Hi, I’m Kei. This post covers the full story of migrating my home server’s long-running static HTML site to WordPress.
The defining feature of this project: everything — site design, staging environment, theme development, content migration, production release, and security hardening — was completed entirely through conversation with Claude Code, an AI coding assistant. I didn’t write a single line of code myself. The whole site was built through instructions in plain Japanese.
“This is what I want to do” — that was enough. Script writing, file editing, API operations, SSH deployment: Claude Code handled all of it. My job was essentially just to approve.
1. Why WordPress?
The home server had been a mix of Perl CGI and static HTML pages. Updating content meant SSH-ing into the server and editing files directly — honestly exhausting. The desire to “update easily from an admin panel,” “manage themes in one place,” and “build game features with plugins” all stacked up, and I decided to migrate to WordPress.
2. The Claude Code Workflow
The work consistently followed this pattern:
- Tell Claude Code in Japanese what I want to accomplish
- Claude Code generates Node.js scripts, PHP files, config files
- Changes are automatically applied to the server via WordPress REST API or SSH
- Review the result, give additional instructions as needed
Git management, commit message writing, file organization — Claude Code handled all of it. I reviewed and approved. Letting AI do the hands-on work while I steered the direction was a feeling that came through clearly in this project.
3. Staging Environment Setup
Touching production directly felt risky, so the first step was creating a staging area on the same server and installing WordPress there. The plan was to develop and test there before touching anything live.
When I said “I want to run WordPress in a staging environment,” Claude Code generated a WordPress REST API client in Node.js and put together a set of scripts for automating post creation, page building, and theme deployment. That “instruct locally, apply via API” workflow carried through the entire project.
4. Custom Theme Development
Claude Code built a custom WordPress theme that reproduced the existing site’s design from scratch — functions.php, style.css, and all the template files, generated from zero. I just described the design intent in words.
Mobile display issues and a bug where the navigation state reset on screen rotation were fixed the same way: describe how it should behave, receive correction code, deploy.
5. Migrating Existing Content
The large volume of static HTML pages under /help/ on the old site was retrieved using a crawler script Claude Code generated, then bulk-imported via the WordPress REST API. Rewriting internal link URLs and migrating images to the media library were both handled with automated scripts.
6. SEO
When I said “I want to strengthen SEO,” Claude Code implemented the following directly into the theme:
- Meta tags (description, OGP)
- Structured data in JSON-LD format
- Breadcrumb navigation
- H1 tag corrections
7. Game Features (Custom Plugins)
Two games were built as custom WordPress plugins — the flagship content of the site. Code generated by Claude Code, of course.
Word Association Game (Magical Banana): A “what comes to mind when you think of ___?” game. Ported from the old site as a WordPress plugin, with data migrated to the database.
Quiz Game:
- Multiple-choice format
- Difficulty selection (★1–★5)
- Score tracking and distribution graph
- Pass/fail judgment and Hall of Fame
- Admin panel CRUD for question management
The question bank eventually grew to around 29,000 questions. When I said “I want to add more questions,” Claude Code automated data collection, conversion, and import end to end.
8. Production Migration
After staging validation, I switched to the production domain. “I want to migrate to production” was enough — Claude Code generated a migration script that:
- Deployed files to the production directory
- Replaced all staging URLs in the database
- Re-deployed themes and plugins for production
All of it, fully automated.
9. Security Hardening
“I want to harden WordPress security” — Claude Code generated and deployed .htaccess configuration covering:
- Restricting wp-admin access to intranet + home IP only
- Disabling xmlrpc.php
- User enumeration prevention
- Blocking PHP execution in the uploads directory
Wrapping Up: Is No-Code Migration with Claude Code Actually Practical?
Short answer: yes. Especially for a case like this — where the goal is clear but coding isn’t your main job — Claude Code was a strong fit.
“Let the AI handle it, do nothing yourself” isn’t quite right. “Dialogue with the AI to set the direction, let the AI handle implementation” is more accurate. Even so, work that would typically take weeks was compressed significantly.
I plan to write about each phase in more detail separately. Feel free to leave a comment if anything comes to mind.
— Kei