Step 9: Deploy and publish for real

Until now you ran the website on your computer. For visitors to see it, the website must be deployed. Areca does the deploy for you, every time an owner presses Go live. Your part is to set up the website so a build can do its job.

What happens on Go liveCopy Anchor Link

1. Areca freezes the approved content into a release.
2. Areca starts a build of your website. The build downloads that release with areca pull.
3. Areca deploys the built website.
4. Areca calls your health check address. The release counts as live only when the answer matches the release.

Your agency's developer or admin sets up the server and the build in Dokploy. The details are in Go-live builds. This step shows the three changes you make in your project.

9.1 Pull the content on every buildCopy Anchor Link

Open package.json and add a prebuild line to the scripts section, so the pull runs before each build:

{
  "scripts": {
    "prebuild": "areca pull --out src/generated/content"
  }
}

Keep the other scripts that are already there. With this line, pnpm build always downloads the latest published content first.

9.2 Add a health checkCopy Anchor Link

The health check is a small page that tells Areca which release your website was built from. Create src/routes/api/health.ts:

import { createFileRoute } from '@tanstack/react-router'
import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs'
import { join } from 'node:path'

export const Route = createFileRoute('/api/health')({
  server: {
    handlers: {
      GET: () => {
        try {
          const manifest = JSON.parse(
            readFileSync(join(process.cwd(), 'src/generated/content/manifest.json'), 'utf8'),
          )
          return Response.json({ ok: true, publicationId: manifest.publicationId })
        } catch {
          return Response.json({ ok: false, error: 'Content manifest missing' }, { status: 503 })
        }
      },
    },
  },
})

The page is public on purpose. It does not show content or any token.

9.3 Connect the site in the CMSCopy Anchor Link

In the CMS, open the site's Settings, then the Deployment tab. Set the Health check URL to the address of your deployed site, followed by /api/health, for example https://harborandpine.com/api/health.

For a real deployment, the site must be in Production mode, and the agency admin chooses the application in Dokploy. For practice, use Demo mode. A Demo release is built and recorded, but it is never deployed or counted as live.

9.4 Publish a changeCopy Anchor Link

Edit a post, select Mark as ready, then go to Go live and select Go live again. Watch the release progress until it finishes. Then open the website and check that the change is there.

Where to nextCopy Anchor Link