sitemd.cc

Activate a Site

Activation permanently locks your site's identity and consumes one site slot on your account. Once activated, your site can be built and deployed to production. Activations are permanent — there is no deactivation or slot reassignment.

In dev mode, an activation banner appears at the bottom of every page reminding you the site hasn't been activated yet.

What gets locked

Activation captures a site identity fingerprint from your rendered HTML:

The brand name is automatically appended to every page's <title> tag via seoTitleSuffix — you don't need to manually include it in page titles.

This fingerprint is stored permanently on the sitemd API. Every subsequent build or deploy re-extracts the fingerprint and verifies it against the stored snapshot. If the identity has drifted, the build is refused with details about what changed.

Before you activate

  1. Set your site title and brand name in settings/meta.md
  2. Set your site URL in settings/meta.md (e.g., url: https://example.com) — or pass a url to sitemd_init which sets it automatically
  3. Authenticate with your sitemd account
  4. Run sitemd_build at least once so page titles include your brand suffix

A URL is required at activation time. These values are permanently locked — changes after activation require contacting support.

Activate

Via deploy (most common)

The first time you deploy, sitemd triggers the activation ceremony automatically:

sitemd deploy

You'll see a fingerprint summary and a confirmation prompt before activation proceeds. After confirmation, the API stores the fingerprint, a receipt is written to site.md at your project root, and the deploy continues.

CLI (standalone)

Activate without deploying — useful to lock in your site identity before you're ready to go live:

sitemd activate

This builds the site in memory to extract the fingerprint, then activates via the API.

MCP tool

sitemd_activate

Same behavior as the CLI — builds in memory, extracts fingerprint, activates.

If the site is already activated, all three commands verify the fingerprint and return immediately without consuming an additional slot.

The site.md receipt

After activation, a site.md file is written to your project root. This is a local activation receipt — not the source of truth. The API is always authoritative.

If you delete site.md, it regenerates as an empty (unactivated) receipt. The next build or deploy re-verifies with the API and restores it.

Checking activation status

After activation

Every build and deploy calls the sitemd API to verify your fingerprint against the stored snapshot. There is no offline build path — network access is required.

If your site identity has changed (different title, brand name, or URL), the build is refused with a message explaining the drift. To update your site identity after activation, contact support.