How We Work, Step by Step

The full walkthrough of our process: shared accounts, your own GitHub and Netlify, and why you're never locked in.

You may have seen the “How We Work” animation on our homepage. This is the same story, slowed down: every step, and why we do it this way.

The short version: you own everything. The accounts, the code, the domain. We build and maintain; you hold the keys.

Step 1: One shared email, set up together

We start from a single email address. It can be yours, or one we create together on our domain: yourname@alihq.org. That email is used to create every account your website depends on:

Proton Pass, an encrypted vault holding every password and secret key
GitHub, where your website’s code lives
Netlify, the engine that hosts and serves your site

Because the accounts are created on your email, they are yours from day one. We get developer access to do our work, and you can revoke that access whenever you want.

One shared email creates your Proton Pass, GitHub, and Netlify accounts

Step 2: Your code lives in your GitHub

Everything we build is saved to a GitHub repository owned by your account. Every page, every edit, every fix: recorded, timestamped, undoable. Nothing exists only on our computers.

If we disappeared tomorrow, your complete website is sitting in your GitHub, and any developer in the world could pick it up.

Step 3: Netlify runs the engine

Netlify connects to your GitHub and does the serving: your domain, DNS, hosting, and assets. Fast, secure, and free for most local businesses.

When code changes in GitHub, Netlify notices, rebuilds, and publishes the live site automatically, usually within a minute. There is no manual “publish to the server” step, and no server for you to maintain.

You edit content  ->  saved to GitHub  ->  Netlify rebuilds  ->  live site updates

Step 4: Your Client Hub does the rest

Day to day, you don’t touch GitHub or Netlify. You use your Client Hub: edit your site without touching code, watch your Google Analytics traffic, see every email we send, run a speed test. One dashboard.

Step 5: You stay in control

This structure has one purpose: you are never locked out of your own business.

Passwords live in your Proton Pass vault, not in our heads.
The code lives in your GitHub, not on our laptop.
The hosting runs on your Netlify account, not our server.
Everything is documented in a handoff document you keep. See Your Handoff Document.

You can fire us, outlive us, or replace us, and your website keeps running. That’s the point.