Deploy from the terminal (CLI)

If you build with a coding tool — Claude Code, Cursor, or a plain editor and a bundler — the fastest way to ship the result is straight from the terminal. The Volly CLI packs your files, creates the app if it doesn’t exist yet, and publishes it, all in one command:

$ volly login                 # browser sign-in, one time
$ volly deploy ./dist
Deployed my-app → https://acme-my-app.volly.so

The CLI is open source (github.com/volly-app/volly-cli) and ships on npm as @volly-app/cli.

Install

With Node.js 20 or newer:

npm install -g @volly-app/cli    # or: pnpm add -g @volly-app/cli

Or skip the install and run it directly:

npx @volly-app/cli deploy ./dist

Sign in

volly login

This opens your browser to sign in to Volly and approve access — the same flow as connecting an AI agent, with no keys to paste. The CLI acts as you afterwards: it can only see and change what your Volly account can. On a remote machine without a browser, use volly login --no-browser and open the printed URL from any device, or paste a token with volly login --with-token.

Deploy an app

Point volly deploy at a folder with an index.html at its root (it’s zipped automatically, skipping dotfiles and node_modules), or at a single .html, .zip, .jsx, or .tsx file:

volly deploy ./dist --app my-app

If the app doesn’t exist yet, the CLI offers to create it and drops a small volly.json next to your files remembering the slug — after that, a bare volly deploy from the same folder is enough.

Updates work the same way: each deploy fully replaces the live build at the same address. To try a change privately first, stage it as a draft:

volly deploy ./dist --draft -m "new navigation"
volly draft publish        # ship it when it looks right
volly draft discard        # or throw it away

A few other everyday commands:

volly app list             # your workspace's apps
volly deployments list     # an app's deploy history
volly whoami               # who the CLI is signed in as

Deploy from CI

CI can’t open a browser, so it authenticates with a personal access token instead. Mint one from your signed-in CLI and store it as a secret in your CI system:

$ volly token create --name github-actions
volly_pat_…

The token acts as your account, limited to the scopes you give it (apps:read, apps:write). You can list and revoke tokens any time with volly token list and volly token revoke, and a token can never create more tokens.

With the secret set as the VOLLY_TOKEN environment variable, any CI system that has Node.js can deploy:

npx @volly-app/cli deploy ./dist --yes

GitHub Actions

On GitHub, skip the scripting — the CLI repo doubles as an action. Add your token as a repository secret named VOLLY_TOKEN, then:

name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      # …your build steps producing ./dist…
      - name: Deploy to Volly
        id: deploy
        uses: volly-app/volly-cli@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.VOLLY_TOKEN }}
          path: ./dist
          app: my-app
          message: ${{ github.event.head_commit.message }}
      - run: echo "Live at ${{ steps.deploy.outputs.url }}"

The action creates the app on first run, posts the deploy URL to the job summary, and exposes url, deployment-id, and draft as outputs. Set draft: 'true' to stage a preview instead of publishing — handy for pull requests — and publish from your terminal with volly draft publish once it’s reviewed.

All inputs and outputs are documented in the repository README.

CLI or MCP?

Both surfaces do the same job with the same permissions — pick per workflow. MCP lets an AI agent publish as part of a conversation; the CLI is for when you (or a CI pipeline) run the deploy.