deploy-frontend

Overview

7-step workflow for deploying static frontends to Butterbase. Covers building, CORS, zipping, uploading, and verification.

Framework Reference Table

Note: Next.js requires output: 'export' in next.config.js to produce a static export.

Step 1: Set Environment Variables

Use manage_frontend with action: "set_env" to configure the API URL and app ID before building. These variables are injected at build time by the framework.

{
  "app_id": "app_abc123",
  "action": "set_env",
  "vars": {
    "VITE_API_URL": "https://api.butterbase.ai/v1/app_abc123",
    "VITE_APP_ID": "app_abc123"
  }
}

• For Vite, prefix all public variables with VITE_
• For Next.js, prefix with NEXT_PUBLIC_
• For Create React App, prefix with REACT_APP_

set_env upserts; you can call it again to add or change variables.

Step 2: Build

Run the framework-specific build command to produce the static output directory.

After building, verify the output directory contains index.html at its root:

# For Vite
ls dist/index.html

# For Next.js static export
ls out/index.html

If index.html is missing, check that the build completed without errors and that the framework is configured for static output.

Step 3: Configure CORS

Before deploying, configure CORS so the browser can make API requests from the deployment URL.

Call manage_app with action: "update_cors". Pass the deployment URL (use the Butterbase Pages URL pattern) and any local dev origins:

{
  "app_id": "app_abc123",
  "action": "update_cors",
  "allowed_origins": [
    "https://your-app.pages.dev",
    "http://localhost:5173"
  ]
}

• Always include http://localhost:5173 (Vite dev server default) for local development
• Include http://localhost:3000 if using Next.js or Create React App locally
• Origins must include the protocol (https:// or http://) and must not have trailing slashes
• If you don't yet know the exact deployment URL, you can update CORS again after Step 7

Step 4: Create Deployment

Call create_frontend_deployment with the app_id and the correct framework flag from the reference table above.

{
  "app_id": "app_abc123",
  "framework": "react-vite"
}

The response contains:

• deployment_id — save this for Step 7
• uploadUrl — the presigned S3 URL for uploading the zip (expires in 15 minutes)

Free plan: 1 deployment per app. Deploying again automatically replaces the previous deployment — no need to delete first.

Step 5: Create Zip (Node archiver — the only supported method)

⚠️ Do not use Compress-Archive, File Explorer, or zip -r from outside the build dir. Windows built-in tools write backslash (\) path separators, which makes the platform serve every file as text/html and breaks JS/CSS with MIME errors. Zipping from the parent dir nests dist/ inside the archive and ships a blank page.

Butterbase's recommended cross-platform method is the archiver Node package. It always writes POSIX / separators (works identically on macOS, Linux, Windows PowerShell, cmd, Git Bash, WSL) and zips from inside the source dir so index.html lands at the zip root.

One-time setup in the project being deployed:

npm install --save-dev archiver
mkdir -p scripts

Then save this as scripts/make-zip.mjs (copy verbatim):

#!/usr/bin/env node
/**
 * Butterbase frontend zipper — the only supported way to compress a build
 * for `create_frontend_deployment` / `create_from_source`.
 *
 * Usage:
 *   node scripts/make-zip.mjs <sourceDir> <outZip> [--exclude=glob,glob,...]
 *
 * Examples:
 *   node scripts/make-zip.mjs dist frontend.zip                # Vite
 *   node scripts/make-zip.mjs out  frontend.zip                # Next.js static export
 *   node scripts/make-zip.mjs .    source.zip \                # source-build flow
 *     --exclude=node_modules,.next,dist,out,.git,.turbo,.cache
 */
import { createWriteStream } from "node:fs";
import { stat } from "node:fs/promises";
import { resolve } from "node:path";
import archiver from "archiver";

const [, , srcArg, outArg, ...rest] = process.argv;
if (!srcArg || !outArg) {
  console.error(
    "usage: node make-zip.mjs <sourceDir> <outZip> [--exclude=glob,glob,...]"
  );
  process.exit(2);
}

const src = resolve(srcArg);
const out = resolve(outArg);

const excludeFlag = rest.find((a) => a.startsWith("--exclude="));
const excludes = excludeFlag
  ? excludeFlag
      .slice("--exclude=".length)
      .split(",")
      .map((s) => s.trim())
      .filter(Boolean)
      .flatMap((g) => [g, `${g}/**`])
  : [];

const srcStat = await stat(src).catch(() => null);
if (!srcStat?.isDirectory()) {
  console.error(`error: source is not a directory: ${src}`);
  process.exit(1);
}

const output = createWriteStream(out);
const archive = archiver("zip", { zlib: { level: 9 }, forceLocalTime: true });

output.on("close", () => {
  const mb = (archive.pointer() / (1024 * 1024)).toFixed(2);
  console.log(`wrote ${out} (${mb} MB, ${archive.pointer()} bytes)`);
});
archive.on("warning", (err) => {
  if (err.code === "ENOENT") console.warn(err);
  else throw err;
});
archive.on("error", (err) => {
  throw err;
});

archive.pipe(output);
// cwd: src + glob('**/*') ⇒ entries are relative to src, so index.html
// sits at the zip root. archiver normalises separators to '/' on every OS.
archive.glob("**/*", { cwd: src, dot: true, ignore: excludes });
await archive.finalize();

Run it:

The script prints the final size on success — must be ≤ 100 MB for static deploys, ≤ 50 MB for source-build.

Step 6: Upload

Upload the zip file to the presigned S3 URL returned in Step 4:

curl -X PUT "{uploadUrl}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/zip" \
  --data-binary @frontend.zip

• Replace {uploadUrl} with the full presigned URL from Step 4
• The upload URL expires in 15 minutes — if it expires, repeat Step 4 to get a new one
• Maximum file size: 100 MB
• A successful upload returns an empty 200 response with no body

Step 7: Start & Verify

Call manage_frontend with action: "start_deployment" and the deployment_id from Step 4:

{
  "app_id": "app_abc123",
  "action": "start_deployment",
  "deployment_id": "uuid-1234"
}

• The tool polls until the deployment status is READY (up to 5 minutes)
• On success, it returns the live URL (e.g., https://your-app.pages.dev)

Verification checklist:

1. Open the live URL in a browser
2. Check the browser console (F12) for JavaScript errors or failed network requests
3. Navigate to a non-root route to verify SPA routing works (auto-handled for react-vite and nextjs-static)
4. Make an API call and confirm it succeeds (no CORS errors)

Troubleshooting

Bonus: server-side build (no local build needed)

If you want Butterbase to run npm install + build on the server, skip Steps 2–6 and use the source-build flow:

1. manage_frontend action create_from_source → returns presigned URL for a source-code zip (≤ 50 MB)
2. Zip the source with make-zip.mjs (same script as Step 5), excluding build artefacts:

   node scripts/make-zip.mjs . source.zip \
     --exclude=node_modules,.next,dist,out,.git,.turbo,.cache

   Do not use zip -r ../source.zip . -x ... — it has the same Windows-separator hazard as Step 5.
3. curl -X PUT "{uploadUrl}" -H "Content-Type: application/zip" --data-binary @source.zip
4. manage_frontend action start_from_source with deployment_id, lockfile_hash (sha256 of package-lock.json), optional build_command, output_dir, package_manager, user_env

Same lockfile_hash across deploys = cached node_modules for faster rebuilds.

Edge SSR (Next.js / Remix with server-side rendering)

Static deploys can't run server-side code. For Next.js (App Router with SSR/middleware) or Remix on Cloudflare Workers, use manage_edge_ssr instead of create_frontend_deployment + manage_frontend. Same shape, separate tool:

Frameworks: nextjs-edge, remix-edge, other-edge.

If a docs/butterbase/00-state.md exists in the working directory, prefer invoking via /butterbase-skills:journey-frontend so the journey orchestrator stays in sync.