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Guide

Getting started

From zero to a working sandbox with Claude Desktop driving your CMS in about 5 minutes. No install. No engineering team. Just an email address.

Getting started

From email to a working sandbox driven by Claude Desktop in about 5 minutes. No install. No local Node. No AWS credentials.

Step 1 — Request a trial key

Go to app.staticowl.com/signup-key.html, drop your email + a one-line "what are you building," and submit.

We send a verification link to that email. Click it. We mint a 30-day so_* API key, auto-provision a sandbox site with its own graph + seeded content, and show you the key once.

Step 2 — Connect Claude Desktop

Open ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS (or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows) and add this block, pasting your trial key in place of YOUR_KEY_HERE:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "staticowl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", "mcp-remote",
        "https://app.staticowl.com/api/mcp",
        "--header", "Authorization:Bearer YOUR_KEY_HERE"
      ]
    }
  }
}

The verified-key page renders this snippet with your real key pre-filled — copy it from there to skip the substitution.

Restart Claude Desktop. You should see 38 StaticOwl tools available (sites_list, content_create, types_create, build_trigger, etc.) under the integration picker.

Step 3 — Drive the CMS from a chat

Three prompts that land well on a fresh sandbox:

"Show me my sandbox"

Use the StaticOwl MCP to list my sites. There should be one called "Sandbox" — show me its details (graph name, environments, theme) and tell me what content types it was seeded with. Then list the sample pages.

"Create your first content type"

In my Sandbox site, design a content type called "Recipe" with fields for title (string, required), ingredients (array of strings), instructions (richtext), prepMinutes (number), and a slug. Create it through your tools, then create three example recipes I can use as test data.

"Plan a docs site end-to-end"

I want to extend my Sandbox to be a documentation site for an open-source library. Walk me through every change you'd make — new content types (Doc, Section, ApiReference), sample content, and the template you'd wire up. Make the changes through your tools and tell me when each step succeeds.

Or use curl directly

Don't want Claude Desktop in the loop? The same API is on plain HTTP:

# Health check
curl https://app.staticowl.com/api/health

# Who am I?
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" https://app.staticowl.com/api/access/me

# List my sites
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" https://app.staticowl.com/api/sites

# Call MCP directly (JSON-RPC over HTTP)
curl -X POST https://app.staticowl.com/api/mcp \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}'

What your trial includes

What a full account adds

Sign up for a full account →

Where to go next

Self-hosting (advanced)

The default path above runs against our hosted CMS. If you'd rather run the CMS on your own infrastructure — e.g. air-gapped audit-grade install or development against a local engine — the source is open and self-installable.

Prerequisites

Install

git clone <repo>
cd cms
npm install
npm run build

Configure

# Engine connection — required
export GRAPHIQUITY_ENDPOINT=https://api.graphiquity.com
export GRAPHIQUITY_API_KEY=gq_yourkey

# Cognito — required for the admin UI auth flow
export USER_POOL_ID=us-east-1_xxxxxx
export USER_POOL_CLIENT_ID=yyyyyyyyy
export AWS_REGION=us-east-1

# Trial flow (optional, off if STATICOWL_MAIL_FROM is unset)
export STATICOWL_MAIL_FROM="StaticOwl <noreply@yourdomain.com>"
export STATICOWL_OPERATOR_EMAIL=ops@yourdomain.com

# Deploy target — defaults to static-paths
export STATICOWL_DEPLOY_TARGET=static-paths

Full env reference: operations.

Run

npm run cms -- serve --port 5000

Boots the admin server on port 5000 with the admin UI at http://localhost:5000/admin/ and the MCP server at http://localhost:5000/api/mcp.

Common gotchas (self-host)