Deploy#

PreactPress builds static files. Production deployment means running a build and uploading the output directory, usually dist/, to a static host.

No Node server is required in production.

Build and test locally#

Run the release checks and production build from your site directory:

pnpm run check
pnpm run build

Preview the build locally:

pnpm run preview

The preview server serves the built output at http://localhost:4173 by default.

Configure production metadata#

Set site.url before publishing. PreactPress uses it for canonical URLs, Open Graph metadata, sitemap.xml, and robots.txt.

export default {
  site: {
    title: "My site",
    description: "Short summary for search and social previews",
    url: "https://example.com",
    base: "/",
  },
  build: {
    sitemap: true,
    robots: true,
  },
};

Public base path#

By default, PreactPress assumes your site is served at the domain root:

https://example.com/

If the site is served from a subpath, set site.base:

export default {
  site: {
    url: "https://user.github.io",
    base: "/my-repo/",
  },
};

You can also override the base path for a single build:

pnpm exec preactpress build --base /my-repo/

Build output#

The default output directory is dist/:

Deploy only the output directory. Do not deploy node_modules, .preactpress, or the build cache.

Platform settings#

For most static hosts, use these settings:

Install command:

pnpm install

Node version: 20 or higher.

Platform guides#

GitHub Pages#

For a project site at https://user.github.io/my-repo/, configure:

export default {
  site: {
    url: "https://user.github.io",
    base: "/my-repo/",
  },
};

Build with the matching base path:

pnpm exec preactpress build --base /my-repo/

Then deploy the dist/ directory.

Official workflow template#

Copy examples/github-actions/pages.yml into your repository as .github/workflows/pages.yml, or use the composite action:

- uses: kamod-ch/preactpress/action@v2
  with:
    command: all
    base: /${{ github.event.repository.name }}/

Set Settings → Pages → Build and deployment → Source to GitHub Actions.

See GitHub Actions for pull request checks, Node.js matrices, and artifact upload patterns.

Monorepos#

In a monorepo, run commands from the site package directory:

cd packages/docs
pnpm run check
pnpm run build

Or pass the site path to the CLI:

pnpm exec preactpress build ./packages/docs

Cache headers#

Files under assets/ include content hashes in their filenames. If your host lets you set HTTP headers, cache those files aggressively:

Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

Do not apply immutable caching to HTML files or JSON payloads such as preactpress-search.json and preactpress-content/*.json, because those URLs can keep the same names when content changes.