This article started with a fairly ordinary request: write something about how this website now works, make some cool pictures, and make the page look good. That request went into Codex. The result is the page you're reading.
An old blog, a new engine.
Blods.com began as a WordPress blog in 2010. It collected the usual mixture of things that caught my attention: technology, science, photography, Swindon and old music recordings. AI helped me turn that archive into a rebuilt site using Astro.
Astro takes the content and page templates and builds ordinary HTML pages, styles and assets. Those finished files are what my hosting serves. In this setup, visitors don't need a running WordPress installation or its database to read a post.
The migration code reads the WordPress export, separates published posts from drafts, carries across approved comments and keeps the old dated article routes. It also adapts things such as audio shortcodes so the recordings can play in a browser. The imported archive contains 40 published posts; this is the first new article in the rebuilt site.
The interesting bit is the editor.
I haven't built a new publishing dashboard. I haven't designed a text editor, chosen a toolbar or worked out how to make an image uploader. For the way I want to use this site, the conversation is the place where I can write, revise and ask for changes.
I can give Codex a rough idea, some notes, a news link or a complete draft. It can help shape the article, create artwork, update the page layout and prepare the files the site needs. I can ask for a shorter introduction or a different design in the same place.
I don't need to design the text editor before I can get back to writing.
How the words reach the website.
The site lives in a private GitHub repository. With the GitHub connection authorised, Codex can inspect the actual files and prepare changes to the content and code. Git records those changes, giving me a history I can review and return to.
A build turns the updated source into the finished website in a folder called dist. My cPanel deployment is configured to copy that folder into the site's hosting directory. Content and design therefore travel through the same process.
I still decide when to publish. Initially, I had to pull the latest changes in cPanel and click Deploy myself. While putting this article together, we connected Codex to the cPanel API. With my approval, it can now pull the GitHub changes, start deployment and check the live page. We tested that process by publishing this very article.
From my phone, by voice.
The next step makes this feel quite different again. Using Codex remotely from my mobile phone, I can talk through what I want a page to contain, ask for changes and tell it to publish. I can direct the work from wherever I have a connection to my available Codex session, without sitting at the computer or even having the page in front of me.
We tried it with TinSlug, my other website. I asked aloud for the background to become cyan, then asked to put it back. Next I asked for a homepage showing drum kits from basic to professional, with average prices, and added that I wanted pictures too. Codex researched example prices, built the page, created illustrations, checked the layout and deployed it through the API.
That joins up the whole process: I describe it, Codex builds it, and I tell it when to publish. I don't have to open GitHub, operate cPanel or use a website editor on a small phone screen. The connected computer and hosting still do the work; my phone gives me a way to direct it.
I can ask for the changes without looking at the page, although checking the finished result is still worthwhile. Codex can check that images load and the layout fits a phone; I remain the person deciding whether the words, appearance and result are what I wanted.
Less friction. Still my site.
WordPress remains useful when you want its editing interface, plugins or a publishing workflow for several people. My rebuilt site makes a different trade-off: a simple static site, with AI helping me do the work around it.
The files still exist, the layout is still code, and the content still needs checking. AI hasn't made those things disappear. It has made them easier to work with through an ordinary conversation. I choose what to say, review the result and decide when it goes live.
And this post is a small demonstration of that: an idea, some words, a couple of pictures and a new page, all starting in the same chat.