vercel

Vercel

Develop. Preview. Ship.

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Usage

Vercel's frontend cloud gives developers frameworks, workflows, and infrastructure to build a faster, more personalized web.

To install the latest version of Vercel CLI, run this command:

npm i -g vercel

To quickly start a new project, run the following commands:

vercel init     # Pick an example project
cd <PROJECT>    # Change directory to the new project
vercel          # Deploy to the cloud

Finally, connect your Git repository to Vercel and deploy with git push.

Documentation

For details on how to use Vercel CLI, check out our documentation.

To manage schedules in a running development session, see local schedules.

For how vercel picks the runtime for each platform, see launcher.

Telemetry

Vercel CLI collects telemetry about how the CLI is used. We use it to find bugs and decide what to work on next.

The CLI records:

• The command and subcommand you ran, and the names of the options and flags you passed. The values you pass are left out or replaced with [REDACTED], except for a few fixed choices such as the target environment.
• Whether the command succeeded, how long it took, and, if it failed, the error code and the error message returned by the Vercel API.
• Your team and user IDs when you're logged in, and the IDs of the projects and deployments the command works with.
• A random device ID that is created on the first run and stored in the CLI's global config folder. It is sent on every run, including before you log in.
• Your CLI version, operating system, CPU architecture, CI provider, how the CLI was installed, and the name of the AI agent that ran the command, if any. The agent name can include its version.

To turn telemetry off, run:

vercel telemetry disable

You can also set the VERCEL_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 environment variable. To check whether telemetry is on, run vercel telemetry status.

To learn more, see Vercel CLI telemetry.

Local Development

To develop Vercel CLI, first check out the source code, install dependencies, and build all packages:

git clone https://github.com/vercel/vercel.git
cd vercel
pnpm install
pnpm build

At this point you can make modifications to the CLI source code and test them out locally. The CLI source code is located in the internals/cli-core directory. This package (packages/cli) only holds the vercel launcher, which runs the native binary or the JS CLI from @vercel/cli-support, both built from that source.

cd internals/cli-core

Before you add or rename a command, flag, or output, read AGENTS.md and the CLI design system in .agents/skills/cli-ux.

pnpm vercel <cli-commands...>

From within the internals/cli-core directory, you can use the "vercel" script to quickly execute Vercel CLI from its TypeScript source code directly (without having to manually compile first). For example:

pnpm vercel deploy
pnpm vercel whoami
pnpm vercel login
pnpm vercel switch --debug

When you are satisfied with your changes, make a commit and create a pull request!

Publishing

Production Releases

Production releases are automated via the release.yml workflow, which runs on every push to main. It uses changesets to determine which packages need new versions. If there are pending changesets, the workflow either creates a "Version Packages" PR or publishes to npm with the latest dist-tag.

To include your changes in a release, add a changeset before merging your PR:

pnpm changeset

Full Testing

pnpm vercel executes a locally built dist. Because this dist lives locally in this monorepo, the existence of node_modules can sometimes affect the behavior of how vercel CLI picking up dependencies. To test the full user experience of downloading the CLI from the npm registry:

# build the dist
monorepo_dir=$(pwd)
turbo build --filter=vercel
# use pnpm pack to create the same tarballs that are uploaded to the npm
# registry: vercel and the JS CLI it depends on
cli_support=$(cd packages/cli-support && pnpm pack)
dist=$(cd packages/cli && pnpm pack)

# In your test project
cd ~/dev/test-nextjs-proj

npm install --no-save \
  $monorepo_dir/packages/cli-support/$cli_support \
  $monorepo_dir/packages/cli/$dist
# The vercel bin always runs the published native binary for its version, so
# run the JS CLI from @vercel/cli-support directly to test your local changes.
node node_modules/@vercel/cli-support/dist/vc.js build