Deploy static sites

A static site is built once on the builder and served by Caddy on your servers. There is no process to supervise. Single-page apps work out of the box.

Prerequisites

• A server of type app or web (any server that serves HTTP).
• One of:
  • a Vite (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, …), Create React App or Astro project with a build script and no start script;
  • plain HTML with index.html (or public/index.html) in the repository root.

Deploy

1. + Create → Git repository, pick the repository.
2. Choose the Static site preset. The runtime is Static.
3. Pick servers and a domain, then Deploy.

What gets published

Project	Detected output directory
Vite (React, Vue, Svelte, …)	dist
Create React App	build
Astro (without @astrojs/node)	dist
index.html in the root	the repository root
public/index.html	public
Other frameworks with the Static preset	the first of dist, build, out, public that exists in the repository before the build

The builder installs dependencies, runs npm run build (or the pnpm, yarn or bun equivalent) with NODE_ENV=production, and packages only the output directory.

Tip

The output directory is decided before the build runs. If your framework builds into a directory that is not detected (for example _site or .output/public), the whole app root is packaged. Set the site’s web directory (under Settings → Build) to the output folder, for example _site, so Caddy serves from there.

Build-time variables

Only variables with a public prefix reach the build: VITE_, NEXT_PUBLIC_, NUXT_PUBLIC_, PUBLIC_, REACT_APP_. Expose any other variable to the deploy script to make it available to the build (for example Astro’s SITE_URL). See Builds.

Site variables

VITE_API_URL=https://api.example.com
PUBLIC_PLAUSIBLE_DOMAIN=example.com

How requests are served

For every request Caddy tries, in order:

1. the exact file, or the directory’s index.html;
2. /404.html with status 404, if your site has one;
3. /index.html for paths without a file extension, so client-side routes like /dashboard/settings survive a reload (SPA fallback);
4. otherwise a 404.

A missing asset like /assets/app.js stays a 404 instead of returning your HTML. .env and .git are never served.

Add headers, redirects, basic auth or IP rules under Settings → Networking. See Routing rules.

Deploy script

Deploy script (Static preset)

$FALAK_FETCH

$FALAK_ACTIVATE

Releases switch atomically. Static sites have no restart phase, and the preset sets no health check path; add one under Settings → Deploy if you want Falak to verify each release.

Next steps

Custom domainsServe the site from your domain with HTTPS.

Push-to-deployDeploy on every push.