Free CourseEdit Your Website

Module 1 · Open your website & meet Claude Code

See your site on your own computer

12 min

Now the fun part: seeing your website running on your own computer. This private preview is called “localhost” — think of it as a practice copy of your site that only you can see. It’s where you’ll safely check every change before anyone else does.

Ask Claude to start your preview

See your site on your own computer

Please help me preview my website on my own computer — the private "localhost" version that only I can see.
If anything needs to be installed or set up first, do it for me and walk me through anything I need to click,
one step at a time. When it's running, give me the link (something like http://localhost:3000) to open in my
web browser, and tell me how to stop and restart the preview later.

What happens

  1. Claude may do a one-time setup first (installing the project’s tools). This can take a few minutes the first time — that’s normal. Let it finish.
  2. It starts the preview and gives you a link like http://localhost:3000.
  3. Open that link in your browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge — any). There’s your website, running live on your machine.
What “localhost” really means

It’s just your website running privately on your own computer. Nobody else can see it — not your customers, not the public. It’s your rehearsal space. Your real, live website out on the internet is completely separate and stays exactly as it is until you choose to publish.

Keep the preview running while you work

As long as the preview is running, changes you make show up when you refresh the browser. If you close Claude Code or your computer, the preview stops — just ask Claude to “start my preview again” next time. It comes back in seconds.

End of Module 1 — your site is open and previewing

Your website is open in Claude Code and running privately on your computer, and Claude understands what it’s working with. Everything from here is just describing what you want changed. Let’s make your first edit.

If you get stuck

Preview won’t start, or the link shows an error? Copy whatever Claude or the browser shows and paste it back: “My preview won’t open — here’s the message I’m seeing. Please fix it and get my preview running, and explain what went wrong in simple terms.” This is almost always a quick fix.

See your site on your own computer — Edit & Update Your Website with AI