Deploy a site to Netlify non-interactively from CI with the Netlify CLI
domain: cli.netlify.com · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Export NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN (a personal access token) and NETLIFY_SITE_ID (the site's Project ID from the Netlify UI) in the CI environment — with both set, the CLI needs no interactive login or link step.
Install the CLI in the CI image: npm install -g netlify-cli.
Run 'netlify deploy' for a draft deploy: it builds the project by default, uploads, and returns a unique draft URL for previewing without touching production.
Run 'netlify deploy --prod' to publish to the live production URL. Use --dir=<publish-dir> to point at prebuilt output.
If CI already ran the build, skip the CLI's build step with --no-build: netlify deploy --prod --no-build --dir=dist.
Docs: https://cli.netlify.com/commands/deploy/ and https://docs.netlify.com/api-and-cli-guides/cli-guides/get-started-with-cli/
Known gotchas
The old --build flag is gone: netlify deploy now builds by DEFAULT and the opt-out is --no-build. CI scripts still passing --build should be updated.
Without NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN/NETLIFY_SITE_ID the CLI falls back to interactive prompts, which hang or fail in headless CI.
Draft deploys (no --prod) are full deploys on a unique URL — useful as preview gates, but they are not published to the production domain.
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