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hotrod

Our open-source agent-first Astro starter for sites built and maintained by coding agents like Claude Code and Cursor.

entry 02 of 15 · starter · updated 2026-10-07

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What it is

hotrod is an Astro 6 starter built for sites that a coding agent will build and maintain. The conventions, file layout, and content schema are arranged so Claude Code, Cursor, or any other coding agent can ship pages, posts, and updates without fighting the framework or producing inconsistent output.

Content lives in src/content/ under strict Zod schemas for three collections: pages, blog posts, and author profiles. Build failures are intentional when schema validation fails, so an agent gets immediate, precise feedback instead of shipping a malformed page. Images go to Vercel Blob, video to Mux, so binary files stay out of the repository.

The guardrails go further than most starters: meta descriptions are Zod-enforced to 80 to 220 characters, so an agent that writes a lazy one-liner gets a build failure, not a quietly bad search snippet. Our own instance runs at hotrod.robotostudio.com (opens in new tab).

It is the practical side of our work on agentic websites.

What you get

  • An Astro framework foundation with Tailwind CSS, Geist font, and a yellow-cab-themed design system.
  • Strict Zod content schemas for pages, blog, and authors, with build-time validation.
  • Auto-generated Open Graph images via Takumi, with no manual image creation needed.
  • Built-in SEO: meta tags, JSON-LD structured data, sitemaps, and RSS feeds.
  • Explicit allow-list for AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and others).
  • Markdown twins for blog posts plus llms.txt and llms-full.txt indices so AI tools can read the site's content.
  • Icons and the web manifest rendered at build time from a single source design, alongside the Takumi OG images.
  • External media storage via Vercel Blob and Mux, so binary files never touch the repository.

How to use it

Clone the repository and install dependencies.

bash
git clone https://github.com/robotostudio/hotrod
cd hotrod
pnpm install
pnpm dev

The dev server starts at localhost:4321. Add your Vercel Blob token and Mux credentials to the environment variables if you plan to use the media upload workflows.

How we use it

hotrod is the starting point for our agentic website projects. A coding agent handles the ongoing editing and maintenance rather than a CMS editor.

Common questions

FAQs

What people ask before picking up hotrod

What makes a starter agent-first rather than just another template?
The conventions, file layout and content schema are arranged so Claude Code, Cursor or another coding agent can ship pages and updates without fighting the framework. The guardrails matter more than the components: content sits under strict Zod schemas and build failures are intentional when validation fails, so an agent gets immediate, precise feedback instead of shipping a malformed page.
How does it stop an agent writing lazy metadata?
Meta descriptions are Zod-enforced to between 80 and 220 characters. An agent that writes a one-liner gets a build failure rather than a quietly bad search snippet.
Where do images and video go?
Vercel Blob for images and Mux for video, so binary files stay out of the repository. Add your Blob token and Mux credentials to the environment if you plan to use the upload workflows.
Is it built to be read by AI crawlers?
Yes. There is an explicit allow-list for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and others, plus Markdown twins for blog posts and llms.txt and llms-full.txt indices.
What do I run to try it?
'git clone https://github.com/robotostudio/hotrod', 'pnpm install', 'pnpm dev'. The dev server starts at localhost:4321. Our own instance runs at hotrod.robotostudio.com.

Get in touch

Tell us what you're building. We reply within one working day. Jono or someone on the team picks up every message personally.

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