From AI-Generated Code to a Production Website

AI coding tools can produce a convincing website in an afternoon. That is a real advantage: you get a visual draft, working components and a head start. What they do not give you is a launch.

This guide lists what usually sits between a generated project and a dependable website, so you can check your own before going live. Tool names such as Claude Code or Codex are examples only; the checklist applies to any tool, or to a project started by another developer.

What generated code is good at

• Laying out pages and components quickly.
• Filling in routine structure: navigation, footers, cards, forms.
• Producing a first pass you can react to.

What it usually leaves for a person to decide

Generated code reflects the prompt it was given. It rarely reflects the things nobody typed into the prompt: your domain, your email setup, your content owners, your risk tolerance. Those become the gap.

Early-stage project	Production-ready website
Pages and components	Tested routes, redirects, metadata and error states
Contact form	Spam protection, delivery, records and failure handling
Deployment command	Domain, DNS, secrets, environments, monitoring and rollback
Draft content	Editing workflow, ownership and backups
Basic metadata	Search continuity, structured data, sitemap, analytics and consent

A practical pre-launch checklist

Code and build

• The project builds from a clean checkout with a single documented command.
• Type and lint checks pass, or known failures are listed and accepted.
• Dependencies are current enough to receive security fixes, and unused ones are removed.

Security

• No keys, tokens or passwords are committed to the repository, including in history.
• Secrets live in the hosting platform, separate for preview and production.
• Security headers are set, and any inline scripts are accounted for.
• Forms validate input on the server, not only in the browser.

Forms and email

• A test submission reaches the right inbox.
• Spam protection is on.
• A failed delivery produces a visible error and a record, not silence.
• Email records for the sending domain (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) are set so messages are not marked as spam.

Content and search

• Every page has a unique title and description.
• A sitemap exists and lists only pages you want indexed.
• Pages you do not want indexed, such as previews and thank-you pages, are marked so.
• If an older site existed, its important URLs redirect to their new equivalents.

Deployment

• Domain, DNS and SSL are set up in accounts you own.
• Preview and production environments are separate.
• There is a documented way back to the last working version.
• Someone is alerted if the site goes down.

Ownership

• The repository, hosting and domain are in your name.
• Someone knows how content gets edited and who is allowed to.

Common problems we see in generated projects

These are patterns, not a claim about any particular tool:

• Routes that work locally but fail on the production platform because of an adapter or rendering mismatch.
• Contact forms that look finished but have no spam protection or delivery handling.
• Placeholder metadata copied across many pages.
• Environment variables read in the browser bundle.
• No plan for updating content once the original author moves on.

How a production review works

A review starts with someone reading the repository and running it. You receive a written list ranked by launch risk. You choose what to fix now and what to defer. Fixes are made in reviewable steps, then the site is deployed and documented.

The review stands on its own: you can act on the list yourself or hand it to your own developer. Read more about the existing project launch service, or send your repository and ask for a review.

When to do it yourself and when to ask for help

If your site is small, you are comfortable with hosting and DNS, and nothing sensitive passes through it, the checklist above may be all you need. If it takes payments or personal data, replaces an older site with search value, or you simply cannot spend the time, a second pair of eyes is cheap compared with a bad launch.