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Deploy Your VitePress Site

The following guides are based on some shared assumptions:

The VitePress site is inside the docs directory of your project.
You are using the default build output directory (.vitepress/dist).

VitePress is installed as a local dependency in your project, and you have set up the following scripts in your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "docs:build": "vitepress build docs",
    "docs:preview": "vitepress preview docs"
  }
}

Build and Test Locally

Run this command to build the docs:
```
$ npm run docs:build
```
Once built, preview it locally by running:
```
$ npm run docs:preview
```
The preview command will boot up a local static web server that will serve the output directory .vitepress/dist at http://localhost:4173. You can use this to make sure everything looks good before pushing to production.
You can configure the port of the server by passing --port as an argument.
```
{
  "scripts": {
    "docs:preview": "vitepress preview docs --port 8080"
  }
}
```
Now the docs:preview method will launch the server at http://localhost:8080.

Setting a Public Base Path

By default, we assume the site is going to be deployed at the root path of a domain (/). If your site is going to be served at a sub-path, e.g. https://mywebsite.com/blog/, then you need to set the base option to '/blog/' in the VitePress config.

Example: If you're using Github (or GitLab) Pages and deploying to user.github.io/repo/, then set your base to /repo/.

HTTP Cache Headers

If you have control over the HTTP headers on your production server, you can configure cache-control headers to achieve better performance on repeated visits.

The production build uses hashed file names for static assets (JavaScript, CSS and other imported assets not in public). If you inspect the production preview using your browser devtools' network tab, you will see files like app.4f283b18.js.

This 4f283b18 hash is generated from the content of this file. The same hashed URL is guaranteed to serve the same file content - if the contents change, the URLs change too. This means you can safely use the strongest cache headers for these files. All such files will be placed under assets/ in the output directory, so you can configure the following header for them:

Cache-Control: max-age=31536000,immutable

::: details Example Netlify _headers file

/assets/*
  cache-control: max-age=31536000
  cache-control: immutable

Note: the _headers file should be placed in the public directory - in our case, docs/public/_headers - so that it is copied verbatim to the output directory.

Netlify custom headers documentation

:::

::: details Example Vercel config in vercel.json

{
  "headers": [
    {
      "source": "/assets/(.*)",
      "headers": [
        {
          "key": "Cache-Control",
          "value": "max-age=31536000, immutable"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Note: the vercel.json file should be placed at the root of your repository.

Vercel documentation on headers config

:::

Platform Guides

Netlify / Vercel / Cloudflare Pages / AWS Amplify / Render

Set up a new project and change these settings using your dashboard:

Build Command: npm run docs:build
Output Directory: docs/.vitepress/dist
Node Version: 18 (or above)

::: warning Don't enable options like Auto Minify for HTML code. It will remove comments from output which have meaning to Vue. You may see hydration mismatch errors if they get removed. :::

GitHub Pages

Create a file named deploy.yml inside .github/workflows directory of your project with some content like this:

# Sample workflow for building and deploying a VitePress site to GitHub Pages
#
name: Deploy VitePress site to Pages

on:
  # Runs on pushes targeting the `main` branch. Change this to `master` if you're
  # using the `master` branch as the default branch.
  push:
    branches: [main]

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

# Sets permissions of the GITHUB_TOKEN to allow deployment to GitHub Pages
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write

# Allow only one concurrent deployment, skipping runs queued between the run in-progress and latest queued.
# However, do NOT cancel in-progress runs as we want to allow these production deployments to complete.
concurrency:
  group: pages
  cancel-in-progress: false

jobs:
  # Build job
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # Not needed if lastUpdated is not enabled
      # - uses: pnpm/action-setup@v3 # Uncomment this if you're using pnpm
      # - uses: oven-sh/setup-bun@v1 # Uncomment this if you're using Bun
      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm # or pnpm / yarn
      - name: Setup Pages
        uses: actions/configure-pages@v4
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci # or pnpm install / yarn install / bun install
      - name: Build with VitePress
        run: npm run docs:build # or pnpm docs:build / yarn docs:build / bun run docs:build
      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
        with:
          path: docs/.vitepress/dist

  # Deployment job
  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Deploy
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

::: warning Make sure the base option in your VitePress is properly configured. See Setting a Public Base Path for more details. :::

In your repository's settings under "Pages" menu item, select "GitHub Actions" in "Build and deployment > Source".
Push your changes to the main branch and wait for the GitHub Actions workflow to complete. You should see your site deployed to https://<username>.github.io/[repository]/ or https://<custom-domain>/ depending on your settings. Your site will automatically be deployed on every push to the main branch.

GitLab Pages

Set outDir in VitePress config to ../public. Configure base option to '/<repository>/' if you want to deploy to https://<username>.gitlab.io/<repository>/.

Create a file named .gitlab-ci.yml in the root of your project with the content below. This will build and deploy your site whenever you make changes to your content:

image: node:18
pages:
  cache:
    paths:
      - node_modules/
  script:
    # - apk add git # Uncomment this if you're using small docker images like alpine and have lastUpdated enabled
    - npm install
    - npm run docs:build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - public
  only:
    - main

Azure Static Web Apps

Follow the official documentation.
Set these values in your configuration file (and remove the ones you don't require, like api_location):
- app_location: /
- output_location: docs/.vitepress/dist
- app_build_command: npm run docs:build

Firebase

Create firebase.json and .firebaserc at the root of your project:

firebase.json:

{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "docs/.vitepress/dist",
    "ignore": []
  }
}

.firebaserc:

{
  "projects": {
    "default": "<YOUR_FIREBASE_ID>"
  }
}

After running npm run docs:build, run this command to deploy:
```
firebase deploy
```

Surge

After running npm run docs:build, run this command to deploy:
```
npx surge docs/.vitepress/dist
```

Heroku

Follow documentation and guide given in heroku-buildpack-static.
Create a file called static.json in the root of your project with the below content:
```
{
  "root": "docs/.vitepress/dist"
}
```

Edgio

Refer Creating and Deploying a VitePress App To Edgio.

Kinsta Static Site Hosting

You can deploy your VitePress website on Kinsta by following these instructions.

Stormkit

You can deploy your VitePress project to Stormkit by following these instructions.

Nginx

Here is a example of an Nginx server block configuration. This setup includes gzip compression for common text-based assets, rules for serving your VitePress site's static files with proper caching headers as well as handling cleanUrls: true.

server {
    gzip on;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

    listen 80;
    server_name _;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        # content location
        root /app;

        # exact matches -> reverse clean urls -> folders -> not found
        try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/ =404;

        # non existent pages
        error_page 404 /404.html;

        # a folder without index.html raises 403 in this setup
        error_page 403 /404.html;

        # adjust caching headers
        # files in the assets folder have hashes filenames
        location ~* ^/assets/ {
            expires 1y;
            add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
        }
    }
}

This configuration assumes that your built VitePress site is located in the /app directory on your server. Adjust the root directive accordingly if your site's files are located elsewhere.

::: warning Do not default to index.html The try_files resolution must not default to index.html like in other Vue applications. This would result in an invalid page state. :::

Further information can be found in the official nginx documentation, in these issues #2837, #3235 as well as in this blog post by Mehdi Merah.

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