Shipping: Deploy Your Vibe-Coded App to the Internet

Deploy before you're 'ready'

The single best shipping habit is deploying in week one, when the app barely does anything. Deploys fail on configuration — environment variables, build commands, framework versions — and those problems are much easier to solve when the app is tiny. From then on, every push is a small, low-stakes update instead of a terrifying launch day.

Picking a host

For a typical vibe-coded web app, three hosts cover nearly everyone. Vercel is the smoothest for Next.js — connect your GitHub repo and it deploys on every push with zero config. Railway is the pick when your app is more than a website: background workers, databases, and long-running servers deploy as easily as the frontend. Cloudflare offers a very generous free tier and shines for global, high-traffic apps on Workers.

All three follow the same pattern: sign in with GitHub, select the repo, set environment variables, deploy. Your AI agent can walk you through host-specific configuration — just tell it which host you chose.

Environment variables and secrets

API keys, database URLs, and other secrets must never be committed to your repository. Locally they live in a .env file that's listed in .gitignore; in production you enter them in your host's dashboard. If a key does end up in a commit, treat it as leaked: rotate it (generate a new one) rather than just deleting the file — the old value lives on in git history.

# .env must appear in .gitignore
cat .gitignore | grep .env

# and must not be tracked
git ls-files | grep -i .env   # should print nothing

When the deploy fails but local works

The classic gap: development mode is forgiving, production builds are strict. Run your framework's production build locally (for Next.js, `npm run build`) before pushing — it surfaces the type errors and missing variables the deploy would hit. When a cloud build fails, paste the full deploy log into your agent; build logs are among the things AI debugs best.

Domains and the finish line

Every host gives you a free subdomain, which is fine for testing. A custom domain costs about $10/year, takes ten minutes to connect in your host's dashboard, and instantly makes the project feel — and look — real. HTTPS is automatic on all the hosts above. After that, your ship checklist is short: production build passes, secrets are in the dashboard, the live URL works on your phone, and you've clicked every button on the deployed site once.