Editing your live site in six steps.

1Put your site on GitHub

Your site needs to be a GitHub repository of plain HTML, CSS, and JS files. If an AI wrote those files for you, push them to a repo like any others. If your AI built a React app instead (Lovable, v0 and Bolt usually do), freeze it into plain HTML first. Connect the repo to a host that deploys on each commit if you haven't already (Cloudflare Pages recommended, free and fine for commercial use). That auto-deploy is Kiln's publish button.

2Run one command

Open a terminal in your site's folder and run:

npx github:kilncms/kiln

It needs Node 20 or newer. Press Enter to choose Kiln Cloud. The command copies three editor files into assets/, writes assets/kiln-config.js, and adds a kiln.html sign-in page. Then it offers to tag a first pass of your pages and to commit and push what it added. It leaves your own pages alone unless you say yes to the tagging.

3Add two script tags to every page

The command does not do this part for you. Paste these two lines into every HTML page of your site, right before </body>:

<script src="/assets/kiln-config.js"></script>
<script src="/assets/kiln.js" defer></script>

Then commit and push. A page without these two lines never loads Kiln: you sign in, land on your site, and find nothing to click. Many pages? Paste KILN_PROMPT.md into your AI along with the repo and it adds the tags and marks what is editable in one go.

What is editable is your call. Tag a reviewable first pass with npx github:kilncms/kiln tag, or wait until step 6 and use ✨ Make text/images editable to tag sections by clicking them.

4Install the Kiln GitHub App

Install the app on that repo: github.com/apps/kiln-cms. Choose Only select repositories and pick your site's repo. The app can only touch the repos you select.

5Sign in and add your site

Sign in at app.kilncms.com with GitHub and add your site: the repo and its live address. Your 7-day free trial starts the moment you add it, with no card, and you can edit straight away. Adding the site opens the checkout, run by Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record. Subscribe there, or close it and come back to the Subscribe button in the dashboard any time in the 7 days. You are charged only if you subscribe. If you have not subscribed when the 7 days are up, editing switches off until you do. Your site and your repo are not touched.

6You're editing

Open yoursite.com/kiln and sign in with GitHub. You land on your site with a round Kiln button in the corner. Click any text or image you have made editable, change it, then open the Kiln menu and press Publish. Every change commits to your own GitHub repository and deploys a moment later. Add editors by their Google email under People & access, no GitHub account needed, and send them the guide for editors. v0.4.0 also gives you comment pins, a Suggest-only seat, named versions, a block library, theme tokens, ⌘K search, phone-first editing, and a REST API + kiln-mcp. AI assist is Self-hosted only, so it is not part of Kiln Cloud.