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

Error	Fix
Error: No framework detected	Ensure the project has a package.json with a build script, or set the framework in vercel.json
Error: Rate limited	Wait and retry. Don't loop — report to user
Error: You have reached your project limit	User needs to upgrade Vercel plan or delete unused projects
ENOTFOUND api.vercel.com	Network issue. Check proxy connectivity
Auth error after vercel whoami	Credential may be expired. Ask the user to refresh the Vercel token in OneCLI

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