Deploy

Deploy

> HARD GATE — Do not deploy without running tests first. Run test or your CI suite before this skill. > > HARD GATE — Use this skill from a CI/CD pipeline or post-merge on main/master. Never deploy from a feature branch. > > HARD GATE — The deploy skill orchestrates deployment; the smoke-test skill validates post-deploy health. Chain them: deploy → smoke-test.

Orchestrate a full build-to-deployment pipeline: build the artifact, verify it exists and is non-empty, invoke a platform deploy tool (MCP or CLI), poll until the deploy completes or times out, then run a baseline smoke test against the live URL.

Pipeline Stages

build → verify artifact → deploy → wait/retry → smoke

| Stage | Description | Failure mode | |-------|-------------|-------------| | Build | Execute the project's build command | Non-zero exit: report build error | | Verify | Check artifact exists and is non-empty | Missing/empty: report artifact path | | Deploy | Invoke platform deploy tool (MCP, Vercel CLI, rsync, etc.) | Non-zero exit: report deploy error | | Wait | Poll deploy status every 30s up to DEPLOY_TIMEOUT (default 5 min) | Timeout: report exceeded | | Smoke | curl -sSf $DEPLOY_URL as baseline health check | Non-200: report failure |

Process

1. Detect build command

Read project manifest files in order to determine the build command:

| Manifest | Build command | |----------|--------------| | package.json | npm run build (or scripts.build value) | | Cargo.toml | cargo build --release | | pyproject.toml / setup.py | Depends on build backend (poetry build, pip install -e ., etc.) | | Makefile | make build or first target named build | | AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md | Look for build: in project commands section |

If no manifest is found, prompt the user with: "No detected build command. Pass --build 'npm run build' or specify the command."

2. Build the artifact

npm run build

Or the detected command from step 1. If the build fails, exit non-zero and report the build output.

3. Verify the artifact

ARTIFACT_DIR="${ARTIFACT_DIR:-dist}"
if [ ! -d "$ARTIFACT_DIR" ] || [ -z "$(ls -A "$ARTIFACT_DIR" 2>/dev/null)" ]; then
  echo "FAIL: build artifact not found at $ARTIFACT_DIR"
  exit 1
fi

Configurable via $ARTIFACT_DIR environment variable (default: dist/).

4. Deploy to platform

Platform-agnostic — supports multiple deployment targets via environment variables:

| Platform | Env var | Example | |----------|---------|---------| | Vercel | VERCEL_TOKEN, VERCEL_PROJECT_ID | vercel deploy --prod --token $VERCEL_TOKEN | | Netlify | NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN, NETLIFY_SITE_ID | netlify deploy --prod --auth $NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN --dir $ARTIFACT_DIR | | BigBase MCP | MCP tool call | mcp deploy via BigBase server | | rsync/SSH | DEPLOY_SSH_USER, DEPLOY_SSH_HOST, DEPLOY_SSH_PATH | rsync -avz $ARTIFACT_DIR/ $DEPLOY_SSH_USER@$DEPLOY_SSH_HOST:$DEPLOY_SSH_PATH | | Custom | DEPLOY_COMMAND | Run any deploy command string |

The deploy tool is selected by which environment variables are set. If none are configured:

echo "No deploy target configured. Set one of: VERCEL_TOKEN, NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN, DEPLOY_SSH_USER+DEPLOY_SSH_HOST, DEPLOY_COMMAND, or MCP deploy tool."
exit 1

5. Wait and poll status

After invoking the deploy command, poll for completion:

See [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md)

Use exponential backoff for retries on transient failures:

See [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md)

6. Baseline smoke test

See [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md)

For comprehensive health-checking, chain to the smoke-test skill:

# After deploy success
bash scripts/run-smoke.sh "$DEPLOY_URL"

---

Deploy — Reference

Configuration

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | ARTIFACT_DIR | dist | Build output directory | | DEPLOY_URL | (required) | Live URL for smoke test | | DEPLOY_TIMEOUT | 300 | Max wait for deploy completion (seconds) | | DEPLOY_POLL_INTERVAL | 30 | Polling interval (seconds) | | RETRY_MAX | 3 | Max deploy retry attempts | | BUILD_COMMAND | (auto-detect) | Override build command |

---

Verification

→ verify: test -f deploy/SKILL.md && grep -q 'name: deploy' deploy/SKILL.md && echo OK → verify: grep -qi 'build\|artifact\|deploy\|smoke' deploy/SKILL.md && echo OK → verify: grep -ci 'package.json\|Cargo.toml\|Makefile\|manifest' deploy/SKILL.md | awk '{if($1>=1) print "OK"; else print "FAIL"}' → verify: grep -ci 'timeout\|poll\|status\|retry\|backoff' deploy/SKILL.md | awk '{if($1>=2) print "OK"; else print "FAIL"}' → verify: grep -q 'curl.*DEPLOY_URL\|smoke\|health' deploy/SKILL.md && echo OK

---

Reference block 1

DEPLOY_TIMEOUT="${DEPLOY_TIMEOUT:-300}"   # seconds (default 5 minutes)
DEPLOY_POLL_INTERVAL="${DEPLOY_POLL_INTERVAL:-30}"  # seconds

start_time=$(date +%s)
while true; do
  elapsed=$(( $(date +%s) - start_time ))
  if [ "$elapsed" -ge "$DEPLOY_TIMEOUT" ]; then
    echo "FAIL: deploy status polling timed out after ${DEPLOY_TIMEOUT}s"
    exit 1
  fi
  
  status=$(get_deploy_status)  # platform-specific status check
  if [ "$status" = "ready" ] || [ "$status" = "done" ]; then
    echo "Deploy completed in ${elapsed}s"
    break
  fi
  
  sleep "$DEPLOY_POLL_INTERVAL"
done

---

Reference block 2

RETRY_MAX="${RETRY_MAX:-3}"
base_delay=2
for attempt in $(seq 1 "$RETRY_MAX"); do
  if deploy_command; then
    break
  fi
  if [ "$attempt" -eq "$RETRY_MAX" ]; then
    echo "FAIL: deploy failed after ${RETRY_MAX} attempts"
    exit 1
  fi
  sleep $(( base_delay * 2 ** (attempt - 1) ))
done

---

Reference block 3

DEPLOY_URL="${DEPLOY_URL:?DEPLOY_URL must be set}"
if curl -sSf "$DEPLOY_URL" > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "OK: $DEPLOY_URL responds with HTTP 200"
else
  echo "FAIL: $DEPLOY_URL is not responding with HTTP 200"
  exit 1
fi

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: danielvm-git
• Source: danielvm-git/bigpowers
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://github.com/danielvm-git/bigpowers

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.