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How-toCoreUnderstand what deployment is and see the three steps.

Deploy and submit

Goal

Your app works on your computer. Now you want a real link that works on anyone's phone or laptop, whether or not your own computer is turned on.

Before you start

You need a working app and a GitHub account. Expect the whole process to take about half an hour the first time, most of it waiting and checking.

Two ideas are worth understanding before you start, so that nothing later comes as a surprise:

  • Deploying means compiling. Drafter turns your program into a static website: a set of files that any web server can serve. Your Python still runs in each visitor's browser, exactly as it does now. There is still no backend, and state still resets on reload.
  • localhost links are not shareable. The address your app has while you develop (something like http://localhost:8000) only exists on your own computer while your program runs. That is why deployment exists.

The three steps

  1. Prepare for release: add the finishing settings to your code (site title, site information, hiding the debugger) and test locally.
  2. Publish on GitHub Pages: put your code in a GitHub repository and run the deploy workflow.
  3. Verify: open your new link on a different device and click through the whole app. If something went wrong, fix the failed deployment.

When it works, you will have a URL like https://your-username.github.io/your-repository/ that you can put on a resume, send to a friend, or submit.

Submitting for a course

Courses often add their own requirements around deployment: specific repository links, videos, documents to include, or a place to submit your URL. Those live in your course's own instructions, not here. Follow this guide for the deployment itself, then your course's checklist for the rest.

Common problems

  • You submitted or shared a localhost link: that link only works on your machine. Share the deployed github.io URL, and test it from another device first.
  • You shared the repository link instead: the code lives at github.com/..., while the running site lives at ...github.io/.... Share the site link, not the code link.
  • The deployment failed: go to Fix a failed deployment. The error log almost always names the problem.

Understand it

How Drafter works and How the web works explain why there is no server to rent and nothing to install.

See another example

Every app in the project gallery was deployed exactly this way.

Look it up

See Site configuration for every set_... function used in preparation.

Fix a problem

Fix a failed deployment and missing assets on deploy.

Next steps

This page was the overview. The work starts with the first step below.

  • Step 1 of 3: Prepare for release

    Titles, the about page, hiding the debugger. A few lines of code and a local test.

    Prepare for release