Lesson 3 of 5

Deploy to Vercel

Import your GitHub repo and get a live URL in under 2 minutes.

~10 min to complete

Vercel is a hosting platform that turns a GitHub repository into a live website. It detects your framework automatically, builds your project, and gives you a public URL. The free Hobby plan covers everything in this course indefinitely.

1. Create a Vercel account

Go to vercel.com and click Sign Up. Choose Continue with GitHub — this links your Vercel and GitHub accounts so Vercel can access your repositories in the next step.

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The Vercel sign-up page with three options: Continue with GitHub, Continue with GitLab, Continue with Bitbucket. GitHub is highlighted.

If you already have a Vercel account connected to GitHub, skip to the next step.

2. Import your repository

Once you're logged in, click Add New → Project (top-right corner).

Vercel will show a list of your GitHub repositories. Find the project you pushed in Lesson 2 and click Import.

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The Vercel 'Import Git Repository' screen showing a list of GitHub repos with an Import button next to each one.

Find your project and click Import.

3. Deploy

Vercel shows a configuration screen. Leave everything on its defaults — it auto-detects Vite/React and sets the correct build command and output directory.

Click Deploy.

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The Vercel deployment progress screen showing a build log with green checkmarks and a 'Congratulations!' banner with the live URL.

Vercel builds and deploys automatically. The whole thing takes under 60 seconds.

You'll know it worked when Vercel shows a "Congratulations!" screen with a live URL ending in .vercel.app. Click it — your app is on the internet.

What just happened

Vercel:

Pulled your code from GitHub
Ran npm install and your build command (vite build or similar)
Deployed the output to its global CDN
Gave you a permanent your-project.vercel.app URL

Continuous deployment

Every future git push to your main branch triggers a new deployment automatically. If you ask your AI CLI to make a change and it commits and pushes, Vercel picks it up within seconds. You never have to manually redeploy.

Save your .vercel.app URL. You'll use it in Lesson 5 to verify that the domain is working. It also serves as a fallback if anything goes wrong with your custom domain.

That's your app live on the internet. The next two lessons upgrade the URL from something.vercel.app to a domain you own.