Methodology from Frey Chu's Ship Your Directory · code by Mike · MIT-licensed on GitHub

free · open source · self-hosted

Ship a profitable directory website this weekend — with the AI agent that does the 35-lesson playbook for you.

Open-source Python + Astro agent that runs all 12 stages: niche research, OpenStreetMap data scraping, site generation, on-page SEO, deploy to Cloudflare, daily rank tracking, and cold-pitch backlink outreach drafting. Runs on your laptop with Ollama. End-to-end cost: domain + $0 hosting.

Prefer code over signup? View the repo on GitHub · Browse the docs (no email needed)

What it actually looks like

One terminal, one local LLM, twelve commands that produce one indexable directory.

~/coldpitch-agent

$ agent ping
LLM endpoint: http://localhost:11434/v1
Model: qwen2.5:32b-instruct
Response (10.4s): A directory of dog parks in Vermont — low competition,
evergreen, location-based. Good first pick.

$ agent discover --seed "dog parks vermont" --project dogparks-vt
Verdict: ACCEPT
Filter scores:
  kd_volume      7  (head KD ~12, ~480 mo, long-tail strong)
  competitive    8  (top-3 are .gov, tripadvisor, local news)
  problem        6  (4 reddit threads in /r/vermont with "anyone know")
  intent         9  (location-qualified, navigational)
  workload       9  (evergreen)
  improvement    8  (add fencing/water/parking flags)
  monetization   6  (display ads viable)
Recommended target: dog parks vermont
Report written: projects/dogparks-vt/niche_report_dog_parks_vermont.md

$ agent gather --project dogparks-vt --niche dog_park --area US-VT
{"niche": "dog_park", "areas": ["US-VT"], "unique_count": 21, ...}

$ agent build --project dogparks-vt --niche-label "Dog Parks" ...
{"listing_count": 21, "page_count": 26, "orphan_pages": [], ...}

$ agent release-deploy --project dogparks-vt --target cloudflare
✨ Deployment complete! https://dogparks-vt.pages.dev

Output abridged. Real run: 26 pages with proper H1/meta/schema, zero orphan pages, ~3-second build, live on Cloudflare Pages in under a minute.

What you actually get

the toolkit

The agent

50 KB Python + Astro project. 11 OpenStreetMap niche loaders out of the box, Playwright + stealth browser layer, LLM-driven browser-use scaffold, single CLI entry point with 13 commands.

Includes a working dogparks-vt sandbox with 21 real listings — runs end-to-end on a fresh install.

the playbook

The course

35 written lessons across 8 modules. ~22,000 words. Each lesson ends with one concrete action.

Includes the cold-pitch link-swap lesson — the exact email template that overtook a competitor with 200k mo. visitors.

the math

What this replaces

Ahrefs: ~~$129/mo~~ → free SERP scrape + Trends
WordPress hosting: ~~$30/mo~~ → Cloudflare Pages ($0)
Mediavine alt: ~~$50/mo~~ → Plausible self-host ($5 VPS)
SEO course: ~~$497~~ → this course (free)

~$2,400/year saved, conservatively.

The 12-step pipeline, automated

The agent walks every directory through the same twelve steps. Most are mechanical; the agent does them. The few that touch reputation or money stay with you.

Step	What happens	Agent does
1. Discover	Run the 7 filters; produce a niche report	80%
2. Gather	Pull listings (OpenStreetMap + custom sources)	95%
3. Domain	Pick + buy	30%
4. Build	Emit a deployable Astro project	100%
5. On-page SEO	Per-listing copy, internal links, schema	90%
6. Analytics + GSC	Plausible + Search Console setup	50%
7. Deploy	Cloudflare Pages or tarball	100%
8. Reddit seed	Drafts subreddit posts; you post	50%
9. UX iteration	Suggestions weekly	30%
10. Wait & monitor	Daily rank tracking + weekly digest	100%
11. Backlinks	Drafts cold pitches; you send	60%
12. Adjust	Surfaces issues; you decide	100%

The questions you're about to ask

Is this really free?

Yes. MIT-licensed code, CC BY 4.0 course content. No paid tier, no upgrade path. Email gate is for the lead-magnet pattern — once you've opted in you can keep all the files forever.

What's the catch?

Time. Directories need 1–2 months of waiting after launch before Google ranks them. The agent compresses the build — not the patience.

Do I need a GPU?

No, but it helps. Without one, LLM calls take 60–120s each instead of ~10s. The agent also works with hosted APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic) if you'd rather pay per call than buy hardware.

How is this different from buying Frey Chu's paid course?

Frey's course is video, in his voice, with his examples — buy it for that. This site is the same methodology re-written, plus the actual open-source code that automates the workflow. You can use both.

Will you spam me?

No. The most we'd send is one email a month with a build idea or a new feature note. Unsubscribe is a one-click link in every email; the unsubscribe page also deletes your email from our KV store entirely.

The cold-pitch playbook (why the site is named this)

The single highest-leverage backlink tactic for a directory operator is the link-insert cold pitch. You find a publisher who already links to a competitor, you email them politely with a screenshot and a $50 offer to swap the link to your site, and you walk away with editorial authority a beginner shouldn't normally be able to buy.

The agent automates the boring half (finding candidates, drafting the email in the right voice, qualifying for quality) and leaves the part that matters with you: actually sending the email and being a human on the other end. It's one of 35 lessons in the course.

Acknowledgment

The directory methodology taught here builds heavily on Frey Chu's "Ship Your Directory" course and his public YouTube material. This site is an independent restatement of those principles in original wording, with a complete open-source agent that automates the workflow. If the course helps you, consider buying Frey's original course for his voice, his examples, and his updates over time.