AI Search quickstart: 5-minute local dev environment
The shortest path to getting AI Search running — a minimal starting point for first-time users.
Quick answer
What are the hard requirements for FAQPage structured data?
Every Question needs an acceptedAnswer, and the Q&A must be truthful and verifiable. Fabricated answers get downranked by ChatGPT Search and Perplexity.
Machine-readable page data: /data/ai-search-quickstart.json
In-depth analysis
AI search engines prefer structured Q&A (FAQPage) and a clear content hierarchy; plain prose rarely gets cited as the answer. The fastest path to a win is one command to scaffold, start dev, edit a line, and see hot reload.
// FAQPage node: feeds Perplexity / ChatGPT Search with answer pairs
{ "@type":"FAQPage", "mainEntity": [
{ "@type":"Question", "name":"...",
"acceptedAnswer": { "@type":"Answer", "text":"..." } }
] }AI Search Quickstart · Key takeaways
- Node ≥ 20.19 and pnpm ready
- Official scaffold initialized
- Dev hot reload works
- First local page reached
FAQ & pitfalls
What happens when the homepage does not expose an ItemList?
AI engines struggle to understand the matrix structure and citations scatter. Add an ItemList on the homepage so engines can build a page relationship graph.
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What readers are asking
Questions that keep coming back in reader feedback, already answered.
- 01
What are the hard requirements for FAQPage structured data?
Every Question needs an acceptedAnswer, and the Q&A must be real and verifiable — fabricated answers get downweighted by ChatGPT Search / Perplexity.
See the full guide → - 02
Why is my Astro component's interactivity not working?
Components ship as zero-JS HTML by default, so an interactive one needs a client:* directive (client:load, client:visible, …). Without it the script is never bundled into the page.
See the full guide → - 03
Why is my custom Tailwind v4 brand colour not applied?
Colours must be declared in @theme (for example --color-brand). A missing @tailwindcss/vite plugin, or a leftover v3 config, makes bg-brand silently render nothing.
See the full guide →