Download an Astro Project (.zip)
Download your AI Website Creator project as a ready-to-run Astro project, run it locally, and host the built static site anywhere.
Manual download gives you your whole site as an Astro project in a .zip file. Astro is a popular framework for fast websites. You get clean source code with one file per page and one component per section, which you can open in any code editor and host on any static host.
At a Glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Where | Publish › Astro › Manual download › Set up › Download .zip |
| You get | <project-name>-astro.zip, a full Astro project |
| Pages included | Every generated page, plus available header, footer and blog content, and a 404 page |
| Build time | Up to a minute while UiChemy prepares the zip |
| Requirements | Node.js 22.12 or newer on your computer |
| Who | Every signed-in user. Guests are asked to sign up first. |
Why It Matters
- You own the code: no lock-in. Edit it, version it in Git, and deploy it wherever you like.
- Fast by default: Astro builds plain HTML, CSS and JS that load quickly.
- Developer friendly: sections are separate components with their own CSS, making changes easier to isolate.
Use Cases
- Handing a site to a developer who works in Astro or a Git workflow.
- Hosting on your own stack: Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, or any web server.
- Extending the site with code UiChemy doesn't build for you.
Just want the site online without touching code? Use Cloudflare in the same panel. It builds and hosts the site in your own Cloudflare account. See Deploy to Cloudflare.
Download the Project
Open Manual download
In the Design Editor, click Publish, select Astro, then click Set up on Manual download ("Download the Astro project as a .zip and host it anywhere.").
Download
Click Download .zip. The button reads Preparing your project… while UiChemy builds it ("Building your project. This can take up to a minute."). When it's ready, the file downloads and you'll see "Astro project downloaded".
The zip is built from your saved project. If your latest edits are still saving, or the save failed, Download .zip waits until the save is done. Click Try again if the save failed.
Run It on Your Computer
You need Node.js 22.12 or newer. Unzip the file, open a terminal in the folder, then run:
npm install
npm run dev # preview at http://localhost:4321
npm run build # builds the static site into dist/
npm run preview # serves dist/ locally
Upload the dist folder to a host that serves static sites. It's plain HTML, CSS and JS. Check your host's route and deployment settings.
What's in the Project
| Path | What it holds |
|---|---|
src/pages/ | One file per page. Each page is a list of its sections. |
src/components/<page>/ | One component per section, with its styles in a .css file next to it. |
src/components/site/ | Header and footer. |
src/layouts/Base.astro | The page shell: <head>, fonts, header, footer. |
src/styles/site.css | Site-wide styles and the color and font variables. |
public/scripts/ | Section scripts (sliders, menus, accordions) and the small UiChemy runtime they use. |
src/content/blog/ | Blog posts, one Markdown file each (only when your site has a blog). |
src/pages/blog/ | Post, category and tag pages (only when your site has a blog). |
README.md | Run steps and these notes, written for your project. |
Each page keeps the Meta title and Meta description you set in Page & Site Settings.
Blog Posts
If your design has a blog, each post is a Markdown file in src/content/blog/. Add a file to add a post. Post lists, archives and the post page update on the next build.
---
title: "My new post"
slug: "my-new-post"
date: "2026-10-01"
excerpt: "One line about it."
category: "News"
tags: ["Tips"]
featuredImage: "https://..."
---
The post body, in Markdown or HTML.
What Changes or Gets Dropped
The Astro project has the same pages and design as your WordPress export, with a few differences:
| Item | In the Astro project |
|---|---|
| WordPress-only widgets | Skipped. Only UiChemy sections are converted. The download response counts how many were skipped (the x-export-warnings header), but the panel doesn't list them, so check your pages after you run the project. |
| Forms | Exported with their fields and messages, but with no backend. To receive submissions, add data-uich-endpoint="https://..." to the <form>. Your endpoint needs to accept the form fields as FormData and return JSON such as { "success": true, "message": "Thanks!" }. Test submissions, CORS and redirects with your chosen service. |
| Images | Load from the UiChemy image CDN. To host them yourself, download them into public/ and update the src attributes. |
| CMS | None. Content lives in the code. Want a CMS? See Astro + EmDash CMS. |
| robots.txt | Not added to the zip. Add your own file to public/ if you need one. |
Section styles are scoped to their section. When you edit a section's markup, keep its outer elementor-element-<id> wrapper so its styles still apply.
When Something Goes Wrong
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Sign up to export" | Create a free account. Your project stays where it is. |
| "Generate at least one page before exporting." | Generate a page in the Design Editor first. |
| "Couldn't reach UiChemy. Check your connection and try again." | Check your internet connection, then click Download .zip again. |
| "Export failed (…). Please try again." | Wait a moment and try again. |