Module 7 · Back it up

Your site's permanent backup

Stage 6. The site is built, audited and compliance-checked. Before it goes anywhere near the public internet, it gets a permanent backup that lives somewhere other than your laptop — on GitHub, in a repository only you can see. This is also the plumbing that makes going live, next module, take about ten minutes.

What GitHub actually is

GitHub is free online storage built specifically for projects like yours. Two things make it different from a folder in Dropbox. First, it keeps every version of your site, not just the latest one — so “put the fee page back the way it was on Tuesday” is a real, answerable request. Second, the hosting service you’ll use next module watches your GitHub copy and republishes your live site whenever it changes. That is the whole update loop, and it starts here.

A repository — usually shortened to “repo” — is just the name GitHub gives to one project’s folder plus its history. You’ll have exactly one, and it will be your firm’s website.

Private, and worth one paragraph on why

GitHub repositories can be public or private. Public is the default people assume, because most of what lives on GitHub is open-source software. Yours is private. Not because anything in it is scandalous — because of what a firm’s project folder collects along the way.

• Drafts of claims about your practice that you have not put through the compliance check yet — and the history keeps them even after you fix them.
• The exact wording of your intake form, including the notice you show before someone types their situation into it.
• Working notes: fee structures you were still deciding on, practice areas you considered leading with, a bio paragraph that named a matter before you thought better of it.

None of that is anyone else’s business, and none of it needs to be public for any of this to work. Private costs nothing, is one setting, and is what the prompt below asks for. Choose it and stop thinking about it.

First, a free GitHub account

1. Go to github.com and sign up. It’s free, and the free account does everything this course needs, including unlimited private repositories.
2. Use an email address the firm will keep — not a personal address you might abandon, and not a former employee’s. This account owns your website; treat it like the domain registration.
3. Turn on two-factor sign-in when GitHub offers it. It takes a minute and it protects the account that controls your public website.

Then paste this into Claude

Claude does the technical half. The one part that needs you is a browser sign-in, and the prompt tells it to walk you through that step by step rather than assuming you know.

Let's do Stage 6 — back my project up to GitHub. Please follow your deploy skill:

1. Connect this computer to my GitHub account properly. If the GitHub CLI (gh) isn't installed, install it,
   then run "gh auth login" and walk me through it one step at a time — I'll choose GitHub.com, HTTPS, and
   "log in with a web browser." Tell me exactly what to click and what to expect on screen.
2. Check the .gitignore so nothing private or junk ever gets uploaded, and tell me plainly what it excludes.
3. Save a snapshot of my work, create a NEW PRIVATE repository named after my firm, and push everything to it.
4. Give me the link to view it on github.com, and tell me how to confirm it says Private.

This is a law firm's website, so private is not optional. I'm not technical — do the technical parts for me
and keep the explanations plain.

What happens on your screen

1. Claude installs the GitHub command-line tool and starts the sign-in. Approve it when asked.
2. A short code appears — something like AB12-CD34. Copy it. A browser tab opens asking for it.
3. Paste the code and click Authorize. This is a once-ever step; you will not do it again on this computer.
4. Claude creates the repository and uploads everything. It gives you a link when it’s done.

Check it yourself — one minute

Don’t take Claude’s word for it. Open the link and confirm three things with your own eyes:

1. The word Private appears next to the repository name at the top of the page. If it says Public, tell Claude: “Make this repository private.”
2. Your files are listed — the pages, the images, your brand and architecture documents.
3. There’s a commit count — something like “14 commits.” A commit is just GitHub’s word for one saved snapshot, so that number is your history. Click it and you can read every save, in order, with the note attached to each one.

Watch this step

GitHub makes more sense seen than described. This plain-English tour covers the backup idea this lesson rests on. One difference to hold on to: he works in public repositories, and yours is private on purpose. It’s from an independent creator — credited below, so go give them a follow.

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