Deploy From GitHub or GitLab, Private Repositories Included
Your site's source stays in your own repository. A push rebuilds it, a deploy key reads a private one, and a failed build never takes the site down.
Most sites we host build from a Git repository. The source stays on GitHub or GitLab, in your account, and a push rebuilds the site. A site that needs no build can skip Git: upload its folder, or a zip of it, on the site’s Deployments page.
Setting one up
- In the dashboard, choose New Site and give it a name, the repository’s address, the branch to follow (usually
main), the framework (Hugo, Jekyll or Static) and the folder to publish. - If the repository is private, add the site’s deploy key to it.
- Add the webhook, so your pushes reach us.
- Push, or press Deploy. The site goes live at its free
my.statichost.ukaddress, and you can add your own domain whenever you are ready.
The step-by-step guides are Deploy from GitHub and Deploy from GitLab.
Private repositories, without a password
A private repository needs a way for us to read it. Each site gets its own SSH deploy key, an Ed25519 key, which you add to that one repository with write access left switched off. It can read that repository and nothing else: not your other repositories and not your account. Delete it and our access ends.
You never give us a password or a personal access token.
GitLab, your own included
GitLab.com works, and so does a GitLab you run yourself, as long as it is reachable from the internet so we can clone the repository and receive its webhooks. That suits organisations that keep their code on their own servers.
What happens on a push
Your Git host tells us about the push. We fetch the branch and build it in a locked-down container, then put the new files live. Every deployment keeps its build log, so when something goes wrong you can read exactly what the build said.
If a build fails, your site carries on serving the last version that built. A mistake in a template costs you a red line in the dashboard, not an empty website.
One repository, several sites
Each site follows one branch. Point a second site at a staging branch and you get a private preview of changes before they reach main (staging sites).
Because everything lives in Git, you also get its history for free: who changed what, when, and the means to put it back.
Yesterday’s post asked whether AI crawlers can read your site.
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