Claude Code Website Launch Checklist

A free 18-section website launch checklist: requirements, accessibility, technical SEO, structured data, performance, security, commerce, analytics and post-launch validation.

Plain Markdown, no sign-up. Drop it straight into a repository.

Download the checklist

Everything worth checking between "the site looks finished" and "the site is live and behaving". Written for people building with Claude Code, but almost all of it applies to any website.

Work top to bottom. The order is deliberate: several later checks are meaningless if an earlier one fails. A crawl report is worthless if the site is still behind a password, and a performance number means nothing if the page renders the wrong content.

Where a check can be automated, run it. Where it can only be observed, open the page and look. The failure mode that costs the most is a check that reports success because it never actually ran. Prove each check can fail before you trust it passing.

1. Requirements

The site's single purpose is written down in one sentence
The primary conversion action is named, and there is exactly one per page
Target audience and their entry point are known (search, referral, ads, direct)
Content inventory exists: every page that must exist at launch is listed
Legal pages identified: privacy, terms, refund/returns, cookie or consent notice
Contact route decided and reachable by a real human
Anything explicitly out of scope for launch is written down

2. Project setup

CLAUDE.md exists, is under ~150 lines, and names the real commands
.gitignore covers .env, build output, dependency directories, editor files
.env.example lists variable names with no values
Lockfile committed; install uses the frozen/locked path
Node/Python/Ruby version pinned in a file the tooling reads
Lint, format, typecheck and test commands all run clean on a fresh clone

3. Architecture

Routes and URLs decided before pages are built; URLs are stable and readable
URL casing, trailing slashes and word separators are consistent sitewide
Navigation reflects the real hierarchy, not the build order
Shared layout/header/footer is one component, not copied per page
Nothing in the client bundle imports server-only code
Build output directory is git-ignored and reproducible from a clean checkout

4. Content

No placeholder text anywhere: lorem ipsum, TODO, TKTK, XXX, Your Company
No placeholder links: bare href="#", example.com, localhost
Every claim on the site is one you can support
No fabricated testimonials, reviews, ratings, logos, or customer counts
Prices on the page match prices at checkout
Contact details are correct and consistent everywhere they appear
Dates ("Updated…", copyright year) are real and current
Spelling and grammar checked; one spelling convention throughout

5. Responsive and cross-browser

Renders correctly at 320px width with no horizontal scroll
Renders correctly at 768px, 1024px, 1440px
Text reflows at 200% browser zoom without loss of content or function
Tables, code blocks and wide media scroll inside their own container, not the page
Checked in at least two rendering engines (Chromium and WebKit or Gecko)
Checked on a real phone, not only a simulator
Touch targets are comfortable; nothing important sits under a fixed bar

6. Accessibility

Keyboard alone can reach and operate every control, in a sensible order
Focus is always visible; no outline: none without a replacement
Skip-to-content link present and functional
One <h1> per page; heading levels descend without skipping
Landmarks used: header, nav, main, footer
Every informative image has meaningful alt; decorative images have alt=""
Form inputs have associated labels; errors are announced, not colour-only
Text contrast ≥ 4.5:1, large text and UI components ≥ 3:1
Interactive targets meet the 24×24 CSS pixel minimum, or qualify for an exception
Page has a lang attribute
Content is not lost when animation or motion is reduced
Automated audit run *and* a manual keyboard pass done — automation finds under half

7. Technical SEO

Every page has a unique, intent-matching <title> under ~60 characters
Every page has a unique meta description under ~155 characters
One self-referencing <link rel="canonical"> per page, absolute, HTTPS
No accidental noindex on pages that should rank — check the rendered HTML
robots.txt reachable, does not block CSS/JS needed for rendering
XML sitemap reachable, lists only indexable, canonical, 200-status URLs
Sitemap referenced from robots.txt
Internal links use descriptive anchor text
No orphan pages: every indexable page is reachable by a link
Pagination, filters and sort parameters do not create crawlable duplicates
One hostname wins: www/non-www and http/https all redirect to it, in one hop
Redirects from any old URLs are in place and land on 200s

8. Structured data

JSON-LD parses as valid JSON in the *rendered* HTML, not just the template
Types describe what is genuinely on the page
Organization or Person entity present and consistent sitewide
Product markup matches the visible price, currency and availability
Article/BlogPosting has headline, dates, author and publisher
BreadcrumbList matches the visible breadcrumb
No duplicate or conflicting entities of the same type on one page
No review, rating, or aggregateRating markup unless real reviews exist
Tested against a rich-results validator, and warnings understood rather than blindly "fixed"

og:title, og:description, og:url, og:type set per page
og:image is an absolute HTTPS URL, at least 1200×630, and actually loads
twitter:card set (summary_large_image for pages with an image)
No HTML entities leaking into meta content (&ndash; and friends)
Share preview checked for the homepage and at least one deep page

10. Images and media

Served at the dimensions they render, not scaled down in the browser
Modern format where supported (WebP/AVIF) with a fallback
width and height set on every image to reserve space
Below-the-fold images lazy-loaded; the LCP image is not
Descriptive filenames, no IMG_4021.jpg
Alt text is descriptive and not keyword-stuffed
Video does not autoplay with sound; captions available where there is speech

11. Performance

Largest Contentful Paint ≤ 2.5s on a mid-range mobile connection
Cumulative Layout Shift ≤ 0.1
Interaction to Next Paint ≤ 200ms
Total blocking JavaScript understood; every third-party script justified
Fonts subset and preloaded, with a real fallback stack, no invisible-text flash
Compression (gzip/brotli) on for text assets
Cache headers set: long, immutable for fingerprinted assets; short for HTML
Measured on the deployed site, not the dev server

12. Security

HTTPS enforced; HTTP redirects to it; no mixed content
No secrets in the repository, the client bundle, or template source
.env files not deployed or served
Security headers present: CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, HSTS
Forms validated server-side; user input escaped before HTML, SQL or shell
Spam protection on public forms
Dependencies audited; no known critical vulnerabilities shipped
Admin, staging and preview surfaces not publicly reachable or indexable
Debug mode, verbose errors and source maps off in production
Error pages reveal nothing about the stack

13. Forms and conversion

Every form submits successfully end to end, on the live site
The submitted data actually arrives where you expect it
Validation errors are clear, specific, and keyboard-accessible
Success state is unmistakable and does not lose the user
Autocomplete attributes set on name, email, address and payment fields
Confirmation email sends, is not in spam, and links in it work
Every call-to-action goes somewhere that exists — including from non-home pages

14. Commerce (if applicable)

A real end-to-end test purchase completed, with a real payment method
Payment provider is activated, not just configured
Tax and currency correct for at least two regions you sell to
Order confirmation email arrives and is accurate
Digital delivery, if any, produces a link that actually downloads the file
Delivery works for every checkout path, including phone-only and guest checkout
Refund and cancellation paths tested, not assumed
Storefront password removed at go-live

15. Analytics and monitoring

Analytics installed and firing on the live domain, once per page view
Internal and bot traffic filtered or at least identifiable
Key conversion events tracked and verified by triggering them
Consent handling in place where required
Uptime check on the homepage and one critical path
Error reporting collecting from production
Someone actually receives the alerts

16. Search engine registration

Google Search Console property verified for the exact production hostname
Sitemap submitted in Search Console; status is "Success"
Bing Webmaster Tools verified and sitemap submitted
IndexNow key file reachable at the site root, returning 200 and the key text
Live URL inspection on the homepage shows it as crawlable and indexable
No manual actions or security issues reported

17. Deployment

Deploys from a clean checkout, reproducibly, with a documented command
Rollback path exists and has been tried at least once
Environment variables set in production and not printed by the build
Custom domain resolves; DNS propagated; certificate valid and auto-renewing
www and apex both resolve to the same canonical host
404 page returns a real 404 status, not 200
Staging is not indexable

18. Post-launch validation

Do this on the live site, after DNS and caches have settled.

Full internal-link crawl: zero broken links, zero unexpected redirect chains
Fetch every page and confirm status, title, description and canonical
Structured data validated on rendered HTML for each template type
Search Console coverage checked after 48 hours for unexpected exclusions
Core Web Vitals measured on the live domain
Test purchase or test form submission repeated on production
Analytics shows your own visit
Site opened on a phone, on mobile data, by someone who did not build it

The check that catches the rest

After everything above passes, deliberately break one thing and confirm the relevant check fails. A link crawler that reports "0 broken links" without ever having found one is not evidence of anything. This single habit catches more real problems than any individual item on this list.

The Claude Code Website Launch System packages these checks as runnable prompts and audits rather than a list you tick by hand.

Licence

Free to use in any project, including client work. Do not resell or republish it as your own.