Vercel Deploy Action

A reusable GitHub Action for deploying preview and production environments to Vercel with automatic PR comments and full build control.

name: Deploy Preview
on:
 pull_request:
 types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
permissions:
 contents: read
 pull-requests: write
jobs:
 deploy:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 
 - uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 environment: preview
 alias_prefix: 'myapp'

name: Deploy Production
on:
 push:
 branches: [main]
jobs:
 deploy:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 - uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 environment: production

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 alias_prefix: 'myapp'
 alias_domain: 'preview.example.com'

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 alias_domain: 'preview.example.com'

name: Deploy to custom domain
on:
 push:
 branches: [main]
jobs:
 deploy:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 - uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 alias_domain: 'dev.example.vercel.app'
 environment: preview

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 working_directory: 'apps/dashboard'
 alias_prefix: 'myapp-dashboard'

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 prebuild_script: |
 git config --global user.email "ci@example.com"
 git config --global user.name "CI Bot"

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 environment: production
 predeploy_script: |
 echo "Running post-build checks before deploying..."
 npm run test

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 package_manager: 'yarn'

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 package_manager: 'pnpm'

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 vercel_cli_version: '54.6.1'

- uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 deploy_args: '--archive=tgz'

name: Deploy Preview
on:
 pull_request:
 types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, closed] # Include 'closed' for teardown
permissions:
 contents: read
 pull-requests: write
jobs:
 deploy:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 - uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 alias_prefix: 'myapp'
 teardown: 'true'
 auto_clean_deployment: 'true' # Also delete deployment, not just alias

name: Dashboard Preview
on:
 pull_request:
 types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
 paths:
 - 'apps/dashboard/**'
 workflow_dispatch:
 inputs:
 pr_number:
 description: 'PR number to deploy'
 required: false
permissions:
 contents: read
 pull-requests: write
jobs:
 deploy:
 runs-on: self-hosted
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 with:
 fetch-depth: 0
 
 - uses: W3Dev/vercel-deploy@main
 id: deploy
 with:
 vercel_token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
 vercel_org_id: 'team_xxxxx'
 vercel_project_id: 'prj_xxxxx'
 package_manager: 'bun'
 working_directory: 'apps/dashboard'
 alias_prefix: 'myapp'
 
 - name: Use deployment URL
 run: echo "Deployed to ${{ steps.deploy.outputs.deployment_url }}"

While Vercel provides native GitHub integration, this action gives you control over where and how your builds happen:

Build in Your GitHub Actions Environment

• Builds run on your GitHub Actions runners, not Vercel's infrastructure
• Perfect for self-hosted runners with better caching, specific tooling, or compliance requirements
• Use vercel build + vercel deploy --prebuilt for full control

Advanced Build Customization

• Run prebuild scripts (configure git, generate code, set up credentials)
• Override install commands for complex dependency requirements
• Pass additional deploy flags such as --archive=tgz
• Native Bun, Yarn, npm, and pnpm support

Stable Preview URLs

• Get predictable PR-specific URLs: pr-123--myapp.vercel.app
• Use custom domains for aliases: pr-123--myapp.preview.example.com
• Vercel's native integration generates random deployment URLs
• Easier to share and reference in testing workflows

Monorepo-Friendly

• Explicit working_directory support for monorepos
• Fine-grained control over which parts of your repo to deploy

Smart PR Comments

• Updates the same comment on subsequent pushes (no PR spam)
• Vercel's native integration can create multiple comments per PR

Workflow Flexibility

• Integrate with larger workflows (run tests first, conditional deploys, etc.)
• Manual deployment triggers with workflow_dispatch

Use Vercel's native integration if you:

• Want zero configuration
• Don't need custom build steps or environment control
• Prefer Vercel to manage the entire build environment

• Build in GitHub Actions, deploy to Vercel
• Support for both preview and production deployments
• Stable preview aliases (pr-123--myapp.vercel.app)
• Custom alias domains (pr-123--myapp.preview.example.com)
• Smart PR comments that update instead of spam
• Support for Bun, Yarn, npm, and pnpm
• Prebuild and predeploy scripts for custom workflows
• Monorepo support with working_directory
• GitHub Actions summary
• Automatic teardown of preview deployments on PR close

• pnpm/action-setup@v4 is pinned stale. Its v4 tag is an annotated, signed tag the maintainer has not moved since 2026年03月11日 (b906affc), which predates that project's own pnpm-11 support added on main on 2026年03月21日 (58e6119f). That older commit only adds $PNPM_HOME to PATH, not $PNPM_HOME/bin — pnpm 11 changed its global-bin-dir default to the latter, so pnpm install -g on that pinned action-setup refuses with "configured global bin directory ... is not in PATH". Overriding via npm_config_global_bin_dir does not fix it either — pnpm 11 still derives the directory straight from $PNPM_HOME for this particular check, ignoring the config override. That's why the "Install Vercel CLI" step's pnpm branch installs the global vercel binary via npm instead of pnpm (see the comment at that step) — pnpm is still used for the project's own dependency install a few steps earlier, this only swaps the tool for the one-off global install. If pnpm/action-setup@v4 is ever re-pinned to a SHA past the March 2026 rewrite, switching that branch back to pnpm install -g should work again, but there's no urgency — the npm route is deterministic either way.
• The pnpm branch's npm install -g uses its own --prefix, not the runner's default global path. The first cut of the npm workaround above (installing to npm's default global prefix, /opt/hostedtoolcache/.../lib/node_modules) worked in isolation but failed intermittently in real traffic: these are persistent self-hosted runners, and every pnpm-based app in a monorepo consumer hits this step at the same moment on every push, all installing the identical pinned vercel version into that one shared, mutable path. npm's global-install update does an atomic rename-swap of the existing package directory, so concurrent installs race and one fails with ENOTEMPTY on the rename. Giving the install its own $RUNNER_TEMP-scoped --prefix (mirroring the BUN_INSTALL isolation on the bun branch above) avoids touching shared state entirely, so it can't race with a sibling job no matter how many run concurrently. The yarn/npm branch and the teardown path further down still use the shared default prefix — they haven't been observed to race in practice (fewer consumers hit them, and not from many apps at once), but the same fix would apply there if that ever changes.

MIT