Deployment

Devfolio Analyzer is designed to deploy on Vercel with zero infrastructure configuration. The only external dependencies are a GitHub token, an LLM API key, and an Upstash Redis instance for caching.

Prerequisites

Before deploying, you need:

A Vercel account
A GitHub Personal Access Token (classic, read:user + public_repo scopes)
An OpenAI (or compatible) API key
An Upstash Redis database (free tier works fine)

Option 1: Deploy to Vercel (recommended)

Step 1: Fork the repository

Fork https://github.com/your-org/devfolio-analyzer to your own GitHub account.

Step 2: Create a new Vercel project

Go to vercel.com/new
Import your forked repository
Vercel will detect the Next.js framework automatically
Do not click Deploy yet — you need to add environment variables first

Step 3: Set environment variables

In the Vercel project settings → Environment Variables, add the following:

Variable	Example value	Notes
`GITHUB_TOKEN`	`ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxx`	GitHub PAT. Required for production.
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	`sk-proj-xxxx`	LLM API key
`LLM_MODEL`	`gpt-4o-mini`	Optional — defaults to `gpt-4o-mini`
`UPSTASH_REDIS_URL`	`https://xxx.upstash.io`	From Upstash dashboard
`UPSTASH_REDIS_TOKEN`	`AXxx...`	From Upstash dashboard

Set all variables for Production, Preview, and Development environments.

Step 4: Deploy

Click Deploy. Vercel will build and deploy the project. First deploy typically takes 60–90 seconds.

Your app will be live at https://your-project.vercel.app.

Option 2: Local development

Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/your-org/devfolio-analyzer.git
cd devfolio-analyzer
npm install

Configure environment

cp .env.local.example .env.local

Edit .env.local and fill in all required values:

GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proj-your_key_here
LLM_MODEL=gpt-4o-mini
UPSTASH_REDIS_URL=https://your-db.upstash.io
UPSTASH_REDIS_TOKEN=your_token_here
RATE_LIMIT_ANON_MAX=100

Set RATE_LIMIT_ANON_MAX higher locally so you're not blocked during development.

Start the dev server

npm run dev

The app runs at http://localhost:3000. The API is available at http://localhost:3000/api.

Run a test analysis

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/analyze \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"username": "sindresorhus"}'

Custom domain

In Vercel → Settings → Domains, add your custom domain and follow the DNS configuration instructions. HTTPS is provisioned automatically.

GitHub API rate limits

The GitHub REST API enforces:

Unauthenticated: 60 requests/hour per IP
Authenticated (PAT): 5,000 requests/hour per token

Each profile analysis consumes approximately 8–12 GitHub API calls. At 60/hour unauthenticated, you can serve ~5–7 analyses per hour before hitting the limit. Always configure GITHUB_TOKEN in production.

If you expect high traffic, consider:

Rotating multiple tokens (requires care to stay within GitHub's ToS)
Increasing cache TTL to reduce repeat fetches
Implementing a queue to spread requests over time

Upstash Redis setup

Create an account at upstash.com
Create a new Redis database (Global region recommended for low latency)
Copy the REST URL and REST Token from the database dashboard
Paste into your environment variables

The free tier (10,000 commands/day, 256 MB) is sufficient for moderate usage. Each analysis writes one cache entry and reads one (on cache hit). At 5,000 analyses/day, you'll use ~10,000 Redis commands — exactly at the free tier limit. Upgrade to the Pay-as-you-go plan if you exceed this.

Monitoring

Vercel provides basic function logs and error tracking out of the box. For production use, consider adding:

Sentry — error tracking with Next.js SDK (@sentry/nextjs)
Axiom — structured log aggregation (first-party Vercel integration)
Vercel Analytics — real user monitoring, no configuration needed

The /api/health endpoint can be polled by an external uptime monitor (e.g., Better Uptime, UptimeRobot) to alert on service degradation.

Updating the deployment

All pushes to the main branch trigger automatic redeployment on Vercel. There is no manual deployment step after the initial setup.

To update environment variables without a code change:

Update the variable in Vercel → Settings → Environment Variables
Trigger a redeploy: Vercel dashboard → Deployments → ... → Redeploy

Environment variable changes do not take effect until the next deployment.