Deployment

vibe-starter is optimized for Vercel and self-hostable anywhere Node runs.

Vercel

1. Push the repo to GitHub and import it in Vercel.
2. Add your environment variables (everything in .env.example) in the Vercel project settings.
3. Deploy.

If you use a database, point DATABASE_URL at a serverless Postgres such as Neon, and use the pooled connection string so serverless functions do not exhaust connections.

Environment variables

.env.example is the source of truth. Each module appends the variables it needs when installed. Copy it to .env.local for development and set real values. Required variables fail the build when missing, so a green build means your configuration is complete.

Database

Local development uses the docker-compose.yml that ships with db-drizzle-neon:

docker compose up -d
pnpm db:generate
pnpm db:migrate

In production, run pnpm db:migrate against your production database as part of your release step, after setting DATABASE_URL.

Self-hosting

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm start

Put the app behind a TLS-terminating proxy so HSTS and Secure cookies work. Provide the same environment variables you would on Vercel, and run migrations against your database before the first start.

Before you go live

• Run pnpm run check and the vibe-security skill.
• Fill in real values in lib/site.ts and lib/legal/config.ts.
• Have a lawyer review the generated legal pages.
• Confirm the CSP allows every third party you actually use (installed modules do this for you).