Build Step

When you trigger a deploy, Vercel builds your project. For many frontend frameworks, Vercel automatically configures the build settings, but you can also customize them. You can also use Environment Variables to avoid hardcoding values.

Customizing Build Settings

To customize the build settings for your project, choose a project from the dashboard:

Selecting the project from the Vercel Dashboard.

Then, select the Settings tab:

Selecting the Settings tab from the Project Overview page.

You can then edit the build settings from the Build & Development Settings, Root Directory, and Environment Variables sections.

Build & Development Settings

​Vercel tries to automatically detect the frontend framework you’re using for your project and configure the project settings for you. If you’d like to override the settings or specify a different framework, you can do so from the Build & Development Settings section.

Framework Preset

The Framework Preset setting.

​Vercel detects the following frontend frameworks automatically and chooses the best default settings for you.

If no framework is detected, "Other" will be selected for you.

You can always choose a different framework preset or "Other" if you’d like.

Build Command

The Build Command setting.

If Vercel detects a framework, the Build Command will automatically be configured. Depending on a framework, the Build Command can refer to the project’s configuration file.

For example, if you choose Next.js, here’s what happens by default:

• If package.json contains the build command in scripts, this command will be used to build the project.
• If not, next build will be the Build Command.

If you’d like to override the Build Command, you can turn on the Override toggle and specify the command.

Skip Build Step

Some static projects do not require building. An example of this would be a website with only HTML/CSS/JS source files that can be served as-is (For example, you might just have a single index.html file).

In such cases, you should:

• Specify "Other" as the framework preset, and
• Enable the Override option for the Build Command, and
• Leave the Build Command empty.

This will prevent the build from being attempted and serve your content as-is.

Output Directory

The Output Directory setting.

After building a project, most frameworks will output the result in a directory. Contents in this output directory will be the only things that will be statically served by Vercel.

If Vercel detects a framework, the output directory will automatically be configured.

In some cases, your project might not require building, and you might just want to serve the files in the root directory. If so, try the following:

• Choose "Other" as the framework preset. If you do so, by default, the output directory will be set as public if it exists, or . (current directory) otherwise.
• Therefore, as long as your project doesn’t have the public directory, it will serve the files in the root directory.
• Alternatively, you can turn on the Override toggle and leave the field empty (in which case, the build step will be skipped).

Install Command

The Install Command setting.

During the Build Step, Vercel attempts to install dependencies by running yarn install (or npm install if package-lock.json is present) in the path you've defined in the Root Directory section.

This will automatically install all dependencies defined in package.json (even devDependencies, which can be excluded like this).

If you’d like to override the Install Command, you can turn on the Override toggle and specify the command.

Custom Install Command for Your API

If you're using a frontend framework that also supports Serverless Functions for APIs, the Install Command defined in the Project Settings will be used.

In the case that you're using Serverless Functions that were defined in the natively supported api directory, however, a different Install Command will be used depending on the language of the Serverless Function. For those, it cannot be customized.

Development Command

The Development Command setting.

The Development Command setting allows you to customize the behavior of vercel dev. If Vercel detects a framework, the development command will automatically be configured.

If you’d like to use a custom command for vercel dev, you can turn on the Override toggle. Please note the following:

• If you specify a custom command, your command must pass the $PORT variable (which contains the port number) to your framework. For example, for Next.js, you should use: next dev --port $PORT.
• If the development command is not specified, vercel dev will fail. If you selected "Other" as the framework preset, the development command will be empty by default.
• You must create a deployment and have your local project be linked to the project on Vercel (using vercel). Otherwise, vercel dev won’t work correctly.

Root Directory

The Root Directory setting.

In some projects, the top-level directory of the repository may not be the root directory of the app you’d like to build. For example, your repository might have a frontend directory, which contains a stand-alone Next.js app.

In cases like this, you can specify the project root directory. If you do so, please note the following:

• If you specify a root directory, then your app won’t be able to access files outside of that directory. You also cannot use .. to move up a level.
• This setting also applies to Vercel CLI. Instead of running vercel <directory-name> to deploy, specify <directory-name> here so you can just run vercel.

Environment Variables

You can configure Environment Variables for the Build Step directly from Project Settings. Check out the Environment Variables documentation to learn more.

Ignored Files and Folders

By default, Vercel ignores certain files and folders for security and performance reasons, preventing them from being uploaded during the deployment process.

.hg
.git
.gitmodules
.svn
.cache
.next
.now
.vercel
.npmignore
.dockerignore
.gitignore
.*.swp
.DS_Store
.wafpicke-*
.lock-wscript
.env.local
.env.*.local
.venv
npm-debug.log
config.gypi
node_modules
__pycache__
venv
CVS

A complete list of files and folders ignored by Vercel during the deployment process.

Technical Details

Maximum Build Duration

A build can last for a maximum of 30 minutes. If the build exceeds this time, the deployment will error.

Caching

Each Deployment contains one or more separate Builds, and each type of Build has a dedicated cache. Together, they are the "Build Step".

The Build's cache key is derived from the combination of the following data:

• Personal Account or Team
• Project
• Runtime

At the beginning of each Build, the previous Build's cache is restored prior to the Install Command or Build Command executing. This means that your first Build might be slower because dependencies must be installed, but subsequent Builds will be faster.

The platform intelligently caches files based on the Framework Preset selected in your Project Settings. This typically includes files such as node_modules, yarn.lock, or package-lock.json, which are cached for all. You can find the exact list for each framework by considering the cachePattern properties within this list.

Serverless Functions also have their own cache within the Build Step, defined by the Runtime that is used.

At the end of each Build Step, successful Builds will update the cache and failed Builds will clear the cache.

Deployments made using the "Redeploy" button on the Dashboard or using vercel --force on Vercel CLI will also delete any previously successful Build's cache prior to starting the Build Step of the new Deployment.

The maximum size of a Build's cache is 500 MB.

It is not possible to manually configure which files are cached at this time.

Private npm Modules for Static Builds

To install private npm modules, define NPM_TOKEN as a build environment variable in a vercel.json file.

Alternatively, define NPM_RC as a build environment variable with the contents of ~/.npmrc.

Git Submodules

Deploying Git submodules with a Git provider is supported as long as the submodule is publicly accessible via the HTTP protocol. Git submodules that are private or requested over SSH will fail during the Build step.

Prevent Installing Development Dependencies

In some rare cases, you may wish to skip installing devDependencies defined in your package.json file and only install dependencies.

This can be achieved by assigning NPM_ONLY_PRODUCTION=1 as a build environment variable.

This is equivalent to npm install --only=production or yarn install --production.

Prevent Cache Usage

If you need to ignore the cache for a deployment, you can do so by using the -f flag for Vercel CLI. This prevents the cache from being used in the deployment and ensures a fresh install for all dependencies.

Framework Versioning

Some frameworks do not use package.json to select a specific version to install during build time.

By including a build.env configuration property in a vercel.json file at your project's root, you can define your framework's version with one of the following keys:

For example, defining the Hugo version in a vercel.json file would look like the following snippet:

{
  "build": {
    "env": {
      "HUGO_VERSION": "0.61.0"
    }
  }
}

An example of defining a version for Hugo with a vercel.json configuration.

Build Image

The platform uses Amazon Linux 2 as the base image for the Build Step – along with several pre-installed packages.

docker run --rm -it amazonlinux:2.0.20191217.0 sh

amazon-linux-extras install php7.4

amazon-linux-extras install rust1

amazon-linux-extras install golang1.11

yum list

yum search my-package-here

yum install my-package-here -y

amazon-linux-extras

amazon-linux-extras install my-package-here

Related

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