It hasn't been long since I wrote about my switch to SSI. But I wasn't entirely happy with that approach. You couldn't easily test the pages locally and always had to serve them through a web server capable of resolving SSI.
Professionally I have been working more and more with various AIs lately and have come to particularly appreciate Claude Code. The AI from Anthropic is especially well suited for programming and working with source code. Why not use Claude privately as well? Would it be possible to drop SSI entirely and let Claude handle the tedious work instead?
So I gave it a shot today and tried the following prompt:
I have my website here, which I currently assemble using SSI. This makes it somewhat difficult to test the site before deploying it. Can you replace all SSI directives for me and in the future adjust the navigation on request? Then I could do without SSI. But you need to make sure you apply the variables correctly. For example, I use a subtitle in head.html.
The result was correct right away. All SSI directives were replaced and Claude also cleanly distinguished between the German and English versions of my website. A minor issue were the absolute file references, which still made local testing in the browser somewhat awkward. But that could be improved with a simple prompt:
Currently the HREF and SRC attributes are set as absolute paths in the web root. Could you please replace them all with relative paths based on the HTML document? I would like to be able to preview the pages locally on my MacBook without having to simulate a virtual web server.
Claude handled this part flawlessly as well and afterwards I could open and check the pages locally. Perhaps this is the sweet spot for me – the best compromise between control and automation. Combined with GIT and the associated history of all changes, I have enough insight into the AI's modifications and can intervene if needed.
