Docs/Build

Set the install, build and output

Three settings decide whether a deploy works: what installs your dependencies, what builds your site, and which folder the finished site ends up in.

Where this lives: Dashboard → Project → Build

Every deploy runs the same sequence in a fresh sandbox. Nothing is left over from your last build, and nothing from your laptop comes with it.

clone      the branch you chose
install    your install command
build      your build command
publish    everything inside your output directory

Install command

Usually npm ci, which installs exactly what your package-lock.json pins. Use npm install if the repository has no lockfile, or yarn install and pnpm install if that is what the project uses. Leave it empty for a site with no dependencies.

Build command

Usually npm run build. It has to be a command that finishes — a dev server never exits, so the deploy would sit there until it timed out. Leave it empty for a repository of plain HTML that needs no build at all.

Output directory

This is the field first deploys fail on. It is the folder your build writes the finished site into, not the folder your source lives in. Run the build on your own machine once and look at which folder appears — that is the name to type here.

Root directory

Leave it as a single dot for an ordinary repository. In a monorepo, point it at the folder holding the package.json you want built; every command runs from there and the output directory is read relative to it.

Branch

The one branch a project deploys from — main for most repositories. Every deploy builds this branch, and if push deploys are on, a push to any other branch is ignored. To preview work in progress, create a second project pointed at the same repository and a different branch.