Deploy a Static Site on Cloudflare Pages for Free

Cloudflare Pages offers free static hosting plus a global CDN, and integrates deeply with GitHub: push to deploy. Here is the full process.

Prerequisites

• A GitHub repository (your site source)
• A Cloudflare account (free tier is enough)
• A build command and output directory (e.g., Astro: npm run build → dist)

Deployment steps

1. Push code to GitHub

git init
git add -A
git commit -m "init"
git remote add origin https://github.com/crazynotesman-svg/markdown-pdf-studio.git
git push -u origin main

2. Connect the repo in Cloudflare Pages

1. Cloudflare dashboard → Workers & Pages → Create → Pages.
2. Choose Connect to Git, authorize, and select your repository.
3. Set the build:
   • Build command: npm run build
   • Build output directory: dist
4. Click Save and Deploy.

3. Auto-deploy on every update

After this, any git push makes Cloudflare automatically pull, build, and publish — and it keeps a preview link for every deployment.

Configure a custom domain (optional)

In the Pages project’s Custom domains, add your domain and point its DNS CNAME to Pages as prompted. Cloudflare issues an SSL certificate automatically, so HTTPS works out of the box.

Common pitfalls

• Wrong absolute links: Remember to set site in your config to your real domain, or sitemap/canonical will use placeholder addresses.
• Build timeout: The free tier is enough for small sites; trim dependencies if you have too many.
• Environment variables: Pure static sites usually don’t need them, but if you do, set them under Pages Settings → Environment variables.

Wrap-up

GitHub manages content; Cloudflare Pages manages delivery — this combo is zero-cost, globally accelerated, and auto-deploying, making it ideal for personal projects and technical blogs.

The deployment described here is exactly how this site went live.