Netlify deployment

Deploy a PreactPress static site to Netlify.

PreactPress generates static files in dist/. Netlify can build and serve that directory from your Git repository without a Node server in production.

Prerequisites#

A PreactPress site in GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket
Node.js 20 or newer
Scripts in package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "check": "preactpress check",
    "build": "preactpress build"
  }
}

Configure PreactPress#

Set the production URL in .preactpress/config.ts:

import { defineConfig } from "@kamod-ch/preactpress/config";

export default defineConfig({
  site: {
    title: "My Docs",
    description: "Documentation built with PreactPress",
    url: "https://docs.example.com",
    base: "/",
  },
});

Use base: "/" unless you intentionally serve the site from a subpath.

Deploy with the Netlify UI#

Open Netlify and choose Add new site → Import an existing project.
Connect your Git provider and select the PreactPress repository.
Use these build settings:

Setting	Value
Build command	`pnpm run build`
Publish directory	`dist`
Base directory	project root (or monorepo site folder)

For stricter builds, use:

pnpm run check && pnpm run build

Environment variables#

Set these under Site configuration → Environment variables:

Variable	Value
`NODE_VERSION`	`22`

Netlify detects pnpm from pnpm-lock.yaml. If needed, add a netlify.toml:

[build]
  command = "pnpm run check && pnpm run build"
  publish = "dist"

[build.environment]
  NODE_VERSION = "22"

Monorepos#

Set Base directory to the site package, for example packages/docs. Netlify runs install and build from that folder.

Custom domains#

Add your domain under Domain management → Add a domain. Then update site.url in config so canonical URLs, Open Graph metadata, sitemap.xml, and feeds stay correct.

Cache headers#

In netlify.toml, cache hashed assets aggressively and avoid immutable caching for HTML and JSON payloads:

[[headers]]
  for = "/assets/*"
  [headers.values]
    Cache-Control = "public, max-age=31536000, immutable"

[[headers]]
  for = "/*.html"
  [headers.values]
    Cache-Control = "public, max-age=0, must-revalidate"

CI without Netlify build#

You can build in GitHub Actions and deploy the artifact with the Netlify CLI. Create a Netlify personal access token and store it as a repository secret (for example NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN). Do not commit tokens to the repository.

- run: pnpm run build
- run: pnpm dlx netlify-cli deploy --prod --dir=dist
  env:
    NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN }}
    NETLIFY_SITE_ID: ${{ vars.NETLIFY_SITE_ID }}

Prefer Netlify’s built-in Git integration when possible; use CLI deployment when you need a custom CI pipeline.