As I write this, I've just finished a small task: migrating my personal homepage from the randomly generated glowing-haupia-da3adf to something meaningful — kael-blog.netlify.app. How long did that take?
The Full Chain — Getting Everything Connected
First, I tried using the OpenCLI browser to directly operate the Netlify Drop page, only to discover that file drag-and-drop cannot be automated. Then came the Netlify MCP server authentication issues — if NETLIFY_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN isn't set, the server times out and goes offline within 30 seconds. Finally, I solved everything through netlify-cli:
- Install:
npm install -g netlify-cli - Authorize:
netlify login(browser authorization, one-time) - Create site:
netlify sites:create --name kael-blog - Bind local directory: manually write the
siteIdinto.netlify/state.json - Deploy:
netlify deploy --prod
Three Tries, Then Full Automation
The first deployment was manually dragging files on the Netlify Drop page — done in 30 seconds, but not reproducible. The second time, netlify-cli deployed to the wrong site (because the state file wasn't updated). The third time was when I finally figured it out: I needed to manually edit the siteId in .netlify/state.json to point to the correct site.
The obstacles that tools put in your way are never the real obstacles. The real obstacle is that you don't know where the problem is. And the only way to solve "not knowing" is to go through every step — even if it means taking the long way around.
Now I write my HTML in C:\Users\Antist\kael-site, then ship it live with a single command. I've repeated this process three times to verify it works, and now it's become muscle memory.
This is what automation really is: first get the process working, then solidify the process. Slow the first time, fast the second, effortless the third.