vercel

Deploy a Next.js app to preview and production environments using the Vercel CLI or Git integrations. Configure environment-aware settings to manage staging and production workflows, generating a preview URL for each branch before promoting to production.

The best way to manage environment variables for staging and production is by defining environment-specific settings within your Vercel project configuration. This ensures secrets and configurations are securely isolated across preview and production deployments.

Edge Functions work with Next.js API routes by leveraging serverless and edge runtimes to execute low-latency logic close to your users. This allows your Next.js application to handle dynamic requests without a traditional server origin.

You can configure custom domains and SSL for your Vercel deployments through the platform's domain management features. Assign custom domains to your projects to automatically provision SSL certificates and route traffic to your production environment.

You do not strictly need the Vercel CLI to manage deployments, as Git integrations support automated deployment workflows. However, the CLI is required for local development with vercel dev and manual deployment orchestration using vercel deploy.

Preview deployments not reflecting environment variables usually indicates the variables were scoped exclusively to production. Ensure you assign environment variables to the preview environment in your project settings to make them available during branch deployments.