Deploying the monorepo

Deploying your monorepo to Vercel/Mintlify

Introduction

Deploying your monorepo to Vercel is relatively straightforward, but there are a handful of things to be aware of. The frontend deployment is relatively straightforward, but the backend deployment can be a little more complex and need a bit more attention.

For a more detailed guide on deploying a monorepo to Vercel, see the official documentation.

Prerequisites

Before continuing, ensure you have:

• A Vercel account. It is typically easiest to sign up with your GitHub account, as we’ll also be deploying directly from the GitHub repository.
• Published your repo to GitHub. If you haven’t done this yet, you can follow the instructions here.
• Optional. If you’re planning to deploy your documentation site to Mintlify, you’ll need to have a Mintlify account.

Frontend Deployment

1. Add new project in Vercel

   Go to your Vercel dashboard and click the Add New... button, and select Project.

2. Import your monorepo

   Select the Import Git Repository option and select your repository from the list of repositories.

3. Configure Project

   Vercel will automatically detect that you have a monorepo, and should have correctly populated all the required fields.

   The project root directory should be automatically detected, but if it isn’t, you can manually set it to the folder where your frontend is stored. In this project, that is apps/web.

   
4. Deploy

   Click the Deploy button to deploy your project.

5. Add an Ignored Build Step

   We don’t want to continuously rebuild our frontend every time we push changes to the backend or documentation. To prevent this, we can add an ignored build step.
   
   From the newly deployed frontend dashboard, navigate to Settings, then to Git. Scroll down to the Ignored Build Step section and set the behaviour to Only build Turborepo app if there are changes.

   

   For more information, see the official documentation.

Backend deployment

1. Add new project in Vercel

   Go to your Vercel dashboard and click the Add New... button, and select Project.

2. Import your monorepo

   Select the Import Git Repository option and select your repository from the list of repositories.

3. Configure Project

   Vercel will automatically detect that you have a monorepo, but for the backend we need to change the default configuration.

   • Configure your project name
   • Change the Framework Preset to Other (there is currently no Python option)
   • Change the Root Directory to the folder where your backend is stored. In this project, that is apps/api
   • Add your Environment Variables

   
4. Deploy

   Click the Deploy button to deploy your project. Once built, the API should be running at the URL provided.

   
5. Add an Ignored Build Step

   We don’t want to continuously rebuild our frontend every time we push changes to the backend or documentation. To prevent this, we can add an ignored build step.
   
   From the newly deployed frontend dashboard, navigate to Settings, then to Git. Scroll down to the Ignored Build Step section and set the behaviour to Only build Turborepo app if there are changes.

   

   For more information, see the official documentation.

Documentation deployment

For a more detailed explanation, visit the offical documentation

Connecting to an existing repository with Mintlify is a little bit tricky, as their walkthrough currently seems to only support creating a new repository. However, it is possible to connect an existing repository by following the steps below.

1. Sign in to Mintlify

   Sign in to Mintlify. You will further be prompted to Sign in with GitHub. Follow the onscreen instructions.

2. Select Monorepo

   Configure your deployment to be pointed to your docs directory. Ensure set up as a monorepo is selected.

   
3. Install Mintlify app to GitHub

   From the Mintlify dashboard, click Things to Do and then click Enable automatic updates.