ca/content/images/thumbnail/apple-touch-icon-bb07b881-3918-49f3-b524-801c3a8d4612.png)](https://chrismbs.link/build-log?ref=chrislatham.ca) [Read the build log →](https://chrismbs.link/build-log?ref=chrislatham.ca)