1 Hour to Deploy Your First Site

By the end of this hour, your site will be live at a real URL, served over HTTPS, completely free, with auto-deploys on every git push.

🎯 What You'll Build

A live personal landing page at:

https://yourname.pages.dev

(Or your own custom domain)

⏱️ Time Breakdown

0–10min

Create a simple website

10–25min

Push to GitHub

25–45min

Deploy with Cloudflare Pages

45–55min

Add custom domain (optional)

55–60min

Test auto-deploy

📋 Prerequisites

A GitHub account
A Cloudflare account (both free)
Git installed
Text editor

Step 1: Create Your Site (0–10 min)

mkdir my-first-site
cd my-first-site

Create index.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>Hi, I'm Your Name</title>
  <style>
    body {
      font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, sans-serif;
      max-width: 600px;
      margin: 80px auto;
      padding: 0 20px;
      line-height: 1.6;
    }
    h1 { font-size: 2.5rem; }
    a { color: #FF6B35; text-decoration: none; }
    a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Hi, I'm Your Name 👋</h1>
  <p>Building things on the internet.</p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://github.com/yourname">GitHub</a> ·
    <a href="https://twitter.com/yourname">Twitter</a> ·
    <a href="mailto:you@example.com">Email</a>
  </p>
</body>
</html>

Open it locally:

open index.html  # Mac
xdg-open index.html  # Linux
start index.html  # Windows

✅

Checkpoint

Your site loads in the browser with your name and links visible.

Step 2: Push to GitHub (10–25 min)

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

Create a repo on github.com/new:

Name: my-first-site
Visibility: Public
Don't initialize with README

Push:

git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/my-first-site.git
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main

Use a Personal Access Token instead of password if asked.

✅

Checkpoint

Refresh your repo page on GitHub. You should see index.html.

Step 3: Deploy with Cloudflare Pages (25–45 min)

Go to dash.cloudflare.com
Workers & Pages → Create → Pages tab
Connect to Git → authorize GitHub
Select my-first-site repository

Build settings:

Field	Value
Project name	`my-first-site`
Production branch	`main`
Framework preset	None
Build command	(empty)
Build output directory	`/`

Click Save and Deploy. Wait ~1 min.

✅

Checkpoint

Visit https://my-first-site.pages.dev. Your site is live! 🎉

Step 4: Custom Domain (Optional, 45–55 min)

If you have a domain:

Project → Custom domains → Set up a custom domain
Enter your domain (e.g., yourname.com)
If your domain uses Cloudflare DNS, it auto-configures
Otherwise, add a CNAME record pointing to my-first-site.pages.dev

Wait 1–5 min for DNS propagation.

Step 5: Test Auto-Deploy (55–60 min)

Make a change:

<h1>Hi, I'm Your Name ✨</h1>

Push:

git add .
git commit -m "Update emoji"
git push

Within 30 seconds: Cloudflare detects the push, rebuilds, and updates your site.

🎉 Continuous deployment pipeline complete!

🎁 Bonus

Custom 404: Drop 404.html in your repo
Analytics: Pages → Settings → Web Analytics → Enable (privacy-friendly)
Favicon: Drop favicon.ico in repo root
OG tags: Add to <head> for better social previews

<meta property="og:title" content="Your Name">
<meta property="og:description" content="Building things on the internet">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yourname.com/og.png">

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