Module 7 · Go live (Vercel + domain)
Deploy to Vercel (go live)
Stage 6, part one. This is the moment your site goes live on the real internet, using Vercel. It’s one of the easiest steps in the whole course.
Watch — hand-picked
The clearest walkthroughs of this step, from creators we rate. Each one’s credited — go give them a follow.
How To Deploy A NextJS App To Vercel (Simple)
How To Connect and Add Cloudflare Domain To Vercel Site - Custom Domain In Vercel
You can publish and test on Vercel’s free plan right now, for nothing. Before it becomes your public business website, you’ll move to their $20 a month plan — their free plan is for personal projects, and a site that advertises a business isn’t one. Nothing here charges you until you choose to upgrade.
Deploy your site
- Go to
vercel.com/new. - Sign up (or sign in) using your GitHub account — that’s what connects the two together.
- When Vercel asks for access to your repositories, approve it. Then find your website in the list and select it.
- Leave the settings as they are except one section: open Environment Variables. Type
NEXT_PUBLIC_WEB3FORMS_KEYin the Key box, paste your Web3Forms access key in the Value box, and check both boxes are filled in. (Can’t find the key? Ask Claude: “What’s my Web3Forms key in .env.local?”) - Click Deploy.
- Wait about a minute. You’ll get a live link like
your-site.vercel.app. Open it and send yourself a message through the contact form to make sure it arrives.
Vercel publishes an add-on for Claude Code that lets Claude drive the deploy from the same chat window you’ve been working in all the way through this course. If clicking through an unfamiliar dashboard isn’t appealing, ask Claude to set it up. One thing to know first: the command below starts with npx plugins, a small community-built installer that Vercel’s own documentation points you at — it is not made by Vercel or by Anthropic. Claude will run it without stopping to ask, so run this only if you are happy with that.
Let Claude handle the Vercel deploy
Please install Vercel's plugin for Claude Code (npx plugins add vercel/vercel-plugin), then use it to deploy my site to Vercel and give me the live link. Before deploying, add NEXT_PUBLIC_WEB3FORMS_KEY from my .env.local as an environment variable in Vercel so my contact form works on the live site, then remind me to send a test message through the live form. I'm not technical — tell me exactly what to click if you need me to approve something in my browser.
You’ll still create the Vercel account yourself, and choosing the plan and buying the domain are still yours to do — but the deploy itself can happen without you leaving Claude.
You click your .vercel.app link and your website opens — live, for anyone in the world. Text a friend the link. You just published a website.
The update loop (for the rest of time)
From now on, changing your live site is one sentence to Claude:
Update your live site, any time
Please save our changes and push them to GitHub so my live site updates.
Vercel notices automatically and re-publishes within a minute. This is the single most valuable habit you’ll take from the whole course:
The .vercel.app address works forever. Next lesson we point your own domain at it so it reads yourbusiness.com.
If the deploy fails, copy the error from Vercel and paste it to Claude: “My Vercel deploy failed with this error — please fix it.” It’s usually a small fix, then you redeploy.
Watch this step
This shows the same GitHub-connected deploy you're about to do, on a Next.js project just like yours — from repository to a live link. It’s from an independent creator — credited below, so go give them a follow.
How To Deploy A NextJS App To Vercel (Simple)
More learning resources
Still want another angle? These are hand-picked and vetted to line up with this lesson — from creators and sites worth your time.