Launchgrade — Web Standards 2026

Stack-agnostic starter template + technical baseline for modern web projects (2026 edition). Single-HTML-first: the first phase produces a self-contained index.html draft as the visual ground truth, before any stack decision. Compliance-grade defaults for EU markets (BFSG / GDPR / TDDDG), Core Web Vitals, security headers, AI-crawler policy, and anti-slop design hygiene. Operationalized as four Claude Code skills.

The standards documentation in web-standards/ is intentionally in German — it cites German/EU legal frameworks (BFSG, DDG, TDDDG, MStV, ECJ rulings) where translation would lose legal precision. Tech terms (WCAG, CWV, CSP, JSON-LD) are English throughout, so most of the document is readable without German.

How to use

You drive this template through an AI agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor). The template itself installs nothing.

1. Click "Use this template" on this repo → "Create a new repository"
2. Open the new repo in Claude Code (or Codex / Cursor)
3. Drop your brand material (logo, photos, fonts) into assets/
4. Say: "design"

The agent captures your company info, references, and assets completely (hard gate — generation only starts when the material is confirmed complete), shows 3 style directions, and generates a self-contained index.html draft via a versioned master prompt. When you approve the draft, say "setup" to bring it into production shape, and "audit" before release.

What you actually need installed

• A browser
• An AI agent — Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor
• Git — or just use the GitHub template button + GitHub web editor

That's it. No Node, no nvm, no global CLIs. The draft is a single HTML file that opens in any browser. Node only appears if you later choose a stack migration (Astro / Next.js / SvelteKit / Nuxt) or want the local smoke test / Lighthouse run, installed on demand by the agent.

What's inside

• Launchgrade Web Standards 2026 (web-standards/AGENTS.md + checklist.md) — versioned baseline covering Performance (Core Web Vitals 2026), Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA + BFSG), SEO (classic + AI-crawler era), Security (CSP, headers, cookies, auth), Privacy (GDPR / TDDDG), Motion, PWA. RFC-2119 levels (MUST / Conditional MUST / SHOULD / MAY).
• Four Claude Code skills (.claude/skills/) — Draft → SEO → Shape → Audit:
  • launchgrade-design — phase 1: captures material with a hard gate, 3 style directions, generates the single-HTML draft via the versioned master prompt (master-prompt.md). The HTML is the design truth — no DESIGN.md.
  • launchgrade-seo — optional content/keyword layer: keyword map, page map, content roadmap, and briefs without APIs or paid-tool assumptions.
  • launchgrade-setup — setup phase (optional): brings the approved draft into production shape — stack choice (plain HTML default, or migration with visual parity check), required files, CSP, head metas, JSON-LD. Never changes content or look.
  • launchgrade-audit — final phase: pre-/post-launch via PageSpeed Insights + Mozilla Observatory (web-based, zero install); Lighthouse CLI optional
• Asset drop zone (assets/) — logo, photos, fonts; inventoried before generation
• Lightweight SEO workspace (seo/) — optional 80/20 strategy file and content brief template for keyword-aware pages and blog articles
• Required files in public/ with {{PLACEHOLDER}} tokens (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, llms.txt, .well-known/security.txt, site.webmanifest, 404/500)
• Claude Code settings (.claude/settings.json) — permission allowlist for audit tooling, deny rules against force push and publish

Workflow

1. /launchgrade-design   →  material capture (hard gate) → 3 style directions
                            → single-HTML draft (index.html) + project.config.json
2. /launchgrade-seo      →  optional: keyword map, page map, content roadmap,
                            and content briefs for SEO pages or blog articles
3. /launchgrade-setup    →  optional: stack choice (plain HTML default, or
                            migration), required files, CSP, metas, JSON-LD
4. /launchgrade-audit    →  pre-launch (PageSpeed Insights + Observatory),
                            findings as Blockers / Recommended / Nice-to-have

Reading the standards directly

• web-standards/AGENTS.md — full standards with §-structure and pass thresholds
• web-standards/checklist.md — compact pre-launch checklist

These files are self-contained — you don't need the template or the skills to use them as a reference. Also usable as a contract appendix ("Conformance to Launchgrade Web Standards 2026").

What's NOT in the template

• Framework-specific code (Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit) — the setup skill scaffolds a stack on demand, only if you choose migration
• index.html / project.config.json — per project via launchgrade-design
• Brand favicons — a placeholder public/favicon.svg ships with the template; brand SVG + PNGs (192/512/180) come per project
• CI/CD setup — intentionally omitted for solo / small-team repos
• package.json at root — there's nothing to install; a migrated stack adds its own

Manual path (no agent)

If you really want to work without an agent: clone the repo, build your own index.html, edit the {{PLACEHOLDER}} tokens in public/* and SECURITY.md by hand, follow web-standards/checklist.md, deploy. The standards work as a contract reference even without the skill workflow.

Stack choice

See docs/STACK_CHOICE.md — decision matrix for marketing site / blog / shop / SaaS marketing. The stack decision happens in the setup phase (launchgrade-setup), after the single-HTML draft exists. Plain HTML is the default.

Contributing

This is proprietary software. Contributions are limited to Everlast Consulting GmbH and authorized contributors. See CONTRIBUTING.md for branch conventions and commit style.

Maintenance

Best-effort maintenance. No SLA, no warranty — see LICENSE. Standards updates follow the changelog in web-standards/AGENTS.md.

The script scripts/update-standards.sh is a maintainer-only bash tool for syncing from a private standards source repo and is not relevant for external users — the snapshot in web-standards/ is already self-contained.

License

© 2026 Everlast Consulting GmbH — All rights reserved. Proprietary software. Use is permitted only for Everlast customers, solely for their own internal purposes under a separate agreement. No redistribution, no resale, no provision to third parties. See LICENSE.