Version: 2.0.0-alpha.55

Deployment

To build the static files of your website for production, run:

npm run build

Once it finishes, the static files will be generated within the build/ directory.

You can deploy your site to static site hosting services such as ZEIT Now, GitHub Pages, Netlify, Render, and Surge. Docusaurus sites are statically rendered so they work without JavaScript too!

Deploying to GitHub Pages

Docusaurus provides an easy way to publish to GitHub Pages. Which is hosting that comes for free with every GitHub repository.

docusaurus.config.js settings

First, modify your docusaurus.config.js and add the required params:

NameDescription
organizationNameThe GitHub user or organization that owns the repository. If you are the owner, it is your GitHub username. In the case of Docusaurus, it is "facebook" which is the GitHub organization that owns Docusaurus.
projectNameThe name of the GitHub repository. For example, the repository name for Docusaurus is "docusaurus", so the project name is "docusaurus".
urlURL for your GitHub Page's user/organization page. This is commonly https://_username_.github.io.
baseUrlBase URL for your project. For projects hosted on GitHub pages, it follows the format "/projectName/". For https://github.com/facebook/docusaurus, baseUrl is /docusaurus/.

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.

You may refer to GitHub Pages' documentation User, Organization, and Project Pages for more details.

Example:

docusaurus.config.js
module.exports = {
// ...
url: 'https://endiliey.github.io', // Your website URL
baseUrl: '/',
projectName: 'endiliey.github.io',
organizationName: 'endiliey',
// ...
};
tip

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

Specify the Git user as an environment variable.

NameDescription
GIT_USERThe username for a GitHub account that has commit access to this repo. For your own repositories, this will usually be your GitHub username. The specified GIT_USER must have push access to the repository specified in the combination of organizationName and projectName.

There are two more optional parameters that are set as environment variables:

NameDescription
USE_SSHSet to true to use SSH instead of the default HTTPS for the connection to the GitHub repo.
DEPLOYMENT_BRANCHThe branch that the website will be deployed to, defaults to gh-pages for normal repos and master for repository names ending in github.io.
CURRENT_BRANCHThe branch that contains the latest docs changes that will be deployed. Usually, the branch will be master, but it could be any branch (default or otherwise) except for gh-pages. If nothing is set for this variable, then the current branch will be used.

Deploy

Finally, to deploy your site to GitHub Pages, run:

Bash

GIT_USER=<GITHUB_USERNAME> yarn deploy

Windows

cmd /C "set "GIT_USER=<GITHUB_USERNAME>" && yarn deploy"

Triggering deployment with GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions allow you to automate, customize, and execute your software development workflows right in your repository.

This workflow assumes your documentation resided in documentation branch of your repository and your publishing source is configured for gh-pages branch.

  1. Generate a new SSH key.
  2. By default, your public key should have been created in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub or use the name you've provided in the previous step to add your key to GitHub deploy keys.
  3. Copy key to clipboard with xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and paste it as a deploy key in your repository. Copy file content if the command line doesn't work for you. Check the box for Allow write access before saving your deployment key.
  4. You'll need your private key as a GitHub secret to allow Docusaurus to run the deployment for you.
  5. Copy your private key with xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa and paste a GitHub secret with name GH_PAGES_DEPLOY. Copy file content if the command line doesn't work for you. Save your secret.
  6. Create you documentation workflow file in .github/workflows/. In this example it's documentation.yml.
documentation.yml
name: documentation
on:
pull_request:
branches: [documentation]
push:
branches: [documentation]
jobs:
checks:
if: github.event_name != 'push'
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v1
- uses: actions/setup-node@v1
with:
node-version: '12.x'
run: |
npm ci
npm run build
gh-release:
if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v1
- uses: actions/setup-node@v1
with:
node-version: '12.x'
- name: Add key to allow access to repository
env:
SSH_AUTH_SOCK: /tmp/ssh_agent.sock
run: |
mkdir -p ~/.ssh
ssh-keyscan github.com >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
echo "${{ secrets.GH_PAGES_DEPLOY }}" > ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
cat <<EOT >> ~/.ssh/config
Host github.com
HostName github.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
EOT
- name: Release to GitHub Pages
env:
USE_SSH: true
GIT_USER: git
run: |
git config --global user.email "actions@gihub.com"
git config --global user.name "gh-actions"
npm ci
npx docusaurus deploy
  1. Now when a new pull request arrives towards your repository in branch documentation it will automatically ensure that Docusaurus build is successful.
  2. When pull request is merged to documentation branch or someone pushes to documentation branch directly it will be built and deployed to gh-pages branch.
  3. After this step, your updated documentation will be available on the GitHub pages.

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.

  1. Go to https://github.com/settings/tokens and generate a new personal access token.
  2. Using your GitHub account, add the Travis CI app to the repository you want to activate.
  3. Open your Travis CI dashboard. The URL looks like https://travis-ci.com/USERNAME/REPO, and navigate to the More options > Setting > Environment Variables section of your repository.
  4. Create a new environment variable named GH_TOKEN with your newly generated token as its value, then GH_EMAIL (your email address) and GH_NAME (your GitHub username).
  5. Create a .travis.yml on the root of your repository with the following:
.travis.yml
language: node_js
node_js:
- '10'
branches:
only:
- master
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 ${GH_TOKEN}" > ~/.netrc
- yarn && GIT_USER="${GH_NAME}" yarn deploy

Now, whenever a new commit lands in master, Travis CI will run your suite of tests and if everything passes, your website will be deployed via the yarn deploy script.

Deploying to Netlify

To deploy your Docusaurus 2 sites to Netlify, first make sure the following options are properly configured:

docusaurus.config.js
module.exports = {
url: 'https://docusaurus-2.netlify.com', // 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 master.

important

Make sure to disable Netlify setting Pretty URLs to prevent lowercased URLs, unnecessary redirects and 404 errors.

Deploying to ZEIT Now

Deploying your Docusaurus project to ZEIT Now will provide you with various benefits in the areas of performance and ease of use.

Most importantly, however, deploying a Docusaurus project only takes a couple of seconds:

  1. First, install their command-line interface:
npm i -g now
  1. Run a single command inside the root directory of your project:
now

That's all. Your docs will automatically be deployed.

Now you can connect your site to GitHub or GitLab to automatically receive a new deployment every time you push a commit.

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. Deploy your app in just a few minutes by following these steps.

  1. Create a new Web Service on Render, and give Render permission to access your Docusaurus repo.

  2. Select the branch to deploy. The default is master.

  3. Enter the following values during creation.

    FieldValue
    EnvironmentStatic Site
    Build Commandyarn build
    Publish Directorybuild

That's it! Your app will be live on your Render URL as soon as the build finishes.

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:

  1. First, install Surge using npm by running the following command:
npm install --g surge
  1. To build the static files of your site for production in the root directory of your project, run:
npm run build
  1. 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.

Last updated on by Alexey Pyltsyn