This summer I let an AI agent work on my website, and it did more in a few sittings than I had done in years.
I am always working on improving myself, with new personal and professional goals, and I wanted my website to reflect that.
I have been experimenting with Claude Code agents a lot this summer on personal projects, so I built one just for this site. It was a fun experiment to see what’s possible.
From a product perspective, the what and the why were clear. I wanted a reader of the site to be able to:
- See clearly what the site is about
- Easily find information about me
- Connect with me through the contact form or social media
I then broke my goals down further:
- Speed: This was a big one. I wanted the site to be fast and snappy. It’s a simple personal blog, so it should not be bogged down.
- Security: This was also important from a risk management perspective. My degree is in networking and IT security, so I wanted the site to be up to date, with all of the security measures in place and updates turned on.
- Layout and design: I wanted the site brought up to modern design standards. I have been blogging here since 2013, so I wanted to give it a revamp for the AI era with a clean and simple design.
Getting the agent connected
With the goals defined, I got to work and set up a Claude agent on my computer. I wrote my goals into its CLAUDE.md file. My first hurdle was getting the agent to connect to the site on my behalf. MCP is the standard way AI agents connect to other apps. There were some paid MCP connectors, but I didn’t want to pay for another subscription. Instead I used the free MCP Adapter plugin for WordPress and had Claude build the custom tools it needed to read and edit my posts and pages.
Speed and security
Then the fun began. The agent ran a full speed and security audit. It went through every plugin and setting and recommended what to change. I reviewed each recommendation carefully, and I taught Claude a skill to take a backup before any big change. Here is what changed:
- 10 old plugins removed
- 3 unsupported plugins replaced with modern ones (email, two-factor login and the privacy policy)
- PHP, the language WordPress runs on, upgraded from version 7.4 to 8.3
- The database cleaned out from 103 MB to 34 MB
- A Google PageSpeed score of 99 to 100
This could easily have taken days of my time. It was all done in a few evening sessions.
What I kept in my own hands
Giving an AI agent access to my site was also a risk decision, so I set some rules from day one:
- It never sees or types my passwords. I log in myself.
- Nothing goes live without my OK, and it shows me a preview first.
- It takes a backup before any big change.
- Anything permanent, like deleting old data, I click myself.
These are the same controls I would want on any AI agent at work.
Layout and design
This was a good start. The site was faster and I felt good knowing I had made it better. However, the layout and design were still lacking. It was a decent layout on the base theme, but it looked dated. I asked my agent to review the site as a web designer, a UI expert and a random reader, on both mobile and desktop. The suggestions came in, I tweaked them a bit, and then I watched it make the changes for me by controlling my browser. I was astonished! Each round made the design cleaner and easier to use.
What I learned
- Write your goals down first. The agent was only as good as the goals I gave it.
- Review every change. The recommendations were good, but I still tweaked a lot of them.
- Teach it once. Every skill I taught the agent is there for the next time.
Now I feel confident in my site for 2026. It’s ready for blogging again and represents me well online. Plus, all of the effort I put into my Claude agent and its skills means its knowledge will keep growing, and I can keep improving the site.
If you have tried something similar with your own site, I would love to hear how it went.