A small starting guide for people and AI assistants building Shopify automations with Mechanic.
Edit start.md. The build publishes that file unchanged at /start.md and /llms.txt, and renders the same content as accessible HTML at /.
The home page presents the Markdown source in a dark editor theme, with syntax colors, line numbers, semantic headings, and clickable links. Copy Markdown copies the original file, including punctuation and line breaks. If clipboard access is unavailable, a dialog provides selected source text for manual copying.
The detailed skills stay in lightward/mechanic-skills; this repository links to them rather than maintaining another copy.
GitHub Pages serves the root as HTML and determines MIME types itself. The raw Markdown endpoint is /start.md; the root advertises it with an alternate link and a visible link. This site does not implement content negotiation or promise a text/markdown response header.
Local terminal (fish-compatible):
npm ci
npm test
npm run build
python3 -m http.server 8080 --directory distOpen http://localhost:8080.
The build includes Open Graph and large-image card metadata with an absolute HTTPS URL for assets/og-image-v1.png (1200 × 630). The editable artwork is assets/og-image.svg. The committed PNG keeps deployment independent of local fonts and image tools.
To regenerate it with librsvg installed, in a local fish terminal:
rsvg-convert -o assets/og-image-v1.png assets/og-image.svg
npm run buildAfter changing the artwork, use a new versioned PNG filename and update the metadata and copy path in scripts/build.mjs to avoid stale image caches. LinkedIn's Post Inspector can refresh its preview of the home page.
These accounts are owned by matt@lightward.com and set up the same way as mechanic.dev and locksmith.dev.
| Service | Setup | Verified by |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics | Property Mechanic.md (AI starter guide) (559723636) in the Lightward Inc account. Web stream Mechanic.md Website (16168353113), measurement ID G-3JXHX4CSXH |
assets/analytics.js |
| Google Search Console | Domain property mechanic.md, with the sitemap submitted |
google-site-verification TXT record in DNSimple |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Site https://mechanic.md/ |
msvalidate.01 meta tag in the page head |
| GitHub Pages | Domain verified for the Lightward org, which prevents takeover | _github-pages-challenge-lightward TXT record |
Keep those records and the meta tag. Removing them unverifies the site.
assets/analytics.js runs only on mechanic.md. It doesn't load for local previews, Do Not Track, Global Privacy Control, or the Google Analytics opt-out flag. Google Signals and ad personalization are off. It keeps only utm_* parameters in page addresses, and trims referrers to their origin and path.
It reports these events: markdown_copy, raw_markdown_click, app_store_click, documentation_click, task_library_click, and github_click. None of them include destination query strings. npm test checks this behavior.
The build also publishes robots.txt, which explicitly allows search and AI crawlers, and sitemap.xml.
GitHub Actions builds pull requests and deploys pushes to main using GitHub Pages. In repository settings, Pages uses GitHub Actions with the custom domain mechanic.md.
DNSimple manages DNS. The apex points to GitHub Pages; GitHub manages the site's HTTPS certificate. Do not reintroduce a DNSimple URL redirect while this site is hosted on Pages.