Publish your first site

In this tutorial you run a boatramp server, publish a one-page site, and load it — using only the files you create here. No build tool, no account, no config. By the end you will have published an immutable deployment and served it over HTTP.

You need the boatramp binary on your PATH. If you do not have it yet, see Install boatramp.

1. Create a site folder

Make a folder with one HTML file:

mkdir my-site
cat > my-site/index.html <<'HTML'
<!doctype html>
<title>Hello from boatramp</title>
<h1>It works.</h1>
HTML

2. Start the server

In one terminal, run the server. With no arguments it serves plain HTTP on 127.0.0.1:8080 and stores data under ./data — enough for this tutorial:

boatramp serve

serving http://127.0.0.1:8080 — data ./data

Leave it running and open a second terminal for the next steps.

3. Publish the folder

Publish my-site as a deployment. sync uploads the files, records a manifest, and activates the site — all at once:

boatramp sync ./my-site --server http://127.0.0.1:8080 --site my-site

scanned 1 file(s), 1 unique blob(s)
uploading 1 missing blob(s)… done
activated my-site -> 3b1c9f0a

4. Load it

Fetch the site at the server’s root. It is the only site you have published, so boatramp serves it at / — the same place it will answer once you put it on a real domain:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/

<!doctype html>
<title>Hello from boatramp</title>
<h1>It works.</h1>

You have published and served your first site. Once you publish a second site, you address each one by host — see How a request reaches your site.

5. Change and republish

Edit the page and publish again. Only the changed file uploads, and the site flips to the new deployment atomically:

echo '<h1>Second deploy.</h1>' > my-site/index.html
boatramp sync ./my-site --server http://127.0.0.1:8080 --site my-site

scanned 1 file(s), 1 unique blob(s)
uploading 1 missing blob(s)… done
activated my-site -> 7d42a1e8

curl the site again and you get the new page. The previous deployment still exists — Publish, roll back, and alias a site shows how to roll back to it in one command.

Where to go next

Put it on a real hostname over HTTPS: Attach a custom domain and Get an automatic certificate.
Run it as a real service: Deploy a single node in production.
Add dynamic routes: Write your first handler.

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