Deploy: Put Your Site on the Internet
Turn a GitHub repository into a live, shareable URL with GitHub Pages — your first real deployment.
A website on your laptop is a rehearsal. Deployment copies it to a server so the world can visit. GitHub Pages deploys straight from a repository — free, and perfect for the static sites you build in this course.
Deploying a repo with Pages
- Push your project to GitHub (previous lesson)
- Repo → Settings → Pages
- Source: "Deploy from a branch" → branch
main, folder `/ (root) - Save — within minutes your site is live at
https://your-name.github.io/my-site/
Every push to main redeploys automatically. Deployment becomes a side effect of committing — that habit scales all the way to professional teams.
What works on Pages — and what does not
Works: HTML, CSS, and client-side JavaScript (everything from Modules 1–4).
Does not: server-side code. Pages serves files; it cannot run a database or a Node server. That is what full hosting platforms are for — a natural next step after this course, not a mystery.
Deploy checklist (catch the classic breakages)
- Paths are case-sensitive on the server:
Logo.PNG≠logo.png - Use relative paths (
./styles.css) — absolute paths like/Users/ada/...only exist on your machine - Test in a private/incognito window — caches lie
What you learned
- Deployment = copying your site to a server the world can reach
- GitHub Pages deploys from a branch and redeploys on every push
- Static hosting serves files; servers and databases need full hosting
- Relative paths + exact case = the two classic deploy bugs
Next: wrap up the module with a checkpoint and a real publication.