Vercel CLI

Vercel CLI

You can deploy web applications to Vercel using the vercel CLI.

Auth

Auth is handled by OneCLI — the HTTPS_PROXY injects the real token into API requests automatically. The Vercel CLI requires a token to be present to skip its local credential check, so always pass --token placeholder on every command. OneCLI replaces this with the real token at the proxy level.

Before any Vercel operation, verify auth:

vercel whoami --token placeholder

If this fails with an auth error, ask the user to add a Vercel token to OneCLI. They can create one at https://vercel.com/account/tokens and register it via onecli secrets create on the host. Once added, retry vercel whoami.

Deploying

Always use --yes to skip interactive prompts and --token placeholder for auth (OneCLI replaces with real token).

# Deploy to production
vercel deploy --yes --prod --token placeholder

# Deploy from a specific directory
vercel deploy --yes --prod --token placeholder --cwd /path/to/project

# Preview deployment (not production)
vercel deploy --yes --token placeholder

After deploying, verify the live URL:

# Check deployment status
vercel inspect <deployment-url> --token placeholder

Pre-Send Checks (do this before sharing the URL)

Don't send the deployment URL to the user until you've confirmed it's actually working. At minimum:

1. Local build passes — run npm run build (or the project's build command) before vercel deploy. If the build fails locally, fix it first; don't deploy broken code.
2. Deployment succeeded — the vercel deploy output shows a "Production: https://..." URL and the status is READY (confirm with vercel inspect).
3. Live URL responds — curl -sI <url> | head -1 should return HTTP/2 200 (or another 2xx/3xx). A 404/500 means something's broken even though Vercel reported success.
4. Optional visual check — if agent-browser is loaded, open the URL and eyeball it. Helpful for catching broken layouts that a 200 response wouldn't reveal.

If any check fails, fix the issue and redeploy before reporting to the user.

Project Management

# Link to an existing Vercel project (non-interactive)
vercel link --yes --token placeholder

# List recent deployments
vercel ls --token placeholder

# List all projects
vercel project ls --token placeholder

Domains

# List domains
vercel domains ls --token placeholder

# Add a domain to the current project
vercel domains add example.com --token placeholder

Environment Variables

# Pull env vars from Vercel to local .env
vercel env pull --token placeholder

# Add an env var (use echo to pipe the value — avoids interactive prompt)
echo "value" | vercel env add VAR_NAME production --token placeholder

Common Errors

Best Practices

• Run npm run build locally before deploying to catch build errors early
• Use --cwd instead of cd to keep your working directory stable
• For Next.js projects, vercel deploy auto-detects the framework — no extra config needed
• Use vercel.json only when you need custom build settings, rewrites, or headers

Source: nanocoai/nanoclaw — distributed by TomeVault.