Deploy on Vercel

Deploy Pages CMS on Vercel with PostgreSQL and a GitHub App.

Step 1: Create a PostgreSQL database

You will need a DATABASE_URL.

Using Supabase?

If you run migrations during deployment, prefer the Supabase Session Pooler for DATABASE_URL. Direct connections can cause connectivity issues on some hosting providers.

Step 2: Choose your public URL

Use one of these:

  • your custom domain, for example https://cms.example.com
  • your Vercel production domain, for example https://my-pages-cms.vercel.app

Use the same URL everywhere:

  • BASE_URL
  • GitHub App callback URL
  • GitHub App webhook URL
  • GitHub App setup URL

If you use the default Vercel domain, make sure it matches the project name you create in the next steps.

Step 3: Create the GitHub App

Use the helper:

npm run setup:github-app -- --base-url https://cms.example.com --env .env

If you need other helper options, see GitHub App helper.

This writes the GitHub App environment variables to .env.

Step 4: Create the Vercel project

Use the deploy button:

Deploy with Vercel

If you prefer, you can also create the project manually in Vercel.

Use the GitHub App environment variables from the previous step, plus:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://...
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=your-random-secret
CRYPTO_KEY=your-random-secret
BASE_URL=https://cms.example.com

You can generate secrets with:

openssl rand -base64 32

For the full list, see Environment variables.

Step 5: Deploy your app

Deploy the app in Vercel.

If you change the production URL later, update BASE_URL and the GitHub App URLs to match it.

Step 6: Run migrations

Run the migration against your production database:

npm run db:migrate