What this use case involves
Rebuilding a site after changing agencies combines several jobs: understanding the existing routes, identifying reusable patterns, preserving important content and assets, checking responsive behavior, and defining what must be rebuilt outside the visible website.
Confirm authorization
Use only a public reference that you own or are authorized to study and reproduce. Public access does not automatically grant reuse rights.
Define the target
Decide whether you need page structure, routes, content, assets, reusable components, responsive layouts, visible interactions, a code starting point, new hosting, or separate backend systems.
What a public reference can reveal
A public website can provide evidence about accessible presentation and behavior, including visible structure, routes, content, assets, repeated patterns, typography, colors, spacing, responsive states, links, and visible interaction surfaces.
What it cannot reveal
A URL cannot by itself reveal private databases, authentication logic, passwords, API secrets, server-side business rules, private CMS configuration, payment systems, private integrations, or analytics accounts.
Those requirements need separate implementation.
Practical workflow
1. Inventory
List routes, page types, assets, navigation, forms, and repeated sections.
2. Identify patterns
Find shared components and layout relationships rather than treating every page as unrelated markup.
3. Review responsive states
Check important routes across viewport sizes.
4. Reconstruct the accessible experience
Build an editable project around the evidence available from the authorized reference.
5. Test
Check navigation, assets, links, forms, typography, overflow, responsive behavior, and visual consistency.
6. Complete private systems separately
Implement or migrate databases, authentication, CMS, payments, APIs, analytics, and other systems that are not observable from the public reference.
Where PortCode fits
PortCode is currently a hands-on private beta. You submit a public URL that you own or are authorized to study and reproduce. The team reviews the request and processes it asynchronously.
The current one-off request is $39. PortCode aims to provide a working project rather than a screenshot, while making no promise of perfect reproduction or private backend recovery.
When this workflow makes sense
This approach is useful when the starting point is an authorized public reference and the desired outcome is an editable project that can continue into development, migration, testing, or handoff.
Final takeaway
The strongest results come from separating observable presentation from private application systems. Define the target, verify authorization, inventory the site, reconstruct what can be observed, test it, and separately implement anything the public reference cannot disclose.
Read how AI website reconstruction works, see the PortCode workflow, or submit an authorized public reference.
A practical acceptance test
For a a practical guide workflow, success should be defined before reconstruction begins. A useful acceptance test has four layers:
- Coverage: the important public routes, content, assets, and navigation paths are represented.
- Behavior: visible menus, links, forms, responsive changes, and other relevant interactions have intentional states.
- Ownership: the resulting project is understandable and editable, with external services clearly identified.
- Limits: private backend logic, databases, authentication, secret configuration, and proprietary integrations are not assumed to have been recovered merely because they were not visible.
Before delivery, review the highest-value routes at more than one viewport and record meaningful discrepancies. This produces a much more reliable result than judging the workflow from a single screenshot or a single landing page.