Quick Start

Go from zero to a working, reviewed Dineway restaurant website in one sitting. Install the CLI, add skills, build your first site, and review it — all on this page.

What you need before you start

You will need three things:

  1. Node.js (version 22 or later) and a terminal. If you are not sure whether Node is installed, ask your AI agent — it can check for you.
  2. An AI coding agent like Codex, Claude, or Cursor. This is the assistant that will do the hands-on building work.
  3. Your restaurant details — at minimum, the restaurant name and city. If you also have a menu PDF, an existing website, a Google Business Profile, or a folder of food and venue photos, have those ready too. The more real material you give the agent, the less it has to guess.

Step 1: Install the Dineway CLI

The CLI is the command-line tool your agent uses to set up projects, load content, and manage your site. You do not need to memorize any of these commands — the agent handles them.

Tell your agent:

Install the Dineway CLI globally and confirm it is working. Use this command:
npm install -g dineway

The agent should run the command and confirm the installed version. If something is missing (like Node.js or pnpm), it will tell you what to fix.

Step 2: Add the restaurant skills

Skills are step-by-step workflows that teach your agent how to build restaurant sites, enrich place details, design pages, use the CLI properly, and run SEO work — without making things up.

Tell your agent:

Add the Dineway restaurant skills so you can follow the right workflows. Use this command:
npx skills add dineway/dineway-skills

Once the skills are installed, the agent can see which skill fits each task. The most important ones for your first site:

  • building-restaurant-site — the main skill for generating a complete restaurant site from scratch.
  • enrich-place-details — pulls real details from Google Places so the agent starts with facts, not guesses.
  • dineway-cli — teaches the agent how to use Dineway commands correctly.
  • frontend-design — helps the agent make design changes that look professional.

You can browse the full list on the skills catalog.

Step 3: Build your first restaurant site

This is the exciting part. Give your agent a clear prompt with your restaurant name, city, and whatever source material you have:

Use building-restaurant-site to build an AI-ready Dineway restaurant site for "YOUR RESTAURANT NAME" in "YOUR CITY, COUNTRY".

If you have existing materials, be specific:

Use the current menu PDF at ./menu.pdf, the official website at https://example.com, our Google Business Profile, and the photos in ./photos/ as source material. Do not invent menu items, awards, prices, opening hours, or reviews.

The agent will follow the building-restaurant-site skill to generate:

  • A polished Astro-based restaurant website with real navigation.
  • Dineway-managed content for pages, posts, menus, and media.
  • Local SEO metadata based on verified facts.
  • Discovery files at /robots.txt, /sitemap.xml, and /schemamap.xml.
  • A list of things it could not verify and needs you to confirm.

This usually takes a few minutes. The agent should show you progress as it works.

Step 4: Review what you got

The first version is a strong draft, not a finished product. Before you publish anything or think about admin unlock, review it carefully.

Tell your agent:

Walk me through the generated site as a restaurant operator. For each issue, tell me whether you can safely fix it now, need source material from me, or need my explicit approval.

Here is what to check, in order of importance:

  1. Contact details — phone number, address, hours, reservation links. These must be right.
  2. Menu accuracy — no invented dishes, prices, or dietary claims.
  3. Navigation — can a customer find the menu, reserve a table, and get directions easily?
  4. Homepage — does it sound like your restaurant, not a generic template?
  5. Mobile layout — does everything look good on a phone?
  6. Local SEO — do the page titles and descriptions mention your restaurant and city?
  7. Discovery — do /robots.txt, /sitemap.xml, and /schemamap.xml load?
  8. Missing facts — what did the agent flag as unverified?

If you find problems, tell the agent what to fix. Ask it to apply safe changes as drafts first:

Fix the phone number to +1-555-0123 and update the hours to Mon-Sat 5pm-11pm, Sun 10am-3pm. Apply these as drafts so I can check before publishing.

What to do next

Your first restaurant site is built and reviewed. From here you have several paths:

  • Core Concepts — understand the vocabulary: skills, prompts, collections, site context, draft/publish, and admin unlock.
  • Review and Improve — deeper review techniques and prompt-driven iteration to make the site really yours.
  • Admin Unlock — when the site is ready, give your team browser-based access to manage it.