Deployment
To build the static files of your website for production, run:
- npm
- Yarn
npm run build
yarn run build
Once it finishes, the static files will be generated within the build
directory.
note
The only responsibility of Docusaurus is to build your site and emit static files in build
.
It is now up to you to choose how to host those static files.
You can deploy your site to static site hosting services such as Vercel, GitHub Pages, Netlify, Render, Surge...
A Docusaurus site is statically rendered, and it can generally work without JavaScript!
Configuration
The following parameters are required in docusaurus.config.js
in order for Docusaurus to optimize routing and serve files from the correct location:
Name | Description |
---|---|
url | URL for your site. For a site deployed at https://my-org.com/my-project/ , url is https://my-org.com/ . |
baseUrl | Base URL for your project, with a trailing slash. For a site deployed at https://my-org.com/my-project/ , baseUrl is /my-project/ . |
Testing your Build Locally
It is important to test your build locally before deploying to production. Docusaurus provides a docusaurus serve
command for that:
- npm
- Yarn
npm run serve
yarn run serve
By default, this will load your site at http://localhost:3000/.
Trailing slash configuration
Docusaurus has a trailingSlash
config, to allow customizing URLs/links and emitted filename patterns.
The default value generally works fine. Unfortunately, each static hosting provider has a different behavior, and deploying the exact same site to various hosts can lead to distinct results. Depending on your host, it can be useful to change this config.
tip
Use slorber/trailing-slash-guide to understand better the behavior of your host and configure trailingSlash
appropriately.
Choosing a hosting provider
There are a few common hosting options:
- Self hosting with an HTTP server like Apache2 or Nginx;
- Jamstack providers, e.g. Netlify and Vercel. We will use them as references, but the same reasoning can apply to other providers.
- GitHub Pages. (By definition, it is also Jamstack, but we compare it separately.)
If you are unsure of which one to choose, ask the following questions:
How much resource (person-hours, money) am I willing to invest in this?
- π΄ Self-hosting is the hardest to set upβyou would usually need an experienced person to manage this. Cloud services is almost never free, and setting up an on-site server and connecting it to the WAN can be more costly.
- π’ Jamstack providers can help you set up a working website in almost no time and offers features like server-side redirects that are easily configurable. Many providers offer generous build time quota even for free plans that you would almost never exceed. However, it's still ultimately limitedβyou would need to pay once you hit the limit. Check the pricing page of your provider for details.
- π‘ The GitHub Pages deployment workflow can be tedious to set up. (Evidence: see the length of Deploying to GitHub Pages!) However, this service (including build and deployment) is always free for public repositories, and we have detailed instructions to help you make it work.
How much server-side configuration would I need?
- π’ With self-hosting, you have access to the entire server's configuration. You can configure the virtual host to serve different content based on the request URL; you can do complicated server-side redirects; you can put part of the site behind authentication... If you need a lot of server-side features, self-host your website.
- π‘ Jamstack usually offers some server-side configurations, e.g. URLs formatting (trailing slashes), server-side redirects...
- π΄ GitHub Pages doesn't expose server-side configurations besides enforcing HTTPS and setting CNAME.
Do I have needs to cooperate?
- π‘ Self-hosted services can achieve the same effect as Netlify, but with much more heavy-lifting. Usually, you would have a specific person who looks after the deployment, and the workflow won't be very git-based as opposed to the other two options.
- π’ Netlify and Vercel have deploy previews for every pull request, which is useful for a team to review work before merging to production. You can also manage a team with different member access to the deployment.
- π‘ GitHub Pages cannot do deploy previews in a non-convoluted way. One repo can only be associated with one site deployment. On the other hand, you can control who has write access to the site's deployment.
There isn't a silver bullet. You need to weigh your needs and resources before making a choice.
Self-Hosting
Docusaurus can be self-hosted using docusaurus serve
. Change port using --port
and --host
to change host.
- npm
- Yarn
npm run serve -- --build --port 80 --host 0.0.0.0
yarn run serve -- --build --port 80 --host 0.0.0.0
warning
It is not the best option, compared to a static hosting provider / CDN.
warning
In the following sections, we will introduce a few common hosting providers and how they should be configured to deploy Docusaurus sites most efficiently. Some of the writeups are provided by external contributors. Docusaurus is not interest-related with any of the services. The documentation may not be up-to-date: recent changes in their API may not be reflected on our side. If you see outdated content, PRs are welcome.
For the same concern of up-to-datedness, we have stopped accepting PRs adding new hosting options. You can, however, publish your writeup on a separate site (e.g. your blog, or the provider's official website), and ask us to include a link to your writeup.
Deploying to Netlify
To deploy your Docusaurus 2 sites to Netlify, first make sure the following options are properly configured:
module.exports = {
url: 'https://docusaurus-2.netlify.app', // Url to your site with no trailing slash
baseUrl: '/', // Base directory of your site relative to your repo
// ...
};
Then, create your site with Netlify.
While you set up the site, specify the build commands and directories as follows:
- build command:
npm run build
- build directory:
build
If you did not configure these build options, you may still go to "Site settings" -> "Build and deploy" after your site is created.
Once properly configured with the above options, your site should deploy and automatically redeploy upon merging to your deploy branch, which defaults to main
.
caution
Some Docusaurus sites put the docs
folder outside of website
(most likely former Docusaurus v1 sites):
repo # git root
βββ docs # md files
βββ website # docusaurus root
If you decide to use the website
folder as Netlify's base directory, Netlify will not trigger builds when you update the docs
folder, and you need to configure a custom ignore
command:
[build]
ignore = "git diff --quiet $CACHED_COMMIT_REF $COMMIT_REF . ../docs/"
warning
By default, Netlify adds trailing slashes to Docusaurus URLs.
It is recommended to disable the Netlify setting Post Processing > Asset Optimization > Pretty Urls
to prevent lowercased URLs, unnecessary redirects, and 404 errors.
Be very careful: the Disable asset optimization
global checkbox is broken and does not really disable the Pretty URLs
setting in practice. Please make sure to uncheck it independently.
If you want to keep the Pretty Urls
Netlify setting on, adjust the trailingSlash
Docusaurus config appropriately.
Refer to slorber/trailing-slash-guide for more information.
Deploying to Vercel
Deploying your Docusaurus project to Vercel will provide you with various benefits in the areas of performance and ease of use.
To deploy your Docusaurus project with a Vercel for Git Integration, make sure it has been pushed to a Git repository.
Import the project into Vercel using the Import Flow. During the import, you will find all relevant options preconfigured for you; however, you can choose to change any of these options, a list of which can be found here.
After your project has been imported, all subsequent pushes to branches will generate Preview Deployments, and all changes made to the Production Branch (usually "main" or "master") will result in a Production Deployment.
Deploying to GitHub Pages
Docusaurus provides an easy way to publish to GitHub Pages, which comes for free with every GitHub repository.
Overview
Usually, there are two repositories (at least, two branches) involved in a publishing process: the branch containing the source files, and the branch containing the build output to be served with GitHub Pages. In the following tutorial they will be referred to as "source" and "deployment", respectively.
Each GitHub repository is associated with a GitHub Pages service. If the deployment repository is called my-org/my-project
(where my-org
is the organization name or username), the deployed site will appear at https://my-org.github.io/my-project/
. Specially, if the deployment repository is called my-org/my-org.github.io
(the organization GitHub Pages repo), the site will appear at https://my-org.github.io/
.
info
In case you want to use your custom domain for GitHub Pages, create a CNAME
file in the static
directory. Anything within the static
directory will be copied to the root of the build
directory for deployment. When using a custom domain, you should be able to move back from baseUrl: '/projectName/'
to baseUrl: '/'
, and also set your url
to your custom domain.
You may refer to GitHub Pages' documentation User, Organization, and Project Pages for more details.
GitHub Pages picks up deploy-ready files (the output from docusaurus build
) from the default branch (master
/ main
, usually) or the gh-pages
branch, and either from the root or the /docs
folder. You can configure that through Settings > Pages
in your repository. This branch will be called the "deployment branch".
We provide a docusaurus deploy
command that helps you deploy your site from the source branch to the deployment branch in one command: clone, build, and commit.
docusaurus.config.js
settings
First, modify your docusaurus.config.js
and add the following params:
Name | Description |
---|---|
organizationName | The GitHub user or organization that owns the deployment repository. |
projectName | The name of the deployment repository. |
deploymentBranch | The name of deployment branch. Defaults to 'gh-pages' for non-organization GitHub Pages repos (projectName not ending in .github.io ). Otherwise, this needs to be explicit as a config field or environment variable. |
These fields also have their environment variable counterparts, which have a higher priority: ORGANIZATION_NAME
, PROJECT_NAME
, and DEPLOYMENT_BRANCH
.
caution
GitHub Pages adds a trailing slash to Docusaurus URLs by default. It is recommended to set a trailingSlash
config (true
or false
, not undefined
).
Example:
module.exports = {
// ...
url: 'https://endiliey.github.io', // Your website URL
baseUrl: '/',
projectName: 'endiliey.github.io',
organizationName: 'endiliey',
trailingSlash: false,
// ...
};
warning
By default, GitHub Pages runs published files through Jekyll. Since Jekyll will discard any files that begin with _
, it is recommended that you disable Jekyll by adding an empty file named .nojekyll
file to your static
directory.
Environment settings
Name | Description |
---|---|
USE_SSH | Set to true to use SSH instead of the default HTTPS for the connection to the GitHub repo. If the source repo URL is an SSH URL (e.g. git@github.com:facebook/docusaurus.git ), USE_SSH is inferred to be true . |
GIT_USER | The username for a GitHub account that has push access to the deployment repo. For your own repositories, this will usually be your GitHub username. Required if not using SSH, and ignored otherwise. |
GIT_PASS | Personal access token of the git user (specified by GIT_USER ), to facilitate non-interactive deployment (e.g. continuous deployment) |
CURRENT_BRANCH | The source branch. Usually, the branch will be main or master , but it could be any branch except for gh-pages . If nothing is set for this variable, then the current branch from which docusaurus deploy is invoked will be used. |
GitHub enterprise installations should work in the same manner as github.com; you only need to set the organization's GitHub Enterprise host as an environment variable:
Name | Description |
---|---|
GITHUB_HOST | The domain name of your GitHub enterprise site. |
GITHUB_PORT | The port of your GitHub enterprise site. |
Deploy
Finally, to deploy your site to GitHub Pages, run:
- Bash
- Windows
- PowerShell
GIT_USER=<GITHUB_USERNAME> yarn deploy
cmd /C "set "GIT_USER=<GITHUB_USERNAME>" && yarn deploy"
cmd /C 'set "GIT_USER=<GITHUB_USERNAME>" && yarn deploy'
caution
Beginning in August 2021, GitHub requires every command-line sign-in to use the personal access token instead of the password. When GitHub prompts for your password, enter the PAT instead. See the GitHub documentation for more information.
Alternatively, you can use SSH (USE_SSH=true
) to login.
Triggering deployment with GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions allow you to automate, customize, and execute your software development workflows right in your repository.
The workflow examples below assume your website source resides in the main
branch of your repository (the source branch is main
), under a folder called website/
, and your publishing source is configured for the gh-pages
branch (the deployment branch is gh-pages
).
Our goal is that:
- When a new pull request is made to
main
and updateswebsite/
, there's an action that ensures the site builds successfully, without actually deploying. This job will be calledtest-deploy
. - When a pull request is merged to the
main
branch or someone pushes to themain
branch directly andwebsite/
is updated, it will be built and deployed to thegh-pages
branch. After that, the new built output will be served on the GitHub Pages site. This job will be calleddeploy
.
Here are two approaches to deploying your docs with GitHub Actions. Based on the location of your deployment branch (gh-pages
), choose the relevant tab below:
- Source repo and deployment repo are the same repository.
- The deployment repo is a remote repository, different from the source.
- Same
- Remote
While you can have both jobs defined in the same workflow file, the deploy
job will always be listed as skipped in the PR check suite status. That's added noise providing no value to the review process, and as you cannot easily share common snippets, it is better to manage them as separate workflows instead.
We will use a popular third-party deployment action: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages.
GitHub action files
Add these two workflow files:
warning
These files assume you are using yarn. If you use npm, change cache: yarn
, yarn install --frozen-lockfile
, yarn build
to cache: npm
, npm ci
, npm run build
accordingly.
name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
push:
branches: [main]
paths: [website/**]
jobs:
deploy:
name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-node@v2
with:
node-version: 14.x
cache: yarn
- name: Build website
working-directory: website
run: |
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn build
# Popular action to deploy to GitHub Pages:
# Docs: https://github.com/peaceiris/actions-gh-pages#%EF%B8%8F-docusaurus
- name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3
with:
github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
# Build output to publish to the `gh-pages` branch:
publish_dir: ./website/build
# Assign commit authorship to the official GH-Actions bot for deploys to `gh-pages` branch:
# https://github.com/actions/checkout/issues/13#issuecomment-724415212
# The GH actions bot is used by default if you didn't specify the two fields.
# You can swap them out with your own user credentials.
user_name: github-actions[bot]
user_email: 41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com
name: Test deployment
on:
pull_request:
branches: [main]
paths: [website/**]
jobs:
test-deploy:
name: Test deployment
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-node@v2
with:
node-version: 14.x
cache: yarn
- name: Test build
working-directory: website
run: |
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn build
A cross-repo publish is more difficult to set up, because you need to push to another repo with permission checks. We will be using SSH to do the authentication.
- Generate a new SSH key.
- By default, your public key should have been created in
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
; otherwise, use the name you've provided in the previous step to add your key to GitHub deploy keys. - Copy the key to clipboard with
xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
and paste it as a deploy key in your repository. Copy the file content if the command line doesn't work for you. Check the box forAllow write access
before saving your deployment key. - You'll need your private key as a GitHub secret to allow Docusaurus to run the deployment for you.
- Copy your private key with
xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa
and paste a GitHub secret with the nameGH_PAGES_DEPLOY
. Copy the file content if the command line doesn't work for you. Save your secret. - Create your documentation workflow file in
.github/workflows/
. In this example it'sdeploy.yml
.
GitHub action file
warning
Please make sure that you replace actions@github.com
with your GitHub email and gh-actions
with your name.
This file assumes you are using yarn. If you use npm, change cache: yarn
, yarn install --frozen-lockfile
, yarn build
to cache: npm
, npm ci
, npm run build
accordingly.
name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
pull_request:
branches: [main]
push:
branches: [main]
jobs:
test-deploy:
if: github.event_name != 'push'
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-node@v2
with:
node-version: 14.x
cache: yarn
- name: Test deployment
run: |
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn build
deploy:
if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-node@v2
with:
node-version: 14.x
cache: yarn
- uses: webfactory/ssh-agent@v0.5.0
with:
ssh-private-key: ${{ secrets.GH_PAGES_DEPLOY }}
- name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
env:
USE_SSH: true
run: |
git config --global user.email "actions@github.com"
git config --global user.name "gh-actions"
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn deploy
Triggering deployment with Travis CI
Continuous integration (CI) services are typically used to perform routine tasks whenever new commits are checked in to source control. These tasks can be any combination of running unit tests and integration tests, automating builds, publishing packages to NPM, and deploying changes to your website. All you need to do to automate the deployment of your website is to invoke the yarn deploy
script whenever your website is updated. The following section covers how to do just that using Travis CI, a popular continuous integration service provider.
- Go to https://github.com/settings/tokens and generate a new personal access token. When creating the token, grant it the
repo
scope so that it has the permissions it needs. - Using your GitHub account, add the Travis CI app to the repository you want to activate.
- Open your Travis CI dashboard. The URL looks like
https://travis-ci.com/USERNAME/REPO
, and navigate to theMore options > Setting > Environment Variables
section of your repository. - Create a new environment variable named
GH_TOKEN
with your newly generated token as its value, thenGH_EMAIL
(your email address) andGH_NAME
(your GitHub username). - Create a
.travis.yml
on the root of your repository with the following:
language: node_js
node_js:
- '14.15.0'
branches:
only:
- main
cache:
yarn: true
script:
- git config --global user.name "${GH_NAME}"
- git config --global user.email "${GH_EMAIL}"
- echo "machine github.com login ${GH_NAME} password ${GH_TOKEN}" > ~/.netrc
- yarn install
- GIT_USER="${GH_NAME}" yarn deploy
Now, whenever a new commit lands in main
, Travis CI will run your suite of tests and if everything passes, your website will be deployed via the yarn deploy
script.
Triggering deployment with Buddy
Buddy is an easy-to-use CI/CD tool that allows you to automate the deployment of your portal to different environments, including GitHub Pages.
Follow these steps to create a pipeline that automatically deploys a new version of your website whenever you push changes to the selected branch of your project:
- Go to https://github.com/settings/tokens and generate a new personal access token. When creating the token, grant it the
repo
scope so that it has the permissions it needs. - Sign in to your Buddy account and create a new project.
- Choose GitHub as your git hosting provider and select the repository with the code of your website.
- Using the left navigation panel, switch to the
Pipelines
view. - Create a new pipeline. Define its name, set the trigger mode to
On push
, and select the branch that triggers the pipeline execution. - Add a
Node.js
action. - Add these commands in the action's terminal:
GIT_USER=<GH_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN>
git config --global user.email "<YOUR_GH_EMAIL>"
git config --global user.name "<YOUR_GH_USERNAME>"
yarn deploy
After creating this simple pipeline, each new commit pushed to the branch you selected deploys your website to GitHub Pages using yarn deploy
. Read this guide to learn more about setting up a CI/CD pipeline for Docusaurus.
Using Azure Pipelines
- Sign Up at Azure Pipelines if you haven't already.
- Create an organization and within the organization create a project and connect your repository from GitHub.
- Go to https://github.com/settings/tokens and generate a new personal access token with the
repo
scope. - In the project page (which looks like
https://dev.azure.com/ORG_NAME/REPO_NAME/_build
create a new pipeline with the following text. Also, click on edit and add a new environment variable namedGH_TOKEN
with your newly generated token as its value, thenGH_EMAIL
(your email address) andGH_NAME
(your GitHub username). Make sure to mark them as secret. Alternatively, you can also add a file namedazure-pipelines.yml
at your repository root.
trigger:
- main
pool:
vmImage: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- checkout: self
persistCredentials: true
- task: NodeTool@0
inputs:
versionSpec: 14.x
displayName: Install Node.js
- script: |
git config --global user.name "${GH_NAME}"
git config --global user.email "${GH_EMAIL}"
git checkout -b main
echo "machine github.com login ${GH_NAME} password ${GH_TOKEN}" > ~/.netrc
yarn install
GIT_USER="${GH_NAME}" yarn deploy
env:
GH_NAME: $(GH_NAME)
GH_EMAIL: $(GH_EMAIL)
GH_TOKEN: $(GH_TOKEN)
displayName: Install and build
Using Drone
- Create a new ssh key that will be the deploy key for your project.
- Name your private and public keys to be specific and so that it does not overwrite your other ssh keys.
- Go to
https://github.com/USERNAME/REPO/settings/keys
and add a new deploy key by pasting in our public key you just generated. - Open your Drone.io dashboard and login. The URL looks like
https://cloud.drone.io/USERNAME/REPO
. - Click on the repository, click on activate repository, and add a secret called
git_deploy_private_key
with your private key value that you just generated. - Create a
.drone.yml
on the root of your repository with below text.
kind: pipeline
type: docker
trigger:
event:
- tag
- name: Website
image: node
commands:
- mkdir -p $HOME/.ssh
- ssh-keyscan -t rsa github.com >> $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts
- echo "$GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY" > "$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa"
- chmod 0600 $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa
- cd website
- yarn install
- yarn deploy
environment:
USE_SSH: true
GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY:
from_secret: git_deploy_private_key
Now, whenever you push a new tag to GitHub, this trigger will start the drone CI job to publish your website.
Deploying to Render
Render offers free static site hosting with fully managed SSL, custom domains, a global CDN and continuous auto-deploy from your Git repo. Get started in just a few minutes by following Render's guide to deploying Docusaurus.
Deploying to Qovery
Qovery is a fully-managed cloud platform that runs on your AWS, Digital Ocean and Scaleway account where you can host static sites, backend APIs, databases, cron jobs, and all your other apps in one place.
- Create a Qovery account. Visit the Qovery dashboard to create an account if you don't already have one.
- Create a project.
- Click on Create project and give a name to your project.
- Click on Next.
- Create a new environment.
- Click on Create environment and give a name (e.g. staging, production).
- Add an application.
- Click on Create an application, give a name and select your GitHub or GitLab repository where your Docusaurus app is located.
- Define the main branch name and the root application path.
- Click on Create. After the application is created:
- Navigate to your application Settings
- Select Port
- Add port used by your Docusaurus application
- Deploy All you have to do now is to navigate to your application and click on Deploy.
That's it. Watch the status and wait till the app is deployed. To open the application in your browser, click on Action and Open in your application overview.
Deploying to Hostman
Hostman allows you to host static websites for free. Hostman automates everything, you just need to connect your repository and follow easy steps:
Create a service.
To deploy a Docusaurus static website, click Create in the top-left corner of your Dashboard and choose Front-end app or static website.
Select the project to deploy.
If you are logged in to Hostman with your GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket account, at this point you will see the repository with your projects, including the private ones.
Choose the project you want to deploy. It must contain the directory with the projectβs files (usually it is website or my-website).
To access a different repository, click Connect another repository.
If you didnβt use your Git account credentials to log in, youβll be able to access the necessary account now, and then select the project.
Configure the build settings.
Next, the Website customization window will appear. Choose the Static website option from the list of frameworks.
The Directory with app points at the directory that will contain the project's files after the build. You can leave it empty if during Step 2 you selected the repository with the contents of the website (or
my_website
) directory.The standard build command for Docusaurus will be:
- npm
- Yarn
npm run build
yarn run build
You can modify the build command if needed. You can enter multiple commands separated by
&&
.Deploy.
Click Deploy to start the build process.
Once it starts, you will enter the deployment log. If there are any issues with the code, you will get warning or error messages in the log, specifying the cause of the problem. Usually, the log contains all the debugging data you'll need.
When the deployment is complete, you will receive an email notification and also see a log entry. All done! Your project is up and ready.
Deploying to Surge
Surge is a static web hosting platform, it is used to deploy your Docusaurus project from the command line in a minute. Deploying your project to Surge is easy and it is also free (including a custom domain and SSL).
Deploy your app in a matter of seconds using surge with the following steps:
- First, install Surge using npm by running the following command:
- npm
- Yarn
npm install -g surge
yarn add -g surge
- To build the static files of your site for production in the root directory of your project, run:
- npm
- Yarn
npm run build
yarn run build
- Then, run this command inside the root directory of your project:
surge build/
First-time users of Surge would be prompted to create an account from the command line(happens only once).
Confirm that the site you want to publish is in the build
directory, a randomly generated subdomain *.surge.sh subdomain
is always given (which can be edited).
Using your domain
If you have a domain name you can deploy your site using surge to your domain using the command:
surge build/ yourdomain.com
Your site is now deployed for free at subdomain.surge.sh
or yourdomain.com
depending on the method you chose.
Setting up CNAME file
Store your domain in a CNAME file for future deployments with the following command:
echo subdomain.surge.sh > CNAME
You can deploy any other changes in the future with the command surge
.
Deploying to QuantCDN
- Install Quant CLI
- Create a QuantCDN account by signing up
- Initialize your project with
quant init
and fill in your credentials:quant init
- Deploy your site.
quant deploy
See docs and blog for more examples and use cases for deploying to QuantCDN.