How to Launch Your AI Tapz Website

You've bought a website template — now what? This guide walks through everything from the first edit to a live site, for both kinds of website template on AI Tapz: static websites and dynamic websites with their own backend. Not sure which you have? See Rich Static vs. Dynamic Website Templates.

Step 1: Customize your site

Every purchase lands in your Library (in the top menu once you're signed in). Open it and your site appears in a workspace, with a tab for each page.

• Edit directly, for free: click any heading, text or link in the preview and type. Click an image to replace it, or click an empty area of a section to change its background colour or image. Press Save changes when you're done — direct edits never cost anything.
• Edit with AI: for bigger changes, describe what you want in plain words ("rewrite the homepage for a family dental practice") and the AI editor rewrites that page, billed per edit from your wallet.
• Add pages: use Add page to create extra pages for your site.

Changed your mind? Reset this section to original restores a page to the template as you bought it.

Step 2: Choose how to launch

At the top of the preview you'll see three options. You can use any of them, as often as you like.

Option A: Download website (.zip) — host anywhere

1. Click Download website (.zip).
2. Unzip it. You get one HTML file per page, with links between pages already working — plus, for a dynamic site, its backend code and database setup file.
3. Upload the files to any web host you like. Download again after new edits to get the latest version.

Option B: Publish to Vercel — a live site in one click

1. Click Connect Vercel. Vercel's own consent screen opens; sign in (or create a free Vercel account), choose the account or team to use, and allow access.
2. You're sent straight back to your workspace, and the button now reads Publish to Vercel. Click it.
3. In a few seconds your site is live, and its address appears in your workspace. It's a project in your own Vercel account — you own it, not AI Tapz.
4. After further edits, click Republish to update the live site.
5. To use your own domain, open the project in Vercel and add it under Settings → Domains.

Option C: Push to GitHub — your own copy of the code

1. Click Connect GitHub. GitHub asks you to authorize AI Tapz and, the first time, to install the AI Tapz app on your GitHub account.
2. Back in your workspace, click Push to GitHub. This creates a new private repository in your GitHub account, named after your template, containing your whole site.
3. After further edits, click Push update to commit the latest version to the same repository.

With your code on GitHub, you (or a developer) can edit it directly, connect it to any host that deploys from GitHub, and use Full freedom in your workspace — an AI agent that makes open-ended changes to your repository and opens a pull request for you to review.

Step 3 (static sites): check your forms

A static site has no backend of its own, so its contact or enquiry forms don't send messages anywhere until you connect them. Set each form's action to a form service or your own endpoint before launch — your template's usage instructions show where. If collecting enquiries is central to your business, a dynamic template does this for you.

Step 3 (dynamic sites): connect your database

A dynamic site includes real backend code that stores form submissions — quote requests, bookings, enquiries — in your own database. AI Tapz never sees that data. It needs a one-time setup:

1. Create a Postgres database with any provider — for example Vercel Postgres, Supabase or Neon. Copy its connection string.
2. Create the tables. Run the included schema.sql file once against your database. You'll find it in the .zip download and in your GitHub repository (it isn't part of the Vercel deployment itself).
3. Publish to Vercel (Option B above).
4. Add your settings in Vercel. In your Vercel project, open Settings → Environment Variables and add:
   • DATABASE_URL — your database connection string;
   • an admin key — a long secret password you choose; its exact name (for example CONSULTATIONS_ADMIN_KEY) is listed in your template's usage instructions;
   • optionally, an email-sending key and sender address, if your template can send customers a confirmation email.
   If any required setting is missing when you publish, your workspace tells you which one.
5. Republish so the new settings take effect, then submit a test enquiry on your live site.

Managing your leads

Once the site is live, open Manage live data in your workspace and enter your admin key. You'll see new submissions as they arrive and can delete the ones you've dealt with. The request goes straight from your browser to your own site — not through AI Tapz.

Adding a field to a form

Need to collect something extra, like a phone number? Where your template supports it, use Backend changes in your workspace to request a new optional field. Every change passes an automatic safety check. Once applied, run the short database update it shows you against your own database, then republish.

Where your site lives

Everything you launch lives in accounts you own: files you download, a project in your Vercel account, or a private repository in your GitHub account. AI Tapz is where you edit — your live site and your customers' data belong to you. Keep your template updated from your Library anytime: edit, then Republish or Push update.

Ready to start? Browse Website Templates or Dynamic Websites, or read how to build a website that captures leads.