Deploy without Git

Deploy a site or an app straight from your computer to your Cloudflare account: run shipcel in its folder, drop a built folder on the dashboard, or ask your AI agent. There's no repository and no build on Cloudflare's side, so nothing needs setting up in Cloudflare first.

What you can deploy

Two kinds of project deploy this way. An app with code and bindings (Next.js, SvelteKit, Astro with its adapter, or any Worker with a wrangler.jsonc, including D1, KV and R2) deploys from the terminal only: shipcel builds it and runs Wrangler for you, see The CLI. A site is a folder such as dist, build or out, with:

  • static files, served by Workers Static Assets. Requests for them are free and run no code;
  • an optional _worker.js: an ES module that handles every request no file matches, for an API or server-side logic. It reaches the files as env.ASSETS and your secrets as env.<NAME>;
  • optional _redirects and _headers files, with the same rules as other static hosts;
  • 404.html for unknown paths. With a single index.html and no 404.html, unknown paths go to index.html, for single-page apps.

Limits: 20,000 files, 24 MiB a file, 1 MiB for _worker.js and 64 KiB for _redirects or _headers. Hidden files and node_modules are left out. A folder of files can't replace an app that Wrangler deploys: that project keeps deploying with shipcel from its folder.

From the dashboard

  1. Create a project with New project (a starter kit project works: its kit export is separate).
  2. Open its Deployments tab and drop the folder on Or drag and drop a folder, or click Choose a folder.
  3. Review the files. Leave Publish now off to keep the app unpublished at first, or tick it, then click Deploy and confirm.

From the terminal

shipcel                        # builds this project and deploys it
shipcel --prod                 # production, for every deploy after the first
shipcel deploy ./dist --prod   # or a folder that is already built

In a project's folder the CLI recognises the framework (Vite, Create React App, Vue CLI, Astro, Gatsby, Docusaurus, VitePress, Eleventy, Hugo, Jekyll and others, or any build script once you name its output folder), runs the build on your computer and deploys what it wrote. The first deploy creates and links a project, and goes to production; later deploys are previews unless you pass --prod. See The CLI for every option.

Published, or unpublished first

From the CLI, a new app's first deploy goes to production and is published at its main address, as on Vercel. To check it before it gets its main address, deploy it as a preview first: shipcel --target preview creates the app unpublished. Its preview address, https://<version>-<app>.<subdomain>.workers.dev, works for anyone you share it with, but its main address doesn't answer yet. The dashboard's drag and drop starts unpublished too, unless you tick Publish now. Publish with Publish on the Deployments tab, shipcel promote <version> or shipcel --prod; shipcel unpublish turns the main address off again. Unpublished means unlisted, not private: to require a sign-in, see Previews and rollbacks.

Each deploy is a version

Shipcel uploads only the files Cloudflare doesn't already have, then creates a new version of the app's Worker:

  • from the dashboard, the new version goes live straight away;
  • from the CLI, a new app's first version goes live; after that a deploy without --prod is a preview: it gets its own address and production keeps serving the current version until you promote it.

Every version stays available for rollback. See Previews and rollbacks.

Moving to Git later

A project deployed by upload stays an upload project: the Deployments tab offers uploads only. To deploy the same app from GitHub on every push, give its repository a project of its own: shipcel git connect --name <another-name> in its folder, or New project → GitHub repository.