Vercel account setup — clean defaults, GitHub connection, free tier verified
Connect Vercel to GitHub, choose the Hobby (free) plan, install Vercel CLI, set up the right project defaults before CW-2.
Vercel is where your CW-2 website will live. The free tier (called Hobby) is generous enough that you almost certainly won't outgrow it. The setup is short, but the choices you make on the way matter — particularly the GitHub connection (Vercel becomes a trusted app on your GitHub account, with read access to your code). This guide walks through the whole thing and flags the consent screens that deserve a second's pause.
Step-by-step
1.Sign up at vercel.com/signup
Go to https://vercel.com/signup. Click 'Continue with GitHub'. You're signing up with your GitHub identity, not creating a new Vercel-specific password — which is cleaner long-term.
Email or GitHub?
You can sign up with email instead of GitHub. We strongly recommend GitHub — it skips the Vercel password (one less to manage) and makes the deploy connection automatic in step 4.
2.Authorise Vercel on GitHub
GitHub will ask you to authorise the Vercel app. The dialog shows what permissions Vercel is requesting.
Vercel asks for: read access to your email, read/write access to repositories (so it can fetch your code and post deploy status comments on PRs).
Click 'Authorize Vercel'.
All repositories vs only select repositories
Choose 'Only select repositories' for cleanest access control. You can grant access to specific repos as you create them. 'All repositories' is easier short-term but means Vercel can read every private repo you'll ever have.
GitHub's authorisation screen has a 'Repositories' section listing the access Vercel is requesting. There's a green Authorize button at the bottom.
3.Pick the Hobby plan
Vercel asks 'How do you plan to use Vercel?'. Personal use, hobby projects, side projects = Hobby (free).
If you choose 'Business' or 'Pro' here, you'll be on a paid tier. For everything in CW-2 — including a real business website with a custom domain — Hobby is enough.
Hobby tier commercial-use rules
Vercel's Hobby tier technically restricts commercial use. In practice they allow marketing sites and small business sites without issue. If your site starts driving real B2B revenue you'll want to upgrade to Pro (US$20/mo) as a courtesy. For solo founders shipping a marketing site, Hobby is fine.
4.Skip the 'Create your first project' prompt
Vercel will offer to import a starter template or your existing GitHub repos. Skip both — we'll create your CW-2 project from Claude Code, not from a template.
Click 'Skip' or close the modal. You'll land on the Vercel dashboard.
5.Install the Vercel CLI (`vercel`)
The CLI lets you trigger deploys from your terminal and pull environment variables locally. Install via npm:
npm install -g vercelDon't have Node yet?
If npm isn't found, install Node first (brew install node on macOS, or download from nodejs.org). Then re-run the install.
6.Authenticate the CLI
Run vercel login. The CLI opens your browser to sign in.
vercel login7.Tour the dashboard briefly
Visit https://vercel.com/dashboard. There's not much to see yet — that's normal. Bookmark this URL; it'll be your primary Vercel touchpoint.
Key things to know exist for later: Projects (where each site lives), Storage (Vercel-hosted databases/blob — we don't use these), Marketplace (third-party integrations), Settings (your account-level config).
What's included on the Hobby tier
- •Unlimited deploys (every git push triggers one).
- •Preview deployments on every PR with unique URLs.
- •100 GB bandwidth per month.
- •Free SSL certificates on every domain.
- •Vercel-managed DNS for custom domains.
- •Build logs for 30 days.
- •Web Analytics (basic) — free tier with 2,500 events/month.
What to avoid on Hobby
Long-running serverless functions: Hobby caps function duration. If your site needs a 30-second background job, you'll hit the limit. For CW-2 marketing sites this never matters.
Heavy image-processing or video transcoding pipelines: bandwidth and function limits make this a poor fit. Use a dedicated service.
Anything that processes user-uploaded content at scale: you'll want a real infrastructure tier.
Troubleshooting
Vercel sign-up says 'Pricing plan not eligible'.
You signed up under a free email service Vercel sometimes rejects. Use your work email or a personal email at a major provider (Gmail, iCloud).
GitHub authorisation succeeded but Vercel doesn't see my repos.
You authorised only specific repos and your CW-2 repo isn't in the list. Settings → Integrations → GitHub → Manage. Add the repo to Vercel's allowed list.
vercel CLI says 'Not authorised'.
Run vercel logout, then vercel login again. The CLI auth token can expire if you're inactive for >30 days.
I get blocked at the GitHub authorisation screen.
Your GitHub org has restricted third-party OAuth. If you're using a personal account this is rare. If using a work GitHub org, ask the admin to allow Vercel.
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