Vercel Made Crystal Clear · chapter 3: Your First Deploy in Five Minutes
The eight step path from a local project to a promoted production deployment
2026-10-21
Below: the paragraph from the book that builds this idea, then the diagram itself (Figure 3.1), and a recap. About a minute of reading.
Neither door is more "correct" than the other, and most people end up using both. The CLI is fastest for a first look, a one off deploy, or a script. The dashboard's git import is what you want for a project that will live on, because it wires up automatic deployments on every push, which the CLI door does not do by itself. This chapter walks you through both, in the order that gets you to a real, git connected, previewable project the fastest.
Recap
- The idea: The eight step path from a local project to a promoted production deployment.
- The picture: Figure 3.1, from chapter 3 ("Your First Deploy in Five Minutes") of Vercel Made Crystal Clear.
- Go deeper: the chapter builds this step by step, with recipes and sources at the end.
This diagram is one of many in Vercel Made Crystal Clear.
Every chapter opens with the gist, draws the hard ideas, and ends with recipes and sources.
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