hecks

Vercel is a deploy kind: the domain’s host as one function

Status: Proposed. Date: 2026-10-06. hecks deploy project generates AWS stacks. A project whose front end already lives on Vercel can run its domain there too, as one function reading a Postgres database it does not own.

Context

AwsLambda, AwsFargate and AwsBox all create the database and the compute. Vercel creates neither a database nor a long-lived process: a request runs a function, and the database is a marketplace product or an instance the project already has. So the Vercel kind generates configuration and a deploy script, not infrastructure.

Decision

1. Add a deploy kind, deployed_to("Vercel"), as a sibling of AwsBox. Settings: region (a Vercel id, default iad1), memory (MB, default 1024), max_duration (seconds, default 30), stack_name (the project name), scope (the team), crons, env.
2. Bluebook side: Deploy::VercelTarget.Declare validates region, memory and duration, so they are in the journal and the OIDC manifest like the other targets. Vercel::Settings checks every other setting against a conservative pattern before anything is written.
3. The projection (projects_as :vercel) emits four files: vercel.json (the function’s size, the region, one rewrite that sends every path to api/host, crons), .vercelignore, deploy-vercel.sh and a Makefile.
4. Hecksagon side: persistence is Postgres by URL. The host reads DATABASE_URL; the deploy script always sets it, plus any names in env. A world that declares no database gets none: the projection never creates one.
5. Secrets are named, never held. deploy-vercel.sh reads each variable from the caller’s environment (op run -- make deploy) and pipes it to vercel env add --sensitive on stdin, so no value is on a command line or in a file.

Consequences

• A project that fits gets its Vercel configuration from a world file, with the same refusal-before-render behavior as the AWS kinds.
• Nothing is rehearsed or rolled back by the generator; Vercel keeps every deployment and promotes by alias.

Alternatives considered

• Frontend only (rewrites to an existing origin). Cheaper, but then nothing from the domain runs on Vercel; left for a later mode.
• A Build Output API directory. Binds the generator to a prebuilt layout; vercel.json plus the Rust runtime’s own build is what Vercel documents.

Open items

• The host has no Vercel entry point yet. Vercel’s Rust runtime (beta) takes a binary at api/host.rs built on vercel_runtime, not lambda_runtime; rust/host has to gain one (and a [[bin]] name = "host") before a generated project deploys. Until then the generated files are correct but nothing answers at /api/host.
• Nothing yet deploys a generated project to a real Vercel account; the projection is unit-tested only.

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