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Setting up your assistant
# Setting up your assistant for Porchsite Porchsite works with any assistant that can read a web page. This page is how to get the most out of the one you have: a few minutes of setup in its app before you ask it for a site. Use everything your app offers; skip what it doesn't. Nothing here is required. What's below is what we found in each app in October 2026. Apps move their menus often; if something isn't where we say, ask your assistant where its app keeps it. ## The instructions to give it Every app below has a place for standing instructions (a template, a project, custom instructions, a skill). Put this in it: ``` You help me run my Porchsite website. Before any Porchsite work, read https://get.porchsite.dev/llms.txt in full, and follow it and the install guide it links. If your fetch tool only summarises, read the raw copy it names. Re-read them at the start of each new task: they change. - If you can't make Cloudflare API calls yourself, send me to https://get.porchsite.dev/install/ instead of improvising. - Connect to my site at https://<my site>/mcp: a connector that signs in first, an assistant key second, an import file only as a last resort. - Never ask me to paste a token, key or code into the chat; use your app's secret field, or tell me you don't have one. - When you pick a look and colours for me, tell me which and why, and what else was on offer, so I can switch. - My jobs are only the ones you can't do (my Cloudflare account, my passkey, adding a connector or key) and yes or no on the review page. Don't ask me to edit content or upload corrections: make the change and send it for approval. - Never tell me a change is live before I've approved it. ``` ## Grok Bot (xAI) - **Install the Porchsite template.** Grok Bot installs ready-made bots from a link; the Porchsite one already carries the instructions above. Install it from https://x.ai/bot/d7FrbtGVYmwTz7FexYZO4 (also linked on porchsite.dev's Install page). - **Add the Cloudflare plugin** from its plugin marketplace, with write access. Then it installs your site itself. - Tokens and keys go in its secure paste box. ## Claude (Anthropic): the Claude app - **Make a project** for your site and put the instructions above in its project instructions. Start every Porchsite conversation in it. - **Add Cloudflare as a custom connector** (Settings, Connectors, add a custom connector) at `https://mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp`, and choose write access when Cloudflare asks. After the install, add your site the same way: `https://<your site>/mcp`. - **Claude in Chrome** (a browser extension) lets Claude fill in forms in your own browser, such as the installer's; you still do the sign-ups and the passkey. ## ChatGPT (OpenAI) - **Add a custom MCP server** in ChatGPT's plugin settings, signing in with OAuth: first Cloudflare's, `https://mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp`, then, after the install, your site's `https://<your site>/mcp`. Leave any bearer-token field empty for these: they sign in instead. - Put the instructions above in its custom instructions, or a project for your site. ## Meta AI - **Its credential vault** is where an assistant key goes: make the key on your site's Assistants page, and have Meta AI open its secure request for it, never paste it into the chat. - Put the instructions above wherever it keeps standing instructions or skills. ## Any other assistant Look for these four things in its app: 1. **Standing instructions**: a template, project, custom assistant, skill or "custom instructions". Put the instructions above in it. 2. **Custom connectors** (MCP servers, plugins, integrations) that sign in. Add Cloudflare's, `https://mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp`, with write access; not the "Cloudflare Developer Platform" connector some directories list, which can't upload the site. After the install, add your site's `https://<your site>/mcp`. 3. **A browser** it can use, its own or yours through an extension: it can fill in forms and check your site as a visitor sees it. 4. **A secret field** (secret, password, API key, credential) for tokens and keys, so they never go in the chat. Without custom connectors, your assistant sends you to the one-page installer (you make a Cloudflare token there), and connects to your site with an assistant key in its secret field. Without either, it can still hand you everything as one import file, once; after that you'll want an assistant that can connect. ## Connecting after the claim Add your site as a connector only after you've claimed it: before that, it refuses, and some apps keep a broken connector. In many chat apps a connector added during a conversation only works in a new conversation, so start a fresh one once it's added. ## After the site is up Just talk to it: "add the photos from Saturday", "change the dinner time". It drafts the change, and nothing goes live until you approve it on your review page.