clone-site

Clone Site

Reverse-engineer the site(s) at $ARGUMENTS into a Next.js codebase. This skill encodes a refined version of the ai-website-cloner-template pipeline: the big lesson is that most marketing sites are static (Astro, plain HTML, SSR), and for those the served source IS the ground truth — downloading it beats hand-measuring computed styles every time. Only fall back to browser-side style extraction for true SPAs.

Default scope: every page in the site's sitemap, pixel-perfect, with real assets and working interactions. If the user scopes it down ("just the landing page"), honor that.

Phase 0 — Project setup

1. Create the project OUTSIDE any repo you're currently in:

   git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JCodesMore/ai-website-cloner-template.git ~/Desktop/<hostname>-clone
   cd ~/Desktop/<hostname>-clone && rm -rf .git && git init -q && npm install
   

   If the folder exists, ask before overwriting.
2. Make research dirs: docs/research/<hostname>/, docs/research/components/, docs/design-references/.
3. Check ~/Desktop/inspo/sites.json (the inspo hub — the permanent home of all finished clones, private repo caezium/inspo): if this site was already cloned, ask whether to redo it or extend the existing one. The Desktop folder is a workspace; the clone isn't done until Phase 6 registers it in the hub.

Phase 1 — Stack detection (decides everything)

curl -sS <url> and inspect:

• Content-complete HTML (real headings/copy in the response; _astro/ assets, or no root <div id="root|__next"> shell) → source-first path (rest of this skill).
• SPA shell (empty root div, content materializes from JS) → the template's browser-extraction pipeline is the right tool; follow .claude/skills/clone-website/SKILL.md inside the scaffold (screenshots + getComputedStyle() extraction per section). The verification and parallel-builder phases below still apply.

Record: framework, stylesheet links, inline <style>/<script> blocks, font links, animation libraries (grep for gsap, ScrollTrigger, lenis, framer).

Phase 2 — Download the ground truth (source-first path)

All into docs/research/<hostname>/:

1. Every page: fetch sitemap.xml (or sitemap-index.xml) for the definitive URL list. No sitemap → crawl nav/footer links one level. Save each page's HTML.
2. Every stylesheet — including page-specific ones (Astro emits per-page CSS files; different pages reference different ones).
3. Every behavior script — inline AND external <script type="module">. These minified files are the exact spec for animations; you will port them, not guess.
4. Every asset to public/: write a small Node download script. Sources of asset URLs: <img src> AND every srcset variant, <video src/poster>, CSS url() refs, favicons, webmanifest, OG images. Missing a srcset variant means broken images at other viewport widths — grep the HTML for all of them.
5. Take reference screenshots with Chrome MCP at 1440px (scroll through, screenshot each viewport-full) and note per-section behavior: what pins, what fades, what's tabbed vs scroll-driven. Two traps:
   • Lazy images look blank during fast programmatic scrolling — a blank card usually means loading="lazy" hadn't fired, not a real gap. Confirm via DOM (naturalWidth > 0) before "fixing" anything.
   • prefers-reduced-motion: if macOS Reduce Motion is on, both the original and your screenshots may show the static branches. Check matchMedia('(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)') and read the source scripts for reduce gates so you know which animations exist even if you can't see them.

Phase 3 — Foundation (do this yourself, not via agents)

1. CSS verbatim: concatenate all downloaded CSS + inline <style> blocks into src/app/globals.css, stripping framework scoping attrs (e.g. [data-astro-cid-*]). Keep the original class names. Do NOT translate to Tailwind — every translation step is drift risk, and fidelity beats idiom. Identical duplicate rules across per-page CSS files are harmless.
2. Fonts: replicate the original's Google Fonts <link> (or download self-hosted fonts). The CSS references literal family names, so next/font's renamed families would break it — plain <link> in layout.tsx is correct here.
3. layout.tsx metadata: title, description, favicon, OG image from the original head.
4. trailingSlash: true in next.config.ts if the original uses trailing-slash URLs.
5. Install animation libs the site uses (npm i gsap etc.) — port to the npm package, never vendor the minified bundle.
6. Write docs/research/PAGE_TOPOLOGY.md (section map, interaction model per section) and BEHAVIORS.md (exact mechanisms from the de-minified scripts: trigger points, easings, durations, media-query gates). These are the builders' bible.

Phase 4 — Parallel build

Split the page into sections (hero, nav, feature blocks, footer, modals...). For each, write a brief spec in docs/research/components/<name>.spec.md: target file, ground-truth fragment path, interaction model, behavior notes, gotchas.

Dispatch parallel builder agents (Agent tool, general-purpose), ~4–7 at once. Worktrees are unnecessary if each agent owns disjoint files — pre-write shared files yourself and forbid agents from touching them. Every builder prompt includes:

• Ground-truth fragment path + spec path + BEHAVIORS.md reference
• Conversion rules: strip scoping attrs; class→className, srcset→srcSet, camelCase SVG attrs, self-closing tags; text verbatim — including apostrophe/quote style (don't "fix" straight quotes to curly or vice versa; it shows up in the fidelity diff)
• "All CSS already exists in globals.css under the original class names — write NO new CSS, NO Tailwind"
• Port behaviors from the actual source scripts (de-minify), as hooks with cleanup; respect the original's media-query/motion gates unless the user asked otherwise
• "Only create/modify your own target files"; verify npx tsc --noEmit
• Ask builders to REPORT deviations and shared-component mismatches they notice — they catch real fidelity bugs (per-page CTA text variants, footer blocks present only on some pages)

Cross-component dependencies: use composition (<Hero>{<HeroCard/>}</Hero> via children) so agents never import each other's unfinished files.

Multi-page sites: extract shared chrome (Nav/Footer/Modals) into components with variant props FIRST — then per-page builders reuse them. Grep every page for the differences before assuming they're identical: nav light/dark variant, CTA label, aria-current, footer link blocks. Pages sharing one template (blog posts, comparison pages) batch 5 per agent.

Assemble src/app/page.tsx (and routes) yourself; run npm run build after merging.

Phase 5 — Verify (don't skip; this catches what eyeballs miss)

1. npx tsc --noEmit and npm run build — must be clean.
2. npx next start -p 3210 and run the bundled text-fidelity diff:

   python3 scripts/fidelity-diff.py --research docs/research/<hostname> --base http://localhost:3210
   

   (Copy scripts/fidelity-diff.py from this skill's directory into the project.) It strips tags/scripts, decodes entities, and reports missing words per page. Target ≥99%; chase every gap to root cause — real omissions vs entity-encoding artifacts vs apostrophe-style drift all look different in the output.
3. Live QA with Chrome MCP: side-by-side against the original at the same scroll positions; click every interactive element (tabs, accordions, toggles, modals); check the console for errors. Verify scroll-pinned sections actually pin (.pin-spacer exists, body height grew).
4. Capture a real homepage screenshot of the CLONE for the hub card — the template's stock docs/design-references/comparison.png is a demo image, not your site; delete it:

   "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome" --headless --disable-gpu \
     --screenshot=docs/design-references/clone-home-1440.png --window-size=1440,900 \
     --hide-scrollbars --virtual-time-budget=12000 http://localhost:3210/
   

5. Commit with a summary of sections/components/assets. No AI attribution in the message.

Phase 6 — Register in the inspo hub

Every finished clone gets consolidated into ~/Desktop/inspo (gallery of all clones; sites.json is the single source of truth — index.html renders purely from it, no other wiring).

1. Snapshot the code:

   rsync -a --delete --exclude node_modules --exclude .next --exclude .git \
     ~/Desktop/<hostname>-clone/ ~/Desktop/inspo/sites/<id>/
   git -C ~/Desktop/<hostname>-clone bundle create ~/Desktop/inspo/histories/<id>.bundle --all
   

   <id> = short lowercase name (see existing ids in sites.json).
2. Add a sites.json entry: kind: "nextjs", port = next free 31xx, thumbnail = the real clone screenshot from Phase 5 (never a stock/template image), 3–5 design-vibe tags (reuse existing tag vocabulary where it fits), description = one line on the design language, original_url, and run: "./serve.sh <id>".
3. Verify: cd ~/Desktop/inspo && ./serve.sh → the new card renders with its thumbnail at localhost:4600. Then commit + push (origin = private caezium/inspo).
4. Ask the user whether to delete the Desktop working folder. Before any deletion: check no other session is actively developing it (uncommitted work, recent commits you didn't make, running dev servers) — the hub snapshot captures files, not in-flight work. The history bundle preserves the git log either way.

Judgment calls to surface to the user (don't silently decide)

• Reduced motion: if the original gates animations on prefers-reduced-motion and the user's OS has it on, the clone will look "broken but faithful". Default to matching the original's code; if the user reports missing animations, offer the always-animate override (drop the gates, comment the deviation).
• Backend endpoints (/api/download, form posts): a static clone can't replicate them. Keep the original URLs/actions and say so in the completion report.
• Analytics (PostHog, GA): strip them; note it.

Completion report

Sections built, components created, assets downloaded, routes generated, build status, fidelity-diff scores, interactions tested, known gaps (backend routes, uncloned linked pages), and hub registration (sites.json id + port, pushed to caezium/inspo).