Deploy to Vercel Action

Deploy your project to Vercel using GitHub Actions. Supports PR previews and GitHub deployments.

👋 Introduction

deploy-to-vercel-action uses GitHub Actions to deploy your project/site to Vercel. It offers more customization than Vercel's GitHub integration in terms of when to deploy your site. Using GitHub Actions Events you can choose to deploy every commit, only on new releases or even on a cron schedule. The Action can also deploy every PR and comment on it with a custom preview url. It uses the Vercel CLI and can automatically create a Deployment on GitHub as well.

🚀 Features

• Use GitHub Actions events to control when to deploy to Vercel
• Automatically deploy every pull request
• Comment on pull requests with a preview link
• Create a deployment on GitHub
• Assign custom dynamic domains to each deployment or pr
• Can deploy Dependabot PRs and optionally even PRs made from forks

📚 Usage

Before you can start using the Action, you have to setup a few Action inputs. Refer to the configuration section below for more info.

Then create a .yml file in your .github/workflows folder (you can find more info about the structure in the GitHub Docs) and add the following:

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}

Versioning

To always use the latest version of the Action add the latest tag to the action name like this:

uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@latest

If you want to make sure that your Workflow doesn't suddenly break when a new major version is released, use the v1 tag instead (recommended usage):

uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1

With the v1 tag you will always get the latest non-breaking version which will include potential bug fixes in the future. If you use a specific version, make sure to regularly check if a new version is available, or enable Dependabot.

⚙️ Action Inputs

Here are all the inputs deploy-to-vercel-action takes:

Key	Value	Required	Default
GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub Token to use when creating deployment and comment (more info below)	Yes	N/A
VERCEL_TOKEN	Vercel Token to use with the Vercel CLI (more info below)	Yes	N/A
VERCEL_ORG_ID	Id of your Vercel Organisation (more info below)	Yes	N/A
VERCEL_PROJECT_ID	Id of your Vercel project (more info below)	Yes	N/A
GITHUB_DEPLOYMENT	Create a deployment on GitHub	No	true
GITHUB_DEPLOYMENT_ENV	Custom environment for the GitHub deployment.	No	Production or Preview
PRODUCTION	Create a production deployment on Vercel and GitHub	No	true (false for PR deployments)
DELETE_EXISTING_COMMENT	Delete existing PR comment when redeploying PR	No	true
CREATE_COMMENT	Create PR comment when deploying	No	true
ATTACH_COMMIT_METADATA	Attach metadata about the commit to the Vercel deployment	No	true
TRIM_COMMIT_MESSAGE	When passing meta data to Vercel deployment, trim the commit message to subject only	No	false
DEPLOY_PR_FROM_FORK	Allow PRs which originate from a fork to be deployed (more info below)	No	false
PR_LABELS	Labels which will be added to the pull request once deployed. Set it to false to turn off	No	deployed
ALIAS_DOMAINS	Alias domain(s) to assign to the deployment (more info below)	No	N/A
PR_PREVIEW_DOMAIN	Custom preview domain for PRs (more info below)	No	N/A
VERCEL_SCOPE	Execute commands from a different Vercel team or user	No	N/A
BUILD_ENV	Provide environment variables to the build step	No	N/A
WORKING_DIRECTORY	Working directory for the Vercel CLI	No	N/A
FORCE	Used to skip the build cache.	No	false
PREBUILT	Deploy a prebuilt Vercel Project.	No	false

🛠️ Configuration

In order for the Action to interact with GitHub and Vercel on your behalf, you have to specify your GitHub and Vercel Access Tokens as well as your Vercel Organization and Project Id.

Tokens

You can generate your GitHub Personal Access token here and your Vercel Token here and then specify them as GITHUB_TOKEN and VERCEL_TOKEN in the Actions inputs.

Note: It is recommended to set the tokens as Repository Secrets.

Vercel Project

Before you can start using this Action you have to link your project with Vercel locally.

Run the command vercel inside your projects root and follow the steps described by the Vercel CLI.

Once set up, a new .vercel directory will be added to your directory. The .vercel/project.json file contains both the organization (orgId) and project (projectId) id of your project.

You can then specify them as VERCEL_ORG_ID and VERCEL_PROJECT_ID in the Actions inputs.

Note: It is recommended to set them as Repository Secrets.

Custom Domains

Instead of using the auto generated domain (name-randomString.vercel.app) for each deployment, you can specify custom domains. Use the ALIAS_DOMAINS input and seperate each domain on a new line like this:

ALIAS_DOMAINS: |
  example.com
  example.now.sh

Pro Teams

If your team is set up to Pro, remember to set the VERCEL_SCOPE to the slug of your team.

with:
  VERCEL_SCOPE: 'your-team-slug'

Otherwise, the action will fail trying to deploy custom domains with default account credentials. It will result in request for authorisation and action fail. Even if you extend the scope of VERCEL_TOKEN to All non-SAML Team, without properly set up VERCEL_SCOPE the cli will use default account and fail.

Note: You can use *.vercel.app or *.now.sh without configuration, but any other custom domain needs to be configured in the Vercel Dashboard first

You can also use any of the following variables anywhere in the domain:

• {USER} - the owner of the repository the action was executed in
• {REPO} - the name of the repository the action was executed in
• {BRANCH} - the branch in which the action was triggered
• {SHA} - the most recent commit's sha
• {PR} - the number of the pr the action was triggered from

Examples:

ALIAS_DOMAINS: |
  {BRANCH}.example.com
  {USER}-{REPO}-{SHA}.now.sh

This is especially useful if you want to change the PR preview domain with the PR_PREVIEW_DOMAIN input:

PR_PREVIEW_DOMAIN: "{REPO}-{PR}.now.sh"

Note: You can only specify one custom domain for PR_PREVIEW_DOMAIN

Deploying a PR made from a fork or Dependabot

By default this action will not deploy a PR if it originates from a fork (this is also the default behaviour of Vercel for GitHub).

If you want to deploy a PR made from a fork, you have to set DEPLOY_PR_FROM_FORK to true and make sure to use the pull_request_target event instead of the pull_request event, as GitHub doesn't pass any secrets to workflows triggered by pull_request on forks (more info in GitHub's docs).

You also have to manually checkout the PR branch, as pull_request_target runs in the context of the base of the pull request, rather than in the merge commit.

Here's a complete workflow as an example:

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  vercel:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - id: script
        uses: actions/github-script@v3
        with:
          script: |
            const isPr = [ 'pull_request', 'pull_request_target' ].includes(context.eventName)
            core.setOutput('ref', isPr ? context.payload.pull_request.head.ref : context.ref)
            core.setOutput('repo', isPr ? context.payload.pull_request.head.repo.full_name : context.repo.full_name)

      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          ref: ${{ steps.script.outputs.ref }}
          repository: ${{ steps.script.outputs.repo }}

      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@develop
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          DEPLOY_PR_FROM_FORK: true # This has some serious security risks you need be aware of

Note: Since the first of March 2021 workflow runs which are triggered by a Dependabot PR will act as if they are made from a fork and have the same limitations described above (more info in GitHub's Changelog), except that DEPLOY_PR_FROM_FORK doesn't have to be set to true.

📖 Examples

Here are a few examples to help you get started!

Basic Example

The workflow below will run on every push to master and every time a new PR is created or an existing PR changed. deploy-to-vercel-action will deploy the master branch to your Vercel production environment and comment on every PR with a preview link to the deployed PR.

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}

Don't deploy to production

The workflow below will run on every push to the staging branch. The Action will then deploy it to the preview environment on Vercel.

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy staging CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [ staging ]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          PRODUCTION: false # Don't deploy to production environment

Deploy on release

The workflow below will only run after a new release is created on GitHub.

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  release:
    types: [created]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}

Assign alias domains

If you want, deploy-to-vercel-action can assign multiple domains to each deployment and also change the PR preview domain:

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          ALIAS_DOMAINS: |
            example.com
            {BRANCH}.example.com
          PR_PREVIEW_DOMAIN: "{REPO}-{PR}.now.sh"

Wait for other CI jobs

The workflow below will wait until your other CI jobs are completed until it will deploy your project to Vercel.

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
jobs:
  build:
    # Your build job (can be anything you want)
    # ...
  lint:
    # Your lint job (can be anything you want)
    # ...
  deploy:
    needs: [build, lint] # wait for other jobs
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}

Deploy without creating pull request comment

The workflow below will not automatically create a PR comment. This is useful for example when your PR can trigger multiple deployments (think monorepo for example) and you want to take control over PR comment creation by yourself. You can use output produced by this action to build comment by yourself.

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        id: vercel-deploy
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          CREATE_COMMENT: false
      - uses: phulsechinmay/[email protected]
        if: ${{ steps.vercel-deploy.outputs.DEPLOYMENT_CREATED }}
        with:
          message: |
            This pull request has been deployed to Vercel.

            <table>
              <tr>
                <td><strong>✅ Preview:</strong></td>
                <td><a href='${{ steps.vercel-deploy.outputs.PREVIEW_URL }}'>${{ steps.vercel-deploy.outputs.PREVIEW_URL }}</a></td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td><strong>🔍 Inspect:</strong></td>
                <td><a href='${ steps.vercel-deploy.outputs.DEPLOYMENT_INSPECTOR_URL }'>${ steps.vercel-deploy.outputs.DEPLOYMENT_INSPECTOR_URL }</a></td>
              </tr>
            </table>

            [View Workflow Logs](${ LOG_URL })
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          COMMENT_IDENTIFIER: 'vercel-deploy'

Deploy on schedule

The workflow below will run at the given interval and deploy your project to Vercel.

Note: You can use any other action to change your project or run your own script before deploying those changes to Vercel

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  schedule:
    - cron:  '0 8 * * 1' # will run every Monday at 8 am
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      # maybe do something else first
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}

Deploy Dependabot PRs

As described in the Deploying a PR made from a fork or Dependabot section, Pull Requests created by Dependabot behave as if they where created from a fork and thus the Workflow triggered by the pull_request event doesn't have access to any secrets.

To overcome this limitation you can use the pull_request_target event and checkout the PR branch manually:

Note: By default this action doesn't deploy any forks so you can use pull_request_target without any security concerns

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  vercel:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - id: script
        uses: actions/github-script@v3
        with:
          script: |
            const isPr = [ 'pull_request', 'pull_request_target' ].includes(context.eventName)
            core.setOutput('ref', isPr ? context.payload.pull_request.head.ref : context.ref)
            core.setOutput('repo', isPr ? context.payload.pull_request.head.repo.full_name : context.repo.full_name)

      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          ref: ${{ steps.script.outputs.ref }}
          repository: ${{ steps.script.outputs.repo }}

      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@develop
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}

Pass environment variables to the build

You can define the build environment variables when using the action:

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, '[skip ci]')"
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Deploy to Vercel Action
        uses: BetaHuhn/deploy-to-vercel-action@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          BUILD_ENV: |
            FOO="bar"
            SOME_TOKEN="${{ secrets.SOME_TOKEN }}"

If you have an idea for another use case, create a discussion and maybe I will add it here!

💻 Development

Issues and PRs are very welcome!

The actual source code of this Action is in the src folder.

• run yarn lint or npm run lint to run eslint.
• run yarn start or npm run start to run the Action locally.
• run yarn build or npm run build to produce a production version of deploy-to-vercel-action in the dist folder.

❔ About

This project was developed by me (@betahuhn) in my free time. If you want to support me:

deploy-to-vercel-action is in no way affiliated with Vercel.

📄 License

Copyright 2021 Maximilian Schiller

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.