Deploy a static site

A static site is built once and served from the CDN. There is no container, so there is no compute allocation and no compute charge. You are metered on bandwidth only.

Prerequisites

A site in a GitHub or GitLab repository whose build writes to a directory.

Add slipway.yaml

Astro
Vite or React
Hugo

slipway.yaml

version: 1

services:
  - name: site
    type: static
    runtime: node
    runtimeVersion: "22"
    buildCommand: npm run build
    publish: dist

slipway.yaml

version: 1

services:
  - name: site
    type: static
    runtime: node
    runtimeVersion: "22"
    buildCommand: npm run build
    publish: dist
    notFound: /index.html

notFound makes client-side routes resolve.

slipway.yaml

version: 1

services:
  - name: site
    type: static
    publish: public

Commit the built output, or add a buildCommand with a runtime that can run Hugo.

Getting publish wrong is the most common failure: the deploy goes green and the URL returns 404. The build log reports how many files were uploaded, and the service’s Files view lists what is there.

Tool	`publish`
Vite, Astro	`dist`
Create React App, SvelteKit static	`build`
Next.js export	`out`
Hugo, Gatsby	`public`
Jekyll, Eleventy	`_site`

Point it at an API

A static site’s env applies to the build, so the value is baked into the files:

slipway.yaml

services:
  - name: api
    runtime: docker
    ports:
      - port: 8080
        public: true

  - name: site
    type: static
    runtime: node
    buildCommand: npm run build
    publish: dist
    env:
      VITE_API_URL: ${service.api.public_url}

Anything referenced in a static site’s env ends up inside the built files, which are public. Never put a secret there.

Use public_url, not url. A browser cannot reach the in-cluster address.

Redirects and headers

slipway.yaml

    redirects:
      - { from: /old-blog/*, to: /blog/:splat, status: 301 }
    headers:
      - for: /assets/*
        values:
          Cache-Control: "public, max-age=31536000, immutable"

slipway also reads _redirects and _headers files in the Netlify and Cloudflare Pages format, so a site moving from either works unchanged. See Redirects and headers.

Upload instead of building

A static site is the one thing slipway serves with no repository. In New → Static site, switch the source to Upload a build and drop a .zip of your output.

Get started

Quickstarts

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slipway.yaml

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Reference

Deploy a static site

Prerequisites

Add slipway.yaml

Point it at an API

Redirects and headers

Upload instead of building

Next steps

Static sites

Custom domains

​Prerequisites

​Add slipway.yaml

​Point it at an API

​Redirects and headers

​Upload instead of building

​Next steps

Static sites

Custom domains

Prerequisites

Add slipway.yaml

Point it at an API

Redirects and headers

Upload instead of building

Next steps