Learning topics

These are the topics the book covers. They are not the chapter order: several chapters touch each topic, and some topics are practised hands-on while others are explained just enough for you to make informed decisions. The learning paths suggest where to start, depending on what you already know.

1. Website purpose and planning

• Identify the audience, their needs, and the website’s objectives.
• Define requirements, content, features, and success criteria.
• Choose an achievable initial scope.

2. How websites work

• Understand browsers, web servers, URLs, domains, and hosting.
• Understand HTTP/HTTPS at a practical level.
• Distinguish source files, generated files, local previews, and published websites.
• Distinguish browser-side behaviour from backend processing.

3. Static site generators and their suitability

• Understand static websites, dynamic websites, and static site generation.
• Understand how content, templates, configuration, and data produce a website.
• Compare SSGs with CMSs, visual builders, and custom applications.
• Recognise suitable use cases and architectural limitations.

4. Files, folders, and terminal essentials

• Navigate project directories and run basic commands.
• Understand extensions, relative and absolute paths, and filename case.
• Understand UTF-8 and common encoding problems.
• Install tools, check versions, and recognise dependencies.

5. HTML essentials

• Read and modify basic page structure.
• Work with headings, paragraphs, links, lists, images, tables, and forms.
• Understand semantic elements and important attributes.
• Recognise structurally incorrect or inaccessible markup.

6. CSS essentials

• Understand selectors, classes, inheritance, specificity, and the cascade.
• Work with the box model, spacing, colours, typography, and sizing.
• Understand basic Flexbox, Grid, and responsive design.
• Make controlled visual changes and inspect their effects.

7. Basic JavaScript literacy

• Understand why a static website may still use JavaScript.
• Recognise variables, functions, events, and basic DOM manipulation.
• Understand simple requests to external services.
• Inspect simple scripts and recognise when specialist help is needed.

8. Markdown and content authoring

• Write headings, lists, links, images, tables, quotations, and code blocks.
• Understand Markdown variants and rendering differences.
• Distinguish portable Markdown from HTML and generator-specific extensions.
• Write content that remains understandable in its source form.

9. Structured data and configuration formats

• JSON: practical coverage of objects, arrays, data types, nesting, and validation.
• YAML/YML: indentation, mappings, lists, front matter, and workflow configuration.
• TOML: keys, values, tables, arrays, and project configuration.
• CSV: tabular data, headers, delimiters, quoting, and encoding.
• XML: introductory understanding of elements, attributes, namespaces, sitemaps, and feeds.
• Select appropriate formats and verify conversions between them.

10. Content modelling and information architecture

• Define content types such as articles, projects, people, and publications.
• Use front matter, required fields, metadata, and validation rules.
• Organise sections, categories, tags, menus, and internal links.
• Establish naming conventions, stable URLs, and reusable information.

11. Git and version control

• Understand repositories, commits, history, and differences.
• Work with branches, merging, and common conflicts.
• Use ignore rules and avoid tracking unnecessary generated files.
• Restore files and revert incorrect changes.

12. GitHub and collaboration

• Create, clone, and manage repositories.
• Push and pull changes.
• Collaborate through issues, branches, and pull requests.
• Review contributions from people and agents.
• Understand repository visibility and access permissions.

13. Setting up a static site generator

• Select and install a generator.
• Understand its directory structure and configuration.
• Create pages, run a development server, and generate production output.
• Manage versions and troubleshoot common setup problems.

14. Themes, templates, and reusable components

• Select and configure a theme.
• Understand template variables, conditions, loops, and context.
• Work with layouts, partials, and reusable content components.
• Make customisations without unnecessarily complicating future updates.
• Render structured records into directories, lists, and other repeated content.

15. Visual design and usability

• Apply visual hierarchy, readable typography, spacing, and consistency.
• Design understandable navigation and page layouts.
• Make pages usable across screen sizes.
• Evaluate whether visitors can complete their intended tasks.

16. Media and downloadable assets

• Organise images, diagrams, videos, and documents.
• Understand formats, compression, dimensions, and responsive images.
• Write useful alternative text and captions.
• Manage attribution, licensing, and broken asset references.

17. Accessibility

• Use semantic structure, meaningful links, and labelled forms.
• Check keyboard access, focus visibility, and colour contrast.
• Understand basic screen-reader considerations.
• Combine automated checks with manual inspection.

18. AI assistants, agents, and working environments

• Distinguish models, chatbots, coding assistants, editors, and agents.
• Understand browser, terminal, and editor-based workflows.
• Set up selected tools, such as Codex CLI and agent-enabled development environments.
• Understand authentication, subscriptions, API access, usage limits, and costs.

19. Preparing projects for AI agents

• Provide project instructions, folder maps, examples, and conventions.
• Define allowed changes, restricted files, and completion criteria.
• Supply relevant context and authoritative source material.
• Manage permissions, credentials, and sensitive information.

20. Giving tasks to agents

• Write clear objectives, constraints, and expected outputs.
• Break larger tasks into manageable steps.
• Ask agents to inspect, plan, implement, and verify.
• Provide useful feedback, errors, and logs.
• Record decisions and progress for continuity between sessions.

21. AI-assisted content creation

• Turn approved notes and documents into structured pages.
• Draft, summarise, reorganise, and translate content.
• Preserve attribution, terminology, metadata, and internal links.
• Identify unsupported claims and avoid publishing invented information.

22. AI-assisted maintenance and development

• Update information consistently across multiple pages.
• Propose template, styling, and configuration changes.
• Identify outdated content, inconsistent terminology, and broken references.
• Investigate build failures and propose repairs.
• Coordinate code changes with related documentation updates.

23. Human review and editorial governance

• Establish drafting, review, approval, and publication responsibilities.
• Inspect differences and preview changes before accepting them.
• Verify factual accuracy against sources.
• Distinguish valid syntax, successful builds, and trustworthy content.
• Maintain a consistent writing style and editorial standard.

24. Build automation and publishing

• Understand build steps, artifacts, and deployment environments.
• Configure automated builds and publishing with GitHub Actions.
• Use GitHub Pages or another suitable host.
• Understand hosting eligibility, quotas, and limitations.
• Configure domains, DNS, and HTTPS.
• Read deployment logs and recover from failures.

25. Testing and quality assurance

• Check metadata, links, assets, and generated pages.
• Test navigation, forms, search, and responsive layouts.
• Use browser developer tools and build logs.
• Add appropriate automated checks.
• Verify agent changes and practise rollback.

26. Multilingual publishing and localisation

• Organise language versions and translation workflows.
• Support Kurdish, Arabic, English, and mixed-direction content.
• Handle right-to-left layouts, fonts, dates, and language navigation.
• Keep translations aligned as source content changes.

27. Search, discoverability, and performance

• Add and test internal site search.
• Understand search-engine metadata, sitemaps, and indexing basics.
• Inspect RSS/Atom feeds where appropriate.
• Measure loading performance and optimise costly assets.
• Understand the limits of automated audit scores.

28. External services and dynamic features

• Connect forms, comments, analytics, and other suitable services.
• Understand APIs and where submitted data goes.
• Account for external dependencies, privacy, and service limits.
• Recognise when authentication, transactions, or private information require additional architecture.

29. Security and responsible publishing

• Protect repository accounts, deployment access, and credentials.
• Understand risks from dependencies, scripts, and excessive agent permissions.
• Handle personal information, copyright, licensing, and consent.
• Distinguish public content from information requiring access controls.

30. Content reuse and AI retrieval

• Reuse source content across websites, manuals, and teaching materials.
• Export content into other useful formats.
• Understand how content can supply an AI retrieval system.
• Recognise the additional work needed for retrieval quality, attribution, updates, and permissions.

31. Migration and portability

• Bring existing content into a structured publishing workflow.
• Clean and validate imported content.
• Preserve important URLs and implement redirects.
• Identify dependencies on a particular theme, generator, or service.
• Prepare for future moves between tools and hosts.

32. Long-term operation and evaluation

• Assign content ownership and review schedules.
• Update dependencies and archive outdated material.
• Maintain backups and practise recovery.
• Measure whether the website serves its audience.
• Account for hosting, domains, services, AI usage, and human effort.

33. Applying the complete workflow

• Build and maintain personal or academic portfolios.
• Publish course materials, manuals, and documentation.
• Support research groups and institutional information sites.
• Create suitable small-business information websites.
• Demonstrate a complete cycle: source material, agent contribution, human review, publication, maintenance, and recovery.