Deploy from Claude Code in 60 seconds
A two-command setup that gives Claude Code nine MCP tools for deploying and editing your live site. No GitHub, no signup, no card.
Deploying from Claude Code means giving Claude Code nine tools (
ship,patch,rollback, file reads/writes) so it can deploy and edit your live website from the chat. Setup takes two commands and about 60 seconds. No GitHub account, no Vercel account, no credit card.
If you have Claude Code open and a website idea, you can go from sentence to URL in a minute. This is the workflow.
The 60-second setup
npm install -g krexel
krexel login
The first command installs the Krexel CLI plus the krexel-mcp server. The second opens a browser, asks for your email, and writes a token to ~/.krexel/auth.json. No password, no card. The token is a long-lived signed JWT scoped to your account.
Then add the MCP server to Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport stdio krexel -- krexel-mcp
That registers nine tools with Claude Code. Restart the Claude Code session and ask:
"What tools do you have for Krexel?"
The response should list ship, patch, rollback, get_current_site, read_file, write_file, delete_file, list_files, and init. If it does, you are deployed-ready.
What you can do from the chat
Once the tools are live, the workflow is just a conversation.
Ship a brand new site in 30 seconds:
"Create a static site for a coffee shop called Driftwood. Use a cream-and-ember palette, three pages (Home, Menu, Visit), a contact form, and a Google Maps embed on Visit. Ship it to a krexel.app subdomain."
Claude Code calls init to create a project, writes the HTML/CSS/JS, calls ship to deploy, and returns the live URL. The site is on the public internet before you finish reading this sentence.
Edit the live site in 8 seconds:
"Change the H1 on the home page from 'Driftwood' to 'Driftwood — slow coffee, fast wifi'."
Claude Code calls get_current_site to see the live HTML, finds the H1, calls patch to rewrite it, and the change is live in 8 seconds. No git commit, no PR, no rebuild of the whole site.
Roll back if you don't like the change:
"Revert that."
Claude Code calls rollback with the previous deploy_id. The site snaps back. The edit is still in the conversation history if you want to try again.
Read the current site to understand what's deployed:
"Show me the live HTML of the menu page."
Claude Code calls read_file against the live deployed version. Not the local copy, not a cached build — the actual file serving on the edge.
Why this works
The krexel-mcp server is a thin wrapper around the Krexel HTTP API. Every tool is a one-call wrapper:
| Tool | What it does | HTTP equivalent |
|---|---|---|
ship | Deploy a directory as a new version | POST /api/ship |
patch | Update a single file in the live site | POST /api/patch |
rollback | Restore a previous deploy | POST /api/rollback |
get_current_site | List all live files | GET /api/files |
read_file | Read a single live file | GET /api/files/<path> |
write_file | Create or replace a file | PUT /api/files/<path> |
delete_file | Remove a file | DELETE /api/files/<path> |
list_files | List directory contents | GET /api/files?path=... |
init | Create a new project | POST /api/projects |
Because the API is a normal HTTP API, anything you can do from Claude Code you can also do from curl, the CLI, a Slack bot, or a CI pipeline. The MCP server is sugar, not lock-in.
Common setup problems
"The MCP server isn't showing up in Claude Code." Run claude mcp list — you should see krexel in the list. If not, the claude mcp add command didn't write to the right config. Re-run with --scope user to make it global.
"Claude Code says 'not authenticated'." The token in ~/.krexel/auth.json has expired (90-day TTL by default). Run krexel login again. The next deploy refreshes the token.
"The first deploy took 90 seconds, not 60." First deploys include a build that subsequent deploys cache. The second deploy in the same conversation is 8 seconds.
"Patch deploys sometimes fail with 'asset too large'." Krexel has a 25MB per-file limit on the free tier and 100MB on paid. If your AI is generating an image larger than that, ask it to compress to a webp first.
"I want to deploy a Next.js app with SSR." Krexel does not support server-side rendering today. It is a static host. Set output: 'export' in next.config.js and the rest of the workflow is identical.
What this replaces
The traditional "deploy from Claude Code" workflow, before Krexel, looked like this:
- Ask Claude to write the code locally
git init,git add .,git commit- Create a GitHub repo
git remote add origin,git push- Sign up for Vercel / Netlify / Cloudflare Pages
- Connect the GitHub repo
- Wait for the build
- Get a URL
That is 8 steps and 5-10 minutes. The Krexel flow is 2 commands and 60 seconds. The savings compound: if your AI is making 30 edits a day, the difference between 8-second patch deploys and 60-second full rebuilds is two hours of waiting per day.
Try it
npm install -g krexel
krexel login
claude mcp add --transport stdio krexel -- krexel-mcp
Then in Claude Code:
"Ship me a one-page portfolio for a photographer named Maya. Black background, serif headings, three image grids, an about section, a contact form. Use a krexel.app subdomain."
Sixty seconds later you have a live URL. Edit it from the chat. Roll back if you change your mind. No git, no signup, no card.
Read more
- What is AI-native hosting? — the category this fits into
- Krexel vs Vercel — why the Vercel git flow is the wrong shape for AI
- How to let your AI edit a live site — the patch-deploy model in depth
- Install the Krexel CLI — full CLI reference
Frequently asked questions
Does Claude Code work with Krexel out of the box?
Yes. Install the krexel-mcp server via `claude mcp add`, then run `krexel login` once. Claude Code picks up nine tools (`ship`, `patch`, `rollback`, `get_current_site`, `read_file`, `write_file`, `delete_file`, `list_files`, `init`) automatically. There is no API key to copy between tools.
Do I need a GitHub account to deploy from Claude Code?
No. The krexel-mcp flow uses your Krexel account, not a Git identity. You can deploy from Claude Code without ever creating a repo. If you want version control later, Krexel has a `krexel deploy --from-git` path that pushes the deployed site to a GitHub repo after the fact.
How long does the first deploy from Claude Code take?
About 60 seconds end-to-end on a fresh machine. Most of that is `npm install -g krexel` (≈20s) and the first project build (≈30s). Subsequent patch deploys finish in 8 seconds because the build is cached.
Can I deploy Next.js, Astro, or SvelteKit from Claude Code?
Any static-output framework works. Next.js needs `output: 'export'` in next.config, Astro works as-is, SvelteKit needs `@sveltejs/adapter-static`. Full SSR is not supported today — Krexel is a static host with an AI control plane, not a Vercel-for-AI.
What happens if Claude Code's deploy fails?
The change does not go live. The previous deployed version keeps serving. You see the exact error in Claude Code's response (e.g. build failed at line 42, asset too large, etc). You can ask Claude to fix it and re-deploy in the same conversation.
Is there a way to undo a Claude Code deploy?
Yes. Every ship and patch operation records a deploy_id. From the AI you can say \"rollback to the previous version\" and the MCP server swaps the live site back to the prior deploy. From the CLI it is `krexel rollback <deploy_id>`.