A portfolio site is a genuinely good first project — small enough to finish in one sitting, real enough that you actually use the result. Here's the exact workflow, not a toy exercise.
Start here: the free 7-page PDF guide covers the permission model and the first-workflow checklist this whole approach is built on.
Get the Free Guide →It's real — you'll actually use it — but small enough that scope stays contained: a handful of sections, no backend, no user data to worry about. That combination is rare, and it's exactly what makes a first Claude Code project stick instead of stalling out. See what makes a good first project for the full criteria.
Start from a real template rather than a blank file — browse portfolio templates — then work section by section: hero, work samples, about, contact. Review each diff before accepting it, the same habit covered in reading your first diff.
3-5 real work samples beat 10 padded ones. A short, specific "about" beats a generic bio. Contact info that actually reaches you, tested before you consider it done — see the pre-launch checklist for the full pass.
7 pages, a Day-1 checklist, and 5 ready-to-copy prompts — the exact workflow to build this.
Get the Free Guide →No, but it saves real time — starting from a real HTML/CSS template and directing changes is faster and safer than generating layout from a blank file.
A first working version in one sitting is realistic — an hour or two, not a weekend, if you keep the scope to what's covered in the free guide's checklist.
No — the point of the permission model is that you review plain-English explanations of each change, not that you write the HTML yourself.