Vercel Preview

Vercel Preview URL Resolution Skill

Resolve the Vercel preview deployment URL for the current git branch. Used by browser-verification and phase-checkpoint to run E2E tests against production-like environments instead of localhost.

When This Skill Runs

• Invoked by browser-verification skill when deployment.enabled is true
• Invoked by phase-checkpoint for browser-based acceptance criteria
• Can be invoked directly to check deployment status

Prerequisites

• Project must be linked to Vercel (.vercel/project.json exists)
• Vercel CLI must be installed (vercel command available)
• Git repository with current branch

Inputs

From .claude/verification-config.json:

{
  "deployment": {
    "enabled": true,
    "service": "vercel",
    "waitForDeployment": true,
    "deploymentTimeout": 300,
    "tokenVar": "VERCEL_TOKEN"
  }
}

Workflow Overview

Copy this checklist and track progress:

Vercel Preview Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Get git context (branch, commit)
- [ ] Step 2: Check Vercel project linking
- [ ] Step 3: Query deployments for branch
- [ ] Step 4: Wait for deployment (if configured)
- [ ] Step 5: Return URL or error guidance

Step 1: Get Git Context

# Get current branch name
BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

# Get current commit SHA (short)
COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)

# Get full commit SHA for exact matching
COMMIT_FULL=$(git rev-parse HEAD)

Branch name sanitization: Vercel sanitizes branch names for URLs (replaces / with -, removes special characters). The vercel ls command handles this automatically via metadata matching.

Step 2: Check Vercel Project Linking

Verify the project is linked to Vercel:

# Check for Vercel project config
if [ -f ".vercel/project.json" ]; then
  PROJECT_ID=$(jq -r '.projectId' .vercel/project.json)
  ORG_ID=$(jq -r '.orgId' .vercel/project.json)
  echo "Vercel project: $PROJECT_ID (org: $ORG_ID)"
else
  echo "ERROR: Project not linked to Vercel"
  echo "Run 'vercel link' to connect this project"
  exit 1
fi

Step 3: Query Deployments

Use vercel ls with metadata filtering to find deployments for the current branch:

# List deployments for this branch (most reliable method)
vercel ls --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH" --status READY 2>/dev/null | head -1

Why this approach:

• gitBranch metadata is set automatically by Vercel's GitHub integration
• Handles sanitized branch names correctly
• --status READY filters to only completed deployments
• Returns most recent matching deployment

Validate Response Before Parsing

RESPONSE=$(vercel ls --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH" --status READY 2>/dev/null)
if ! echo "$RESPONSE" | jq empty 2>/dev/null; then
  echo "ERROR: vercel ls returned invalid JSON"
  # Return error status, don't attempt to parse
fi

Parse Response

# Extract URL from JSON response
DEPLOYMENT_URL=$(vercel ls --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH" --status READY 2>/dev/null | \
  jq -r '.[0].url // empty')

if [ -z "$DEPLOYMENT_URL" ]; then
  echo "No ready deployment found for branch: $BRANCH"
  # Check if deployment exists but is still building
  BUILDING=$(vercel ls --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH" --status BUILDING 2>/dev/null | \
    jq -r '.[0].url // empty')
  if [ -n "$BUILDING" ]; then
    echo "Deployment in progress: $BUILDING"
  fi
fi

Step 4: Wait for Deployment (Optional)

If waitForDeployment is enabled and no ready deployment exists:

# Get the latest deployment (any status) for the branch
LATEST=$(vercel ls --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH" 2>/dev/null | jq -r '.[0].url // empty')

if [ -z "$LATEST" ]; then
  echo "No deployments found for branch: $BRANCH"
  echo "Possible causes:"
  echo "  - Branch has not been pushed to remote"
  echo "  - Vercel project is not linked (run: vercel link)"
  echo "  - Branch name doesn't match Vercel's git integration"
  # Return empty result, let caller decide how to handle
fi

if [ -n "$LATEST" ]; then
  echo "Waiting for deployment to be ready: $LATEST"

  # Use vercel inspect --wait with timeout
  TIMEOUT=${DEPLOYMENT_TIMEOUT:-300}
  vercel inspect "$LATEST" --wait --timeout "${TIMEOUT}s"

  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    DEPLOYMENT_URL="https://$LATEST"
    echo "Deployment ready: $DEPLOYMENT_URL"
  else
    echo "Deployment did not become ready within ${TIMEOUT}s"
  fi
fi

Polling Fallback

If vercel inspect --wait is unavailable, poll using the same deployment query from Step 3 (vercel ls --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH") with a 10-second interval:

• Compute MAX_ATTEMPTS = DEPLOYMENT_TIMEOUT / 10
• Each iteration: query readyState from the Step 3 response
• If READY: extract URL as https://<url> and break
• If max attempts exceeded: fall through to Step 5 error guidance

Step 5: Return Result

Success Response

VERCEL PREVIEW URL RESOLVED
===========================
Branch: feature/user-auth
Commit: a1b2c3d
URL: https://my-app-abc123-team.vercel.app
Status: READY
Age: 5 minutes ago

Ready for browser verification.

Fallback Response (No Deployment)

VERCEL PREVIEW URL NOT FOUND
============================
Branch: feature/user-auth
Commit: a1b2c3d

No ready deployment found. Possible causes:
1. Push has not triggered a deployment yet
2. Deployment is still building
3. Branch name doesn't match Vercel's git integration

Checked:
- Ready deployments: 0
- Building deployments: 1 (https://my-app-xyz-team.vercel.app)

Options:
1. Wait for deployment (run with waitForDeployment: true)
2. Fall back to local dev server
3. Trigger deployment manually: vercel --prod

Error Response

VERCEL PREVIEW URL ERROR
========================
Error: {error message}

Troubleshooting:
- Verify Vercel CLI is installed: npm i -g vercel
- Verify project is linked: vercel link
- Check authentication: vercel whoami
- Check VERCEL_TOKEN environment variable (if using CI)

Authentication

Local Development

Vercel CLI uses stored credentials from vercel login. No additional configuration needed for local use.

CI/CD Environment

Set VERCEL_TOKEN environment variable:

# In CI, use token auth
export VERCEL_TOKEN="${VERCEL_TOKEN}"
vercel ls --token "$VERCEL_TOKEN" --json -m gitBranch="$BRANCH"

The skill reads deployment.tokenVar from config to determine which env var to use.

Integration with Browser Verification

When browser-verification invokes this skill:

1. URL Found: Return URL, browser-verification uses it as BASE_URL
2. URL Not Found + fallbackToLocal: Return null with warning, browser-verification uses localhost
3. URL Not Found + NO fallback: Return error, browser-verification blocks

# Example integration output
PREVIEW_RESOLUTION
==================
Deployment: Vercel
Branch: main
URL: https://my-app.vercel.app (or null)
Fallback: http://localhost:3000 (if enabled)
Action: USE_PREVIEW | USE_FALLBACK | BLOCK

Troubleshooting

"No deployments found"

1. Check if branch was pushed: git log origin/$BRANCH
2. Check Vercel dashboard for deployment status
3. Verify GitHub/GitLab integration is enabled in Vercel project settings

"Authentication failed"

1. Run vercel login to re-authenticate
2. For CI, ensure VERCEL_TOKEN is set correctly
3. Check token has access to the project

"Project not linked"

1. Run vercel link in project directory
2. Select the correct Vercel project
3. Verify .vercel/project.json was created

"Deployment never becomes ready"

1. Check Vercel dashboard for build errors
2. Review build logs: vercel logs <deployment-url>
3. Increase deploymentTimeout in verification-config.json

Error Handling

When Preview Cannot Be Resolved

If Vercel CLI is not installed and cannot be installed:

• Report: "Vercel CLI unavailable"
• Provide fallback: Use local dev server at devServer.url
• If fallbackToLocal is disabled: BLOCK with clear message
• Suggest: Install Vercel CLI for preview deployment support

If all deployments are failing:

• Report the deployment status and error summary
• Do NOT wait indefinitely
• After timeout: Fall back to local if enabled, otherwise BLOCK
• Provide: Direct link to Vercel dashboard for manual investigation

If branch has never been deployed:

• Report: "No deployments found for branch '{branch}'"
• Check if this is a new branch that hasn't been pushed
• Suggest: Push branch to trigger deployment
• Fall back to local if enabled

If timeout reached while waiting:

• Stop waiting immediately
• Report: "Deployment wait timeout ({N}s) exceeded"
• Show current deployment state (if known)
• Ask user: "Continue with local fallback?" or "Abort verification?"