Getting started
From nothing to a live, versioned URL in about two minutes. Sign in once on your machine; after that, publishing is one command.
1. Create a workspace
Sign in with Google, GitHub, or an emailed link. Your first sign-in creates a workspace and its permanent subdomain — every site you publish lives under<workspace>.usercontent.colophon.fyi/<slug>/. The display name can change later; the subdomain cannot. A domain you own can go in front of it whenever you like — Your own domain.
2. Install the CLI and sign in
npm install -g @strangenoob/colophon
colophon login
login prints a short code and opens your browser. Sign in there if you are not already, check the code matches, and click Approve. The terminal picks up a session on its own — nothing to paste, nothing to put in a shell profile. The session is kept in ~/.config/colophon/credentials.json, readable only by you, and lasts 30 days from its last use. Every detail — what the approval page shows, several workspaces, revoking a lost laptop — is in Signing in.
Needs Node 18 or newer. Check it can see your workspace:
colophon whoami
3. Publish
Any directory with an index.html at its top level:
colophon publish ./site --name "Quarterly report"
The URL comes back on stdout. Publish the same slug again and you get a new version at the same address — nothing is overwritten, and the previous version can be made live again from the dashboard. See Publishing & versions.
Agents, CI and servers
A machine with no browser uses an API key instead of a login. Mint one from your signed-in terminal, or under API keys in the dashboard, and set it in that environment. When COLOPHON_TOKEN is set it always wins over a login, and nothing is written to disk.
colophon create-token --name publishing-agent --scopes publish,links # → colo_live_… (shown once) export COLOPHON_TOKEN=colo_live_… # in the agent's environment, not yours
In a GitHub workflow, the Action runs the CLI with the key from a secret and hands back the URL as a step output.
Using a coding agent? Install the skill and it publishes on its own whenever it has produced files that need a link — and knows to tell you to run colophon loginrather than guess at a key.
colophon skill install # Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot, OpenCode …
Details in Agent skill.
Where to go next
- Signing in — logins versus keys, where the session lives, and how to revoke one.
- Access & sharing — who can open a site, and how to share a restricted one by email.
- Workspaces, members & keys — inviting people, roles, signed-in machines, and the limits of the free plan.
- CLI reference — every command and flag.