# The admin track

This track is for the person who sets up and runs a cairn site: comfortable pasting a command
into a terminal, clicking through a dashboard, and following written steps exactly, but not a
developer. You never write code here. `create-cairn-site` does the setup; these pages narrate
what it does, tell you what it costs, and get you unstuck when a step fails.

If you write content on a site someone else already set up, you want
[the editor track](../editors/welcome.md) instead. If you build custom screens or features on
cairn, you want [the extend track](../extend/README.md).

## The pages, roughly in order

1. **[Before you start](./before-you-start.md)**—what you'll end up owning, what it costs, and
   what a developer still has to do for you.
2. **[Create your site](./create-your-site.md)**—from nothing to a live site with you signed in.
3. **[Own your domain](./own-your-domain.md)**—move the site onto a domain you own, and turn on
   sign-in email for anyone besides you.
4. **[Is it working?](./is-it-working.md)**—run the readiness check and read what each result
   means.
5. **[What to run, and when](./what-to-run-and-when.md)**—what your site depends on, and the
   signals that mean it's time to act.
6. **[Setup recovery](./setup-recovery.md)**—a setup step failed or was interrupted; get back on
   the path.
7. **[Invite your editors](./invite-editors.md)**—add the people who will write on your site.
8. **[Troubleshooting](./troubleshooting.md)**—the site does something wrong; find the fix, or
   find out who can.

Start at the top if you are setting a site up for the first time. If you already have a site and
something has gone wrong, [setup recovery](./setup-recovery.md) and
[troubleshooting](./troubleshooting.md) both open with a short router that sends you to whichever
of the three diagnostic pages actually matches what you are seeing.