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How to Set Up a GitHub Repository

Last updated: February 22, 2026

Why GitHub?

GitHub stores your website’s source code. When you push code to GitHub, Cloudflare Pages automatically builds and deploys your site. Think of it as a central hub for your website files.

Step 1: Create a GitHub Account

If you don’t already have one:

  1. Go to github.com/signup
  2. Enter your email, create a password, and choose a username
  3. Verify your email address

Step 2: Create a New Repository

A repository (or “repo”) is a project folder on GitHub.

  1. Click the + button in the top-right corner and select New repository
  2. Fill in the details:
    • Repository name: something descriptive, like my-business-website or sunrise-bakery-site
    • Description: optional, e.g., “Marketing website for Sunrise Bakery”
    • Visibility: either Public or Private works — Cloudflare Pages can access both
  3. Check Add a .gitignore and select Jekyll from the template dropdown
  4. Click Create repository

Step 3: Clone the Repository to Your Computer

Cloning downloads a copy of the repo to your machine so you can work on it locally.

  1. On your repo page, click the green Code button
  2. Copy the URL (use HTTPS unless you’ve set up SSH keys)
  3. Open your terminal and run:
git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPO-NAME.git
  1. Navigate into the folder:
cd YOUR-REPO-NAME

Don’t have Git installed? Download it from git-scm.com. On macOS, you can also install it with brew install git. On Windows, the installer includes Git Bash.

That’s It

Your repo is ready. When you run the SiteKit prompts with Claude Code, it will create all the site files in this directory. Then you’ll push them to GitHub, and Cloudflare Pages takes care of the rest.

Tip: If you’re not comfortable with Git commands, don’t worry — Claude Code handles most Git operations for you. It can stage files, commit, and push when you ask it to.